THE TRIAL – THE PROSECUTOR AND THE ADVOCATES
WHEN the examination of the articles of material evidence was finished, the president announced that the investigation was now concluded, and immediately called on the prosecutor to proceed, hoping that as the latter was also a man, he, too, might feel inclined to smoke or dine, and show some mercy to others. But the public prosecutor showed mercy neither to himself nor to any one else. He was very stupid by nature, but besides this, he had had the misfortune of finishing school with a gold medal and of receiving a reward for his essay on Servitude when studying Roman Law at the university, and was therefore self-confident and self-satisfied in the highest degree (his success with the ladies also conducing to this), and his stupidity had become extraordinary.
When called on to speak, he rose slowly, showing the whole of his graceful figure in his embroidered uniform. Putting his hand on the desk he looked round the room, slightly bowing his head, and, avoiding the eyes of the prisoners, he proceeded to deliver the speech he had prepared while the reports were being read.
“Gentlemen of the jury! The case that now lies before you is, if I may so express myself, very characteristic.”
According to his view, the speech of a public prosecutor should always have a public importance, like the celebrated speeches made by advocates who have become distinguished. True, the audience consisted of three women – a sempstress, a cook, and Simon’s sister – and a coachman; but this did not matter. The celebrities had also begun in that way. To be always at the height of his position, that is, to penetrate into the depths of the psychological significance of crime and lay bare the wounds of society, was one of the prosecutor’s principles.
“You see before you, gentlemen of the jury, a crime characteristic, if I may so express myself, of the end of our century; bearing, so to say, the specific features of that very painful phenomenon, the corruption to which those elements of our present-day society – which are, if I may say so, particularly exposed to the scorching rays of this process – are subject.”
The public prosecutor spoke at great length, trying not to forget any of the notions he had formed in his mind, and, on the other hand, never to hesitate but to let his speech flow on for an hour and a quarter without a break.
Only once he stopped, and for some time stood swallowing his saliva, but he soon mastered himself and made up for the interruption by heightened eloquence. He spoke, now with a tender, insinuating accent, stepping from foot to foot and looking at the jury; now in quiet business-like tones, glancing into his notebook; now with a loud accusing accent, looking from the audience to the advocates. But he avoided looking at the prisoners, who were all three gazing fixedly at him. Every new craze then in vogue among his set was alluded to in his speech; everything that then was, and some things that still are, considered to be the last words of scientific wisdom: heredity and congenital crime, Lombroso and Tarde, evolution and the struggle for existence, hypnotism and hypnotic influence, Charcot and decadence.
According to his definition, the merchant Smelkov was a type of the genuine, sturdy Russian, who, having fallen into the hands of deeply degraded individuals, had perished in consequence of his generous, trusting nature.