“It’s all the same thing over and over,” he suddenly interrupted with a weary look. “I have nothing special to tell the court.”
“I can see that you are not well, and I understand your feelings ... ,”the judge began.
He turned to the two parties, the prosecutor and the defense attorney, inviting them to ask questions if they thought it necessary, when suddenly Ivan Fyodorovich said in an exhausted voice:
“Let me go, Your Honor, I am feeling very ill.”
And at that, without waiting for permission, he suddenly turned and started out of the courtroom. But having gone about four steps, he stopped as if suddenly pondering something, chuckled softly, and went back to his former place again.
“I’m like that peasant girl, Your Honor ... you know how it goes: ‘I’ll jump if I want, and I won’t if I don’t.’ They go after her with some sarafan or wedding skirt or whatever, asking her to jump up so they can tie it around her and take her to church to be married, and she says: ‘I’ll jump if I want, and I won’t if I don’t . . .’It’s some sort of folk custom . . .” “What do you mean to say by that?” the judge asked sternly.
“Here ... ,”Ivan Fyodorovich suddenly pulled out a wad of money, “here is the money ... the same money that was in that envelope,” he nodded towards the table with the material evidence, “and on account of which my father was murdered. Where shall I put it? Marshal, please hand it to him.”
The marshal took the entire wad and handed it to the judge.
“How could this money possibly end up in your possession ... if it is the same money?” the judge said in surprise.
“I got it from Smerdyakov, the murderer, yesterday. I visited him before he hanged himself. It was he who killed father, not my brother. He killed him, and killed him on my instructions ... Who doesn’t wish for his father’s death ... ?”
“Are you in your right mind?” inadvertently escaped from the judge.
“The thing is that I am precisely in my right mind ... my vile mind, the same as you, and all these ... m-mugs!” he suddenly turned to the public. “A murdered father, and they pretend to be frightened,” he growled with fierce contempt. “They pull faces to each other. Liars! Everyone wants his father dead. Viper devours viper ... If there were no parricide, they’d all get angry and go home in a foul temper ... Circuses! ‘Bread and circuses!”[333] And me, I’m a good one! Is there some water? Give me a drink, for Christ’s sake!” he suddenly clutched his head.
The marshal at once approached him. Alyosha suddenly jumped up and shouted: “He’s sick, don’t believe him, he’s delirious!” Katerina Ivanovna rose impetuously from her chair and, motionless with horror, looked at Ivan Fyodorovich. Mitya stood up and, with a sort of wild, twisted smile, looked and listened greedily to his brother.
“Calm yourselves, I’m not mad, I’m simply a murderer!” Ivan began again. “One really cannot expect eloquence from a murderer ... ,” he suddenly added for some reason, with a twisted laugh.
The prosecutor, visibly perturbed, leaned over to the presiding judge. The members of the court fidgeted and whispered among themselves. Fetyukovich pricked up his ears, listening attentively. The courtroom was frozen in expectation. The judge suddenly came to his senses, as it were.
“Witness, your words are incomprehensible and impossible in this place. Calm yourself if you can, and tell us ... if you really have anything to tell. How can you confirm such a confession ... if in fact you are not raving?”
“That’s the trouble, I have no witnesses. That dog Smerdyakov won’t send you evidence from the other world ... in an envelope. You keep asking for envelopes, as if one wasn’t enough. I have no witnesses ... except one, perhaps,” he smiled pensively. “Who is your witness?”
“He’s got a tail, Your Honor, you’d find him inadmissible! Le diable n’existe point![334] Pay no mind to him, he’s a wretched, paltry devil,” he added, confidentially, as it were, and suddenly stopped laughing. “He’s sure to be here somewhere, there, under the table with the material evidence, where else would he be sitting? You see, listen to me: I told him I would not keep silent, and he started telling me about the geological cataclysm ... what rot! Well, set the monster free ... he’s begun his hymn, because he finds it all so easy. The same as if some drunken lout started bawling that ‘Vanka’s gone to Petersburg,’ but I’d give a quadrillion quadrillion for two seconds of joy. You don’t know me! Oh, how stupid this all is! Well, take me instead of him! I must have come for some reason ... Why, why is everything in the world so stupid...!”
And again, slowly, pensively, as it were, he began looking around the courtroom. But by then all was astir. Alyosha rushed to him from his place, but the marshal had already seized Ivan Fyodorovich by the arm.
“What is the meaning of this?” Ivan Fyodorovich exclaimed, staring straight into the marshal’s face, and suddenly, seizing him by the shoulders, he flung him violently to the floor. But the guards were already there, he was seized, and then he cried out with a frenzied cry.[335] And all the while he was being taken away, he kept shouting and crying out something incoherent.
Turmoil ensued. I do not remember everything in order, I was excited myself and could not follow. I know only that afterwards, when everything had quieted down, and everyone realized what had happened, the marshal got a telling off, though he thoroughly explained to the authorities that the witness had been well all along, that the doctor had examined him an hour ago when he felt slightly ill, but that before entering the courtroom he had spoken coherently, so that it was impossible to foresee anything; that he himself, on the contrary, had demanded and absolutely wanted to testify. But right after this scene, before everyone had at least somewhat calmed down and recovered, yet another scene broke out: Katerina Ivanovna had hysterics. She began sobbing, with loud shrieks, but would not leave, struggled and begged not to be taken away, and suddenly cried out to the judge:
“I have one more piece of evidence to give, at once ... at once . . .! Here is a paper, a letter ... take it, read it quickly, quickly! It’s a letter from that monster, that one, that one!” she was pointing at Mitya. “He killed his father, you’ll see now, he writes to me how he’s going to kill his father! And the other one is ill, ill, he’s delirious! I’ve seen for three days that he’s delirious!”
So she cried out, beside herself. The marshal took the paper she was holding out to the judge, and she, collapsing on her chair and covering her face, began sobbing convulsively and soundlessly, shaking all over and suppressing the slightest moan for fear of being put out of the courtroom. The paper she handed over was that same letter Mitya had written from the “Metropolis” tavern, which Ivan Fyodorovich referred to as a document of “mathematical” importance. Alas, it was acknowledged precisely as mathematical, and had it not been for this letter, Mitya would perhaps not have perished, or at least not have perished so terribly! I repeat, it was difficult to follow all the details. Even now I picture it as so much turmoil. The presiding judge must at once have communicated the new document to the court, the prosecutor, the defense attorney, the jury. I remember only how they began questioning the witness. To the question of whether she had calmed down, which the judge gently addressed to her, Katerina Ivanovna exclaimed impetuously: