“Now, with your kind permission, I should like to ask you a question,” Fetyukovich said suddenly and quite unexpectedly. “What were the ingredients of that balm, or, so to speak, that infusion, with which you rubbed your suffering lower back, in hopes thereby of being cured, that evening before going to bed, as we know from the preliminary investigation?”
Grigory looked dumbly at the questioner and, after a short silence, muttered:
“There was sage in it.”
“Just sage? You don’t recall anything else?”
“There was plantain, too.”
“And pepper, perhaps?” Fetyukovich inquired further.
“And pepper.”
“And so on. And all steeped in vodka?”
“In spirits.”
A slight laugh flitted through the courtroom.
“So, in spirits no less. After rubbing your back, you drank the rest of the bottle with a certain pious prayer, known only to your wife, is that so?”
“I drank it.”
“Approximately how much did you drink? Just approximately. A shot-glass or two?”
“About a tumbler.”
“About a tumbler no less. Maybe even a tumbler and a half?”
Grigory fell silent. He seemed to have understood something.
“About a tumbler and a half of pure spirits—not bad at all, wouldn’t you say? Enough to see ‘the doors of heaven open,’[330] not to mention the door to the garden?”
Grigory remained silent. Again a slight laugh went through the courtroom. The judge stirred.
“Do you know for certain,” Fetyukovich was biting deeper and deeper, “whether you were awake or not at the moment when you saw the door to the garden open?”
“I was standing on my feet. “
“That’s no proof that you were awake.” (More and more laughter in the courtroom.) “Could you, for instance, have answered at that moment if someone had asked you something—say, for instance, what year it is?”
“That I don’t know.” “And what year of the present era, what year of our Lord is it—do you know?”
Grigory stood looking bewildered, staring straight at his tormentor. It seemed strange indeed that he apparently did not know what year it was.
“But perhaps you do know how many fingers you have on your hand?”
“I am a subordinate man,” Grigory suddenly said, loudly and distinctly. “If the authorities see fit to deride me, then I must endure it.”
Fetyukovich was a little taken aback, as it were, but the presiding judge also intervened with a didactic reminder to the defense attorney that he ought to ask more appropriate questions. Fetyukovich, having listened, bowed with dignity, and announced that he had no further questions. Of course, both the public and the jury might be left with a small worm of doubt as to the testimony of a man for whom it was possible to “see the doors of heaven” in a certain state of medical treatment, and who, besides, did not know what year of our Lord it was; so that the attorney had nonetheless achieved his goal. But before Grigory stepped down another episode took place. The judge, addressing the defendant, asked whether he had anything to say concerning the present testimony.
“Except for the door, it’s all true as he said,” Mitya cried loudly. “For combing the lice out of my hair, I thank him; for forgiving me my blows, I thank him; the old man has been honest all his life, and was as faithful to my father as seven hundred poodles.”
“Watch your words, defendant,” the judge said sternly.
“I am not a poodle,” Grigory also grumbled.
“Then I am, I am a poodle!” cried Mitya. “If he’s offended, I take it upon myself and ask his forgiveness: I was a beast and cruel to him! I was cruel to Aesop, too.”
“What Aesop?” the judge again picked up sternly.
“That Pierrot ... my father, Fyodor Pavlovich.”
The presiding judge repeated once again to Mitya, imposingly and most sternly now, that he should watch his words more carefully.
“You are harming yourself in the opinion of your judges.”
In just the same rather clever way the defense attorney handled the questioning of the witness Rakitin. I will note that Rakitin was one of the most important witnesses and was undoubtedly valued by the prosecutor. It turned out that he knew everything, knew surprisingly much, had really been everywhere, seen everything, spoken with everyone, knew in the most detailed way the biography of Fyodor Pavlovich and of all the Karamazovs. True, he, too, had heard of the envelope with the three thousand only from Mitya himself. On the other hand, he described in detail Mitya’s deeds in the “Metropolis” tavern, all his compromising words and gestures, and told the story of Captain Snegiryov’s “whiskbroom.” Concerning the particular point, whether Fyodor Pavlovich still owed Mitya anything after the settling of the estate, even Rakitin himself could indicate nothing specific and got off merely with commonplaces of a contemptuous nature: “Who could say which of them was to blame or calculate who owed what to whom, with all that muddled Karamazovism, in which no one could either define or understand himself?” The whole tragedy of the crime on trial he portrayed as resulting from the ingrained habits of serfdom and a Russia immersed in disorder and suffering from a lack of proper institutions. In short, he was allowed to speak out on certain matters. It was starting with this trial that Mr. Rakitin first declared himself and gained notice; the prosecutor knew that the witness was preparing an article for a magazine about the present crime, and in his closing statement (as we shall see below) he quoted several thoughts from this article, indicating that he was already familiar with it. The picture portrayed by the witness was a gloomy and fatal one, and greatly strengthened “the prosecution.” Generally, Rakitin’s presentation captivated the public by its independence of thought and the remarkable nobility of its flight. Two or three spontaneous bursts of applause were even heard—namely, at those passages where mention was made of serfdom and of Russia suffering from disorder. But Rakitin, being still a young man, made a little slip, which was at once superbly exploited by the defense attorney. Answering certain questions about Grushenka, he got carried away by his success, which he was certainly already aware of, and by the height of nobility to which he had soared, and allowed himself to refer to Agrafena Alexandrovna somewhat contemptuously as “the merchant Samsonov’s kept woman.” He would have given much afterwards to take that little phrase back, for it was picked up at once by Fetyukovich. And it was all because Rakitin simply never expected that he could have familiarized himself, in so short a time, with such intimate details of the case.
“Allow me to inquire,” the defense attorney began, with a most amiable and even respectful smile, when it came his turn to ask questions, “whether you are not, indeed, the same Mr. Rakitin whose pamphlet The Life of the Elder, Father Zosima, Fallen Asleep in God, published by the diocesan authorities, full of profound and religious thoughts, and with an excellent and pious dedication to His Grace, I have recently had the great pleasure of reading?”