finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_14_part_8.txt
The Brothers Karamazov.book 12.chapter 8
book 12, chapter 8
{"name": "book 12, Chapter 8", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section15/", "summary": "A Treatise on Smerdyakov Kirrillovich says that unlike Smerdyakov, Dmitri had a motive to kill Fyodor Pavlovich because he hated the old man and craved his money. Given the violent sentiment of the letter Dmitri wrote to Katerina, Kirrillovich says, his guilt seems clear", "analysis": ""}
Chapter VIII. A Treatise On Smerdyakov


"To begin with, what was the source of this suspicion?" (Ippolit
Kirillovitch began.) "The first person who cried out that Smerdyakov had
committed the murder was the prisoner himself at the moment of his arrest,
yet from that time to this he had not brought forward a single fact to
confirm the charge, nor the faintest suggestion of a fact. The charge is
confirmed by three persons only--the two brothers of the prisoner and
Madame Svyetlov. The elder of these brothers expressed his suspicions only
to-day, when he was undoubtedly suffering from brain fever. But we know
that for the last two months he has completely shared our conviction of
his brother's guilt and did not attempt to combat that idea. But of that
later. The younger brother has admitted that he has not the slightest fact
to support his notion of Smerdyakov's guilt, and has only been led to that
conclusion from the prisoner's own words and the expression of his face.
Yes, that astounding piece of evidence has been brought forward twice to-
day by him. Madame Svyetlov was even more astounding. 'What the prisoner
tells you, you must believe; he is not a man to tell a lie.' That is all
the evidence against Smerdyakov produced by these three persons, who are
all deeply concerned in the prisoner's fate. And yet the theory of
Smerdyakov's guilt has been noised about, has been and is still
maintained. Is it credible? Is it conceivable?"

Here Ippolit Kirillovitch thought it necessary to describe the personality
of Smerdyakov, "who had cut short his life in a fit of insanity." He
depicted him as a man of weak intellect, with a smattering of education,
who had been thrown off his balance by philosophical ideas above his level
and certain modern theories of duty, which he learnt in practice from the
reckless life of his master, who was also perhaps his father--Fyodor
Pavlovitch; and, theoretically, from various strange philosophical
conversations with his master's elder son, Ivan Fyodorovitch, who readily
indulged in this diversion, probably feeling dull or wishing to amuse
himself at the valet's expense. "He spoke to me himself of his spiritual
condition during the last few days at his father's house," Ippolit
Kirillovitch explained; "but others too have borne witness to it--the
prisoner himself, his brother, and the servant Grigory--that is, all who
knew him well.

"Moreover, Smerdyakov, whose health was shaken by his attacks of epilepsy,
had not the courage of a chicken. 'He fell at my feet and kissed them,'
the prisoner himself has told us, before he realized how damaging such a
statement was to himself. 'He is an epileptic chicken,' he declared about
him in his characteristic language. And the prisoner chose him for his
confidant (we have his own word for it) and he frightened him into
consenting at last to act as a spy for him. In that capacity he deceived
his master, revealing to the prisoner the existence of the envelope with
the notes in it and the signals by means of which he could get into the
house. How could he help telling him, indeed? 'He would have killed me, I
could see that he would have killed me,' he said at the inquiry, trembling
and shaking even before us, though his tormentor was by that time arrested
and could do him no harm. 'He suspected me at every instant. In fear and
trembling I hastened to tell him every secret to pacify him, that he might
see that I had not deceived him and let me off alive.' Those are his own
words. I wrote them down and I remember them. 'When he began shouting at
me, I would fall on my knees.'

"He was naturally very honest and enjoyed the complete confidence of his
master, ever since he had restored him some money he had lost. So it may
be supposed that the poor fellow suffered pangs of remorse at having
deceived his master, whom he loved as his benefactor. Persons severely
afflicted with epilepsy are, so the most skillful doctors tell us, always
prone to continual and morbid self-reproach. They worry over their
'wickedness,' they are tormented by pangs of conscience, often entirely
without cause; they exaggerate and often invent all sorts of faults and
crimes. And here we have a man of that type who had really been driven to
wrong-doing by terror and intimidation.

"He had, besides, a strong presentiment that something terrible would be
the outcome of the situation that was developing before his eyes. When
Ivan Fyodorovitch was leaving for Moscow, just before the catastrophe,
Smerdyakov besought him to remain, though he was too timid to tell him
plainly what he feared. He confined himself to hints, but his hints were
not understood.

"It must be observed that he looked on Ivan Fyodorovitch as a protector,
whose presence in the house was a guarantee that no harm would come to
pass. Remember the phrase in Dmitri Karamazov's drunken letter, 'I shall
kill the old man, if only Ivan goes away.' So Ivan Fyodorovitch's presence
seemed to every one a guarantee of peace and order in the house.

"But he went away, and within an hour of his young master's departure
Smerdyakov was taken with an epileptic fit. But that's perfectly
intelligible. Here I must mention that Smerdyakov, oppressed by terror and
despair of a sort, had felt during those last few days that one of the
fits from which he had suffered before at moments of strain, might be
coming upon him again. The day and hour of such an attack cannot, of
course, be foreseen, but every epileptic can feel beforehand that he is
likely to have one. So the doctors tell us. And so, as soon as Ivan
Fyodorovitch had driven out of the yard, Smerdyakov, depressed by his
lonely and unprotected position, went to the cellar. He went down the
stairs wondering if he would have a fit or not, and what if it were to
come upon him at once. And that very apprehension, that very wonder,
brought on the spasm in his throat that always precedes such attacks, and
he fell unconscious into the cellar. And in this perfectly natural
occurrence people try to detect a suspicion, a hint that he was shamming
an attack _on purpose_. But, if it were on purpose, the question arises at
once, what was his motive? What was he reckoning on? What was he aiming
at? I say nothing about medicine: science, I am told, may go astray: the
doctors were not able to discriminate between the counterfeit and the
real. That may be so, but answer me one question: what motive had he for
such a counterfeit? Could he, had he been plotting the murder, have
desired to attract the attention of the household by having a fit just
before?

"You see, gentlemen of the jury, on the night of the murder, there were
five persons in Fyodor Pavlovitch's--Fyodor Pavlovitch himself (but he did
not kill himself, that's evident); then his servant, Grigory, but he was
almost killed himself; the third person was Grigory's wife, Marfa
Ignatyevna, but it would be simply shameful to imagine her murdering her
master. Two persons are left--the prisoner and Smerdyakov. But, if we are
to believe the prisoner's statement that he is not the murderer, then
Smerdyakov must have been, for there is no other alternative, no one else
can be found. That is what accounts for the artful, astounding accusation
against the unhappy idiot who committed suicide yesterday. Had a shadow of
suspicion rested on any one else, had there been any sixth person, I am
persuaded that even the prisoner would have been ashamed to accuse
Smerdyakov, and would have accused that sixth person, for to charge
Smerdyakov with that murder is perfectly absurd.

"Gentlemen, let us lay aside psychology, let us lay aside medicine, let us
even lay aside logic, let us turn only to the facts and see what the facts
tell us. If Smerdyakov killed him, how did he do it? Alone or with the
assistance of the prisoner? Let us consider the first alternative--that he
did it alone. If he had killed him it must have been with some object, for
some advantage to himself. But not having a shadow of the motive that the
prisoner had for the murder--hatred, jealousy, and so on--Smerdyakov could
only have murdered him for the sake of gain, in order to appropriate the
three thousand roubles he had seen his master put in the envelope. And yet
he tells another person--and a person most closely interested, that is, the
prisoner--everything about the money and the signals, where the envelope
lay, what was written on it, what it was tied up with, and, above all,
told him of those signals by which he could enter the house. Did he do
this simply to betray himself, or to invite to the same enterprise one who
would be anxious to get that envelope for himself? 'Yes,' I shall be told,
'but he betrayed it from fear.' But how do you explain this? A man who
could conceive such an audacious, savage act, and carry it out, tells
facts which are known to no one else in the world, and which, if he held
his tongue, no one would ever have guessed!

"No, however cowardly he might be, if he had plotted such a crime, nothing
would have induced him to tell any one about the envelope and the signals,
for that was as good as betraying himself beforehand. He would have
invented something, he would have told some lie if he had been forced to
give information, but he would have been silent about that. For, on the
other hand, if he had said nothing about the money, but had committed the
murder and stolen the money, no one in the world could have charged him
with murder for the sake of robbery, since no one but he had seen the
money, no one but he knew of its existence in the house. Even if he had
been accused of the murder, it could only have been thought that he had
committed it from some other motive. But since no one had observed any
such motive in him beforehand, and every one saw, on the contrary, that
his master was fond of him and honored him with his confidence, he would,
of course, have been the last to be suspected. People would have suspected
first the man who had a motive, a man who had himself declared he had such
motives, who had made no secret of it; they would, in fact, have suspected
the son of the murdered man, Dmitri Fyodorovitch. Had Smerdyakov killed
and robbed him, and the son been accused of it, that would, of course,
have suited Smerdyakov. Yet are we to believe that, though plotting the
murder, he told that son, Dmitri, about the money, the envelope, and the
signals? Is that logical? Is that clear?

"When the day of the murder planned by Smerdyakov came, we have him
falling downstairs in a _feigned_ fit--with what object? In the first place
that Grigory, who had been intending to take his medicine, might put it
off and remain on guard, seeing there was no one to look after the house,
and, in the second place, I suppose, that his master seeing that there was
no one to guard him, and in terror of a visit from his son, might redouble
his vigilance and precaution. And, most of all, I suppose that he,
Smerdyakov, disabled by the fit, might be carried from the kitchen, where
he always slept, apart from all the rest, and where he could go in and out
as he liked, to Grigory's room at the other end of the lodge, where he was
always put, shut off by a screen three paces from their own bed. This was
the immemorial custom established by his master and the kind-hearted Marfa
Ignatyevna, whenever he had a fit. There, lying behind the screen, he
would most likely, to keep up the sham, have begun groaning, and so
keeping them awake all night (as Grigory and his wife testified). And all
this, we are to believe, that he might more conveniently get up and murder
his master!

"But I shall be told that he shammed illness on purpose that he might not
be suspected and that he told the prisoner of the money and the signals to
tempt him to commit the murder, and when he had murdered him and had gone
away with the money, making a noise, most likely, and waking people,
Smerdyakov got up, am I to believe, and went in--what for? To murder his
master a second time and carry off the money that had already been stolen?
Gentlemen, are you laughing? I am ashamed to put forward such suggestions,
but, incredible as it seems, that's just what the prisoner alleges. When
he had left the house, had knocked Grigory down and raised an alarm, he
tells us Smerdyakov got up, went in and murdered his master and stole the
money! I won't press the point that Smerdyakov could hardly have reckoned
on this beforehand, and have foreseen that the furious and exasperated son
would simply come to peep in respectfully, though he knew the signals, and
beat a retreat, leaving Smerdyakov his booty. Gentlemen of the jury, I put
this question to you in earnest; when was the moment when Smerdyakov could
have committed his crime? Name that moment, or you can't accuse him.

"But, perhaps, the fit was a real one, the sick man suddenly recovered,
heard a shout, and went out. Well--what then? He looked about him and said,
'Why not go and kill the master?' And how did he know what had happened,
since he had been lying unconscious till that moment? But there's a limit
to these flights of fancy.

" 'Quite so,' some astute people will tell me, 'but what if they were in
agreement? What if they murdered him together and shared the money--what
then?' A weighty question, truly! And the facts to confirm it are
astounding. One commits the murder and takes all the trouble while his
accomplice lies on one side shamming a fit, apparently to arouse suspicion
in every one, alarm in his master and alarm in Grigory. It would be
interesting to know what motives could have induced the two accomplices to
form such an insane plan.

"But perhaps it was not a case of active complicity on Smerdyakov's part,
but only of passive acquiescence; perhaps Smerdyakov was intimidated and
agreed not to prevent the murder, and foreseeing that he would be blamed
for letting his master be murdered, without screaming for help or
resisting, he may have obtained permission from Dmitri Karamazov to get
out of the way by shamming a fit--'you may murder him as you like; it's
nothing to me.' But as this attack of Smerdyakov's was bound to throw the
household into confusion, Dmitri Karamazov could never have agreed to such
a plan. I will waive that point however. Supposing that he did agree, it
would still follow that Dmitri Karamazov is the murderer and the
instigator, and Smerdyakov is only a passive accomplice, and not even an
accomplice, but merely acquiesced against his will through terror.

"But what do we see? As soon as he is arrested the prisoner instantly
throws all the blame on Smerdyakov, not accusing him of being his
accomplice, but of being himself the murderer. 'He did it alone,' he says.
'He murdered and robbed him. It was the work of his hands.' Strange sort
of accomplices who begin to accuse one another at once! And think of the
risk for Karamazov. After committing the murder while his accomplice lay
in bed, he throws the blame on the invalid, who might well have resented
it and in self-preservation might well have confessed the truth. For he
might well have seen that the court would at once judge how far he was
responsible, and so he might well have reckoned that if he were punished,
it would be far less severely than the real murderer. But in that case he
would have been certain to make a confession, yet he has not done so.
Smerdyakov never hinted at their complicity, though the actual murderer
persisted in accusing him and declaring that he had committed the crime
alone.

"What's more, Smerdyakov at the inquiry volunteered the statement that it
was _he_ who had told the prisoner of the envelope of notes and of the
signals, and that, but for him, he would have known nothing about them. If
he had really been a guilty accomplice, would he so readily have made this
statement at the inquiry? On the contrary, he would have tried to conceal
it, to distort the facts or minimize them. But he was far from distorting
or minimizing them. No one but an innocent man, who had no fear of being
charged with complicity, could have acted as he did. And in a fit of
melancholy arising from his disease and this catastrophe he hanged himself
yesterday. He left a note written in his peculiar language, 'I destroy
myself of my own will and inclination so as to throw no blame on any one.'
What would it have cost him to add: 'I am the murderer, not Karamazov'?
But that he did not add. Did his conscience lead him to suicide and not to
avowing his guilt?

"And what followed? Notes for three thousand roubles were brought into the
court just now, and we were told that they were the same that lay in the
envelope now on the table before us, and that the witness had received
them from Smerdyakov the day before. But I need not recall the painful
scene, though I will make one or two comments, selecting such trivial ones
as might not be obvious at first sight to every one, and so may be
overlooked. In the first place, Smerdyakov must have given back the money
and hanged himself yesterday from remorse. And only yesterday he confessed
his guilt to Ivan Karamazov, as the latter informs us. If it were not so,
indeed, why should Ivan Fyodorovitch have kept silence till now? And so,
if he has confessed, then why, I ask again, did he not avow the whole
truth in the last letter he left behind, knowing that the innocent
prisoner had to face this terrible ordeal the next day?

"The money alone is no proof. A week ago, quite by chance, the fact came
to the knowledge of myself and two other persons in this court that Ivan
Fyodorovitch had sent two five per cent. coupons of five thousand
each--that is, ten thousand in all--to the chief town of the province to be
changed. I only mention this to point out that any one may have money, and
that it can't be proved that these notes are the same as were in Fyodor
Pavlovitch's envelope.

"Ivan Karamazov, after receiving yesterday a communication of such
importance from the real murderer, did not stir. Why didn't he report it
at once? Why did he put it all off till morning? I think I have a right to
conjecture why. His health had been giving way for a week past: he had
admitted to a doctor and to his most intimate friends that he was
suffering from hallucinations and seeing phantoms of the dead: he was on
the eve of the attack of brain fever by which he has been stricken down
to-day. In this condition he suddenly heard of Smerdyakov's death, and at
once reflected, 'The man is dead, I can throw the blame on him and save my
brother. I have money. I will take a roll of notes and say that Smerdyakov
gave them me before his death.' You will say that was dishonorable: it's
dishonorable to slander even the dead, and even to save a brother. True,
but what if he slandered him unconsciously? What if, finally unhinged by
the sudden news of the valet's death, he imagined it really was so? You
saw the recent scene: you have seen the witness's condition. He was
standing up and was speaking, but where was his mind?

"Then followed the document, the prisoner's letter written two days before
the crime, and containing a complete program of the murder. Why, then, are
we looking for any other program? The crime was committed precisely
according to this program, and by no other than the writer of it. Yes,
gentlemen of the jury, it went off without a hitch! He did not run
respectfully and timidly away from his father's window, though he was
firmly convinced that the object of his affections was with him. No, that
is absurd and unlikely! He went in and murdered him. Most likely he killed
him in anger, burning with resentment, as soon as he looked on his hated
rival. But having killed him, probably with one blow of the brass pestle,
and having convinced himself, after careful search, that she was not
there, he did not, however, forget to put his hand under the pillow and
take out the envelope, the torn cover of which lies now on the table
before us.

"I mention this fact that you may note one, to my thinking, very
characteristic circumstance. Had he been an experienced murderer and had
he committed the murder for the sake of gain only, would he have left the
torn envelope on the floor as it was found, beside the corpse? Had it been
Smerdyakov, for instance, murdering his master to rob him, he would have
simply carried away the envelope with him, without troubling himself to
open it over his victim's corpse, for he would have known for certain that
the notes were in the envelope--they had been put in and sealed up in his
presence--and had he taken the envelope with him, no one would ever have
known of the robbery. I ask you, gentlemen, would Smerdyakov have behaved
in that way? Would he have left the envelope on the floor?

"No, this was the action of a frantic murderer, a murderer who was not a
thief and had never stolen before that day, who snatched the notes from
under the pillow, not like a thief stealing them, but as though seizing
his own property from the thief who had stolen it. For that was the idea
which had become almost an insane obsession in Dmitri Karamazov in regard
to that money. And pouncing upon the envelope, which he had never seen
before, he tore it open to make sure whether the money was in it, and ran
away with the money in his pocket, even forgetting to consider that he had
left an astounding piece of evidence against himself in that torn envelope
on the floor. All because it was Karamazov, not Smerdyakov, he didn't
think, he didn't reflect, and how should he? He ran away; he heard behind
him the servant cry out; the old man caught him, stopped him and was
felled to the ground by the brass pestle.

"The prisoner, moved by pity, leapt down to look at him. Would you believe
it, he tells us that he leapt down out of pity, out of compassion, to see
whether he could do anything for him. Was that a moment to show
compassion? No; he jumped down simply to make certain whether the only
witness of his crime were dead or alive. Any other feeling, any other
motive would be unnatural. Note that he took trouble over Grigory, wiped
his head with his handkerchief and, convincing himself he was dead, he ran
to the house of his mistress, dazed and covered with blood. How was it he
never thought that he was covered with blood and would be at once
detected? But the prisoner himself assures us that he did not even notice
that he was covered with blood. That may be believed, that is very
possible, that always happens at such moments with criminals. On one point
they will show diabolical cunning, while another will escape them
altogether. But he was thinking at that moment of one thing only--where was
_she_? He wanted to find out at once where she was, so he ran to her
lodging and learnt an unexpected and astounding piece of news--she had gone
off to Mokroe to meet her first lover."





book 12, Chapter 8
A Treatise on Smerdyakov Kirrillovich says that unlike Smerdyakov, Dmitri had a motive to kill Fyodor Pavlovich because he hated the old man and craved his money. Given the violent sentiment of the letter Dmitri wrote to Katerina, Kirrillovich says, his guilt seems clear