The Brothers Karamazov

After mentioning in order everything the investigation had disclosed about the property dispute and the family relations between father and son, and having again and again drawn the conclusion that, from the facts available, there was not the slightest possibility of determining who had outdone whom or who had been done out of what in this question of the property division, Ippolit Kirillovich brought up the medical opinions concerning the three thousand roubles stuck as a fixed idea in Mitya’s mind.

Chapter 7: A Historical Survey

“The medical experts strove to prove to us that the defendant is out of his mind and a maniac. I insist that he is precisely in his right mind, and so much the worse for him: had it not been his mind, he might have turned out to be much more intelligent. As for his being a maniac, I am prepared to agree, but precisely on one point only— that same point the experts indicated, precisely the defendant’s view of the three thousand roubles supposedly left owing to him by his father. Nevertheless, it may be possible to find an incomparably closer point of view than his inclination to madness to explain the defendant’s constant frenzy with regard to this money. For my part, I agree completely with the opinion of the young doctor who found that the defendant is and was in full and normal possession of his mental faculties, but has simply been exasperated and embittered. And that is just it: the object of the defendant’s constant and frenzied bitterness consisted not in the three thousand, not in the sum itself, but in the fact that there was a special reason that provoked his wrath. That reason was—jealousy!”