The Brothers Karamazov

Long before the appearance of the judges, the courtroom was already packed. Our courtroom is the best hall in town, vast, lofty, resonant. To the right of the judges, who were placed on a sort of raised platform, a table and two rows of chairs were prepared for the jury. To the left was the place for the defendant and his attorney. In the center of the hall, close to the judges, stood a table with the “material evidence.” On it lay Fyodor Pavlovich’s bloodstained white silk dressing gown, the fatal brass pestle with which the supposed murder had been committed, Mitya’s shirt with its bloodstained sleeve, his frock coat with bloodstains in the area of the pocket into which he had put his bloodsoaked handkerchief, that same handkerchief all stiff with blood and now quite yellow, the pistol Mitya had loaded at Perkhotin’s in order to kill himself and that had been taken from him on the sly by Trifon Borisovich in Mokroye, the inscribed envelope that had contained the three thousand prepared for Grushenka, and the narrow pink ribbon that had been tied around it, and many other objects I no longer remember. At a certain distance farther back in the hall began the seats for the public, but in front of the balustrade stood several chairs for those witnesses who would remain in the courtroom after giving their evidence. At ten o’clock the members of the court appeared, consisting of the presiding judge, a second judge, and an honorary justice of the peace. Of course, the prosecutor also appeared at once. The presiding judge was a stocky, thick-set man, of less than average height, with a hemorrhoidal face, about fifty years old, his gray-streaked hair cut short, wearing a red ribbon—I do not remember of what order. To me, and not only to me but to everyone, the prosecutor looked somehow too pale, with an almost green face, which for some reason seemed suddenly to have grown very thin, perhaps overnight, since I had seen him just two days before looking quite himself. The presiding judge began by asking the marshal if all the jurors were present ... I see, however, that I can no longer go on in this way, if only because there were many things I did not catch, others that I neglected to go into, still others that I forgot to remember, and, moreover, as I have said above, if I were to recall everything that was said and done, I literally would not have time or space. I know only that neither side—that is, neither the defense attorney nor the prosecutor—objected to very many of the jurors. But I do remember who the twelve jurors consisted of: four of our officials, two merchants, and six local peasants and tradesmen. In our society, I remember, long before the trial, the question was asked with some surprise, especially by the ladies: “Can it be that the fatal decision in such a subtle, complex, and psychological case is to be turned over to a bunch of officials, and even to peasants?” and “What will some ordinary official make of it, not to mention a peasant?” Indeed, all four of the officials who got on the jury were minor persons of low rank, gray-haired old men—only one of them was a little younger—scarcely known in our society, vegetating on meager salaries, with old wives, no doubt, whom they could not present anywhere, and each with a heap of children, perhaps even going barefoot; who at most found diversion in a little game of cards somewhere in their off hours, and who most assuredly had never read a single book. The two merchants, though of grave appearance, were somehow strangely silent and immobile; one of them was clean-shaven and dressed in German fashion; the other had a little gray beard and wore some medal around his neck on a red ribbon. There is nothing much to say about the tradesmen and peasants. Our Skotoprigonyevsk tradesmen are almost peasants themselves, they even handle the plow. Two of them were also in German dress, and perhaps for that reason looked dirtier and more unseemly than the other four. So that indeed the thought might well enter one’s head, as it entered mine, for example, as soon as I took a look at them: “What can such people possibly grasp of such a case?” Nevertheless their faces made a certain strangely imposing and almost threatening impression; they were stern and frowning.