feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_14_part_13.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 12.chapter 13
feat_summary_id: book 12, chapter 13
feat_summary: {"name": "book 12, Chapter 13", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section15/", "summary": "An Adulterer of Thought Fetyukovich insists that Dmitri's only chance to find redemption amid the tattered shreds of his life is to be set free", "analysis": ""}
text: Chapter XIII. A Corrupter Of Thought
  
  
  "It's not only the accumulation of facts that threatens my client with
  ruin, gentlemen of the jury," he began, "what is really damning for my
  client is one fact--the dead body of his father. Had it been an ordinary
  case of murder you would have rejected the charge in view of the
  triviality, the incompleteness, and the fantastic character of the
  evidence, if you examine each part of it separately; or, at least, you
  would have hesitated to ruin a man's life simply from the prejudice
  against him which he has, alas! only too well deserved. But it's not an
  ordinary case of murder, it's a case of parricide. That impresses men's
  minds, and to such a degree that the very triviality and incompleteness of
  the evidence becomes less trivial and less incomplete even to an
  unprejudiced mind. How can such a prisoner be acquitted? What if he
  committed the murder and gets off unpunished? That is what every one,
  almost involuntarily, instinctively, feels at heart.
  
  "Yes, it's a fearful thing to shed a father's blood--the father who has
  begotten me, loved me, not spared his life for me, grieved over my
  illnesses from childhood up, troubled all his life for my happiness, and
  has lived in my joys, in my successes. To murder such a father--that's
  inconceivable. Gentlemen of the jury, what is a father--a real father? What
  is the meaning of that great word? What is the great idea in that name? We
  have just indicated in part what a true father is and what he ought to be.
  In the case in which we are now so deeply occupied and over which our
  hearts are aching--in the present case, the father, Fyodor Pavlovitch
  Karamazov, did not correspond to that conception of a father to which we
  have just referred. That's the misfortune. And indeed some fathers are a
  misfortune. Let us examine this misfortune rather more closely: we must
  shrink from nothing, gentlemen of the jury, considering the importance of
  the decision you have to make. It's our particular duty not to shrink from
  any idea, like children or frightened women, as the talented prosecutor
  happily expresses it.
  
  "But in the course of his heated speech my esteemed opponent (and he was
  my opponent before I opened my lips) exclaimed several times, 'Oh, I will
  not yield the defense of the prisoner to the lawyer who has come down from
  Petersburg. I accuse, but I defend also!' He exclaimed that several times,
  but forgot to mention that if this terrible prisoner was for twenty-three
  years so grateful for a mere pound of nuts given him by the only man who
  had been kind to him, as a child in his father's house, might not such a
  man well have remembered for twenty-three years how he ran in his father's
  back-yard, 'without boots on his feet and with his little trousers hanging
  by one button'--to use the expression of the kind-hearted doctor,
  Herzenstube?
  
  "Oh, gentlemen of the jury, why need we look more closely at this
  misfortune, why repeat what we all know already? What did my client meet
  with when he arrived here, at his father's house, and why depict my client
  as a heartless egoist and monster? He is uncontrolled, he is wild and
  unruly--we are trying him now for that--but who is responsible for his life?
  Who is responsible for his having received such an unseemly bringing up,
  in spite of his excellent disposition and his grateful and sensitive
  heart? Did any one train him to be reasonable? Was he enlightened by
  study? Did any one love him ever so little in his childhood? My client was
  left to the care of Providence like a beast of the field. He thirsted
  perhaps to see his father after long years of separation. A thousand times
  perhaps he may, recalling his childhood, have driven away the loathsome
  phantoms that haunted his childish dreams and with all his heart he may
  have longed to embrace and to forgive his father! And what awaited him? He
  was met by cynical taunts, suspicions and wrangling about money. He heard
  nothing but revolting talk and vicious precepts uttered daily over the
  brandy, and at last he saw his father seducing his mistress from him with
  his own money. Oh, gentlemen of the jury, that was cruel and revolting!
  And that old man was always complaining of the disrespect and cruelty of
  his son. He slandered him in society, injured him, calumniated him, bought
  up his unpaid debts to get him thrown into prison.
  
  "Gentlemen of the jury, people like my client, who are fierce, unruly, and
  uncontrolled on the surface, are sometimes, most frequently indeed,
  exceedingly tender-hearted, only they don't express it. Don't laugh, don't
  laugh at my idea! The talented prosecutor laughed mercilessly just now at
  my client for loving Schiller--loving the sublime and beautiful! I should
  not have laughed at that in his place. Yes, such natures--oh, let me speak
  in defense of such natures, so often and so cruelly misunderstood--these
  natures often thirst for tenderness, goodness, and justice, as it were, in
  contrast to themselves, their unruliness, their ferocity--they thirst for
  it unconsciously. Passionate and fierce on the surface, they are painfully
  capable of loving woman, for instance, and with a spiritual and elevated
  love. Again do not laugh at me, this is very often the case in such
  natures. But they cannot hide their passions--sometimes very coarse--and
  that is conspicuous and is noticed, but the inner man is unseen. Their
  passions are quickly exhausted; but, by the side of a noble and lofty
  creature that seemingly coarse and rough man seeks a new life, seeks to
  correct himself, to be better, to become noble and honorable, 'sublime and
  beautiful,' however much the expression has been ridiculed.
  
  "I said just now that I would not venture to touch upon my client's
  engagement. But I may say half a word. What we heard just now was not
  evidence, but only the scream of a frenzied and revengeful woman, and it
  was not for her--oh, not for her!--to reproach him with treachery, for she
  has betrayed him! If she had had but a little time for reflection she
  would not have given such evidence. Oh, do not believe her! No, my client
  is not a monster, as she called him!
  
  "The Lover of Mankind on the eve of His Crucifixion said: 'I am the Good
  Shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep, so that not
  one of them might be lost.' Let not a man's soul be lost through us!
  
  "I asked just now what does 'father' mean, and exclaimed that it was a
  great word, a precious name. But one must use words honestly, gentlemen,
  and I venture to call things by their right names: such a father as old
  Karamazov cannot be called a father and does not deserve to be. Filial
  love for an unworthy father is an absurdity, an impossibility. Love cannot
  be created from nothing: only God can create something from nothing.
  
  " 'Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath,' the apostle writes, from
  a heart glowing with love. It's not for the sake of my client that I quote
  these sacred words, I mention them for all fathers. Who has authorized me
  to preach to fathers? No one. But as a man and a citizen I make my
  appeal--_vivos voco!_ We are not long on earth, we do many evil deeds and
  say many evil words. So let us all catch a favorable moment when we are
  all together to say a good word to each other. That's what I am doing:
  while I am in this place I take advantage of my opportunity. Not for
  nothing is this tribune given us by the highest authority--all Russia hears
  us! I am not speaking only for the fathers here present, I cry aloud to
  all fathers: 'Fathers, provoke not your children to wrath.' Yes, let us
  first fulfill Christ's injunction ourselves and only then venture to
  expect it of our children. Otherwise we are not fathers, but enemies of
  our children, and they are not our children, but our enemies, and we have
  made them our enemies ourselves. 'What measure ye mete it shall be
  measured unto you again'--it's not I who say that, it's the Gospel precept,
  measure to others according as they measure to you. How can we blame
  children if they measure us according to our measure?
  
  "Not long ago a servant girl in Finland was suspected of having secretly
  given birth to a child. She was watched, and a box of which no one knew
  anything was found in the corner of the loft, behind some bricks. It was
  opened and inside was found the body of a new-born child which she had
  killed. In the same box were found the skeletons of two other babies
  which, according to her own confession, she had killed at the moment of
  their birth.
  
  "Gentlemen of the jury, was she a mother to her children? She gave birth
  to them, indeed; but was she a mother to them? Would any one venture to
  give her the sacred name of mother? Let us be bold, gentlemen, let us be
  audacious even: it's our duty to be so at this moment and not to be afraid
  of certain words and ideas like the Moscow women in Ostrovsky's play, who
  are scared at the sound of certain words. No, let us prove that the
  progress of the last few years has touched even us, and let us say
  plainly, the father is not merely he who begets the child, but he who
  begets it and does his duty by it.
  
  "Oh, of course, there is the other meaning, there is the other
  interpretation of the word 'father,' which insists that any father, even
  though he be a monster, even though he be the enemy of his children, still
  remains my father simply because he begot me. But this is, so to say, the
  mystical meaning which I cannot comprehend with my intellect, but can only
  accept by faith, or, better to say, _on faith_, like many other things
  which I do not understand, but which religion bids me believe. But in that
  case let it be kept outside the sphere of actual life. In the sphere of
  actual life, which has, indeed, its own rights, but also lays upon us
  great duties and obligations, in that sphere, if we want to be
  humane--Christian, in fact--we must, or ought to, act only upon convictions
  justified by reason and experience, which have been passed through the
  crucible of analysis; in a word, we must act rationally, and not as though
  in dream and delirium, that we may not do harm, that we may not ill-treat
  and ruin a man. Then it will be real Christian work, not only mystic, but
  rational and philanthropic...."
  
  There was violent applause at this passage from many parts of the court,
  but Fetyukovitch waved his hands as though imploring them to let him
  finish without interruption. The court relapsed into silence at once. The
  orator went on.
  
  "Do you suppose, gentlemen, that our children as they grow up and begin to
  reason can avoid such questions? No, they cannot, and we will not impose
  on them an impossible restriction. The sight of an unworthy father
  involuntarily suggests tormenting questions to a young creature,
  especially when he compares him with the excellent fathers of his
  companions. The conventional answer to this question is: 'He begot you,
  and you are his flesh and blood, and therefore you are bound to love him.'
  The youth involuntarily reflects: 'But did he love me when he begot me?'
  he asks, wondering more and more. 'Was it for my sake he begot me? He did
  not know me, not even my sex, at that moment, at the moment of passion,
  perhaps, inflamed by wine, and he has only transmitted to me a propensity
  to drunkenness--that's all he's done for me.... Why am I bound to love him
  simply for begetting me when he has cared nothing for me all my life
  after?'
  
  "Oh, perhaps those questions strike you as coarse and cruel, but do not
  expect an impossible restraint from a young mind. 'Drive nature out of the
  door and it will fly in at the window,' and, above all, let us not be
  afraid of words, but decide the question according to the dictates of
  reason and humanity and not of mystic ideas. How shall it be decided? Why,
  like this. Let the son stand before his father and ask him, 'Father, tell
  me, why must I love you? Father, show me that I must love you,' and if
  that father is able to answer him and show him good reason, we have a
  real, normal, parental relation, not resting on mystical prejudice, but on
  a rational, responsible and strictly humanitarian basis. But if he does
  not, there's an end to the family tie. He is not a father to him, and the
  son has a right to look upon him as a stranger, and even an enemy. Our
  tribune, gentlemen of the jury, ought to be a school of true and sound
  ideas."
  
  (Here the orator was interrupted by irrepressible and almost frantic
  applause. Of course, it was not the whole audience, but a good half of it
  applauded. The fathers and mothers present applauded. Shrieks and
  exclamations were heard from the gallery, where the ladies were sitting.
  Handkerchiefs were waved. The President began ringing his bell with all
  his might. He was obviously irritated by the behavior of the audience, but
  did not venture to clear the court as he had threatened. Even persons of
  high position, old men with stars on their breasts, sitting on specially
  reserved seats behind the judges, applauded the orator and waved their
  handkerchiefs. So that when the noise died down, the President confined
  himself to repeating his stern threat to clear the court, and
  Fetyukovitch, excited and triumphant, continued his speech.)
  
  "Gentlemen of the jury, you remember that awful night of which so much has
  been said to-day, when the son got over the fence and stood face to face
  with the enemy and persecutor who had begotten him. I insist most
  emphatically it was not for money he ran to his father's house: the charge
  of robbery is an absurdity, as I proved before. And it was not to murder
  him he broke into the house, oh, no! If he had had that design he would,
  at least, have taken the precaution of arming himself beforehand. The
  brass pestle he caught up instinctively without knowing why he did it.
  Granted that he deceived his father by tapping at the window, granted that
  he made his way in--I've said already that I do not for a moment believe
  that legend, but let it be so, let us suppose it for a moment. Gentlemen,
  I swear to you by all that's holy, if it had not been his father, but an
  ordinary enemy, he would, after running through the rooms and satisfying
  himself that the woman was not there, have made off, post-haste, without
  doing any harm to his rival. He would have struck him, pushed him away
  perhaps, nothing more, for he had no thought and no time to spare for
  that. What he wanted to know was where she was. But his father, his
  father! The mere sight of the father who had hated him from his childhood,
  had been his enemy, his persecutor, and now his unnatural rival, was
  enough! A feeling of hatred came over him involuntarily, irresistibly,
  clouding his reason. It all surged up in one moment! It was an impulse of
  madness and insanity, but also an impulse of nature, irresistibly and
  unconsciously (like everything in nature) avenging the violation of its
  eternal laws.
  
  "But the prisoner even then did not murder him--I maintain that, I cry that
  aloud!--no, he only brandished the pestle in a burst of indignant disgust,
  not meaning to kill him, not knowing that he would kill him. Had he not
  had this fatal pestle in his hand, he would have only knocked his father
  down perhaps, but would not have killed him. As he ran away, he did not
  know whether he had killed the old man. Such a murder is not a murder.
  Such a murder is not a parricide. No, the murder of such a father cannot
  be called parricide. Such a murder can only be reckoned parricide by
  prejudice.
  
  "But I appeal to you again and again from the depths of my soul; did this
  murder actually take place? Gentlemen of the jury, if we convict and
  punish him, he will say to himself: 'These people have done nothing for my
  bringing up, for my education, nothing to improve my lot, nothing to make
  me better, nothing to make me a man. These people have not given me to eat
  and to drink, have not visited me in prison and nakedness, and here they
  have sent me to penal servitude. I am quits, I owe them nothing now, and
  owe no one anything for ever. They are wicked and I will be wicked. They
  are cruel and I will be cruel.' That is what he will say, gentlemen of the
  jury. And I swear, by finding him guilty you will only make it easier for
  him: you will ease his conscience, he will curse the blood he has shed and
  will not regret it. At the same time you will destroy in him the
  possibility of becoming a new man, for he will remain in his wickedness
  and blindness all his life.
  
  "But do you want to punish him fearfully, terribly, with the most awful
  punishment that could be imagined, and at the same time to save him and
  regenerate his soul? If so, overwhelm him with your mercy! You will see,
  you will hear how he will tremble and be horror-struck. 'How can I endure
  this mercy? How can I endure so much love? Am I worthy of it?' That's what
  he will exclaim.
  
  "Oh, I know, I know that heart, that wild but grateful heart, gentlemen of
  the jury! It will bow before your mercy; it thirsts for a great and loving
  action, it will melt and mount upwards. There are souls which, in their
  limitation, blame the whole world. But subdue such a soul with mercy, show
  it love, and it will curse its past, for there are many good impulses in
  it. Such a heart will expand and see that God is merciful and that men are
  good and just. He will be horror-stricken; he will be crushed by remorse
  and the vast obligation laid upon him henceforth. And he will not say
  then, 'I am quits,' but will say, 'I am guilty in the sight of all men and
  am more unworthy than all.' With tears of penitence and poignant, tender
  anguish, he will exclaim: 'Others are better than I, they wanted to save
  me, not to ruin me!' Oh, this act of mercy is so easy for you, for in the
  absence of anything like real evidence it will be too awful for you to
  pronounce: 'Yes, he is guilty.'
  
  "Better acquit ten guilty men than punish one innocent man! Do you hear,
  do you hear that majestic voice from the past century of our glorious
  history? It is not for an insignificant person like me to remind you that
  the Russian court does not exist for the punishment only, but also for the
  salvation of the criminal! Let other nations think of retribution and the
  letter of the law, we will cling to the spirit and the meaning--the
  salvation and the reformation of the lost. If this is true, if Russia and
  her justice are such, she may go forward with good cheer! Do not try to
  scare us with your frenzied troikas from which all the nations stand aside
  in disgust. Not a runaway troika, but the stately chariot of Russia will
  move calmly and majestically to its goal. In your hands is the fate of my
  client, in your hands is the fate of Russian justice. You will defend it,
  you will save it, you will prove that there are men to watch over it, that
  it is in good hands!"
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: book 12, Chapter 13
target: An Adulterer of Thought Fetyukovich insists that Dmitri's only chance to find redemption amid the tattered shreds of his life is to be set free