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And the prosecutor refuses to believe the prisoner’s statement that he ran to old Grigory out of pity. ‘No,’ he says, ‘such sensibility is impossible at such a moment, that’s unnatural; he ran to find out whether the only witness of his crime was dead or alive, and so showed that he had committed the murder, since he would not have run back for any other reason.’
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.
I’ve been praying all night.” And he crossed himself three times. He was almost breathless. “So from this Grigory we have received such important evidence concerning you, that—” The prosecutor would have continued, but Mitya suddenly jumped up from his chair. “One minute, gentlemen, for God’s sake, one minute; I will run to her—”
The tables were already laid under the trees; the samovars were smoking, and Vassily and Grigory, in their swallow-tails and white knitted gloves, were already busy with the tea-things. On the other bank, opposite the "Island of Good Hope," there stood the carriages which had come with the provisions.
He refused to deny his faith, and was tortured, flayed alive, and died, praising and glorifying Christ. Grigory had related the story at table. Fyodor Pavlovitch always liked, over the dessert after dinner, to laugh and talk, if only with Grigory. This afternoon he was in a particularly good-humored and expansive mood.
Two hours did he sit over this meal, then poured himself out another cup of the rapidly cooling tea, and walked to the window. Grigory. Ah, you nuisance, you good-for-nothing, you had better hold your stupid tongue. Perfilievna. Yes; and don't you wish that I would? Grigory. What? You so thick with that bailiff of yours, you housekeeping jade! Perfilievna. Nay, he is as big a thief as you are.
The third day was fixed for christening the baby: mean-time Grigory had reached a conclusion.
“Consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch,” Smerdyakov went on, staid and unruffled, conscious of his triumph, but, as it were, generous to the vanquished foe. “Consider yourself, Grigory Vassilyevitch; it is said in the Scripture that if you have faith, even as a mustard seed, and bid a mountain move into the sea, it will move without the least delay at your bidding.
But it’s his doing, his doing; there’s no doubt about it, he murdered him, that’s as clear as daylight now,” Mitya exclaimed more and more frantically, repeating himself incoherently, and growing more and more exasperated and excited. “You must understand that, and arrest him at once.... He must have killed him while I was running away and while Grigory was unconscious, that’s clear now.... He gave the signal and father opened to him ... for no one but he knew the signal, and without the signal father would never have opened the door....”
And the people at the shop, and that official, and at the tavern, too, before, people had heard him say so! They are all, all against him, all crying out against him.” “Yes, there’s a fearful accumulation of evidence,” Alyosha observed grimly. “And Grigory—Grigory Vassilyevitch—sticks to his story that the door was open, persists that he saw it—there’s no shaking him.
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