he was little, if it hadn't been for me," he added, describing
Mitya's early childhood. "It wasn't fair either of the father to wrong his
son over his mother's property, which was by right his."

In reply to the prosecutor's question what grounds he had for asserting
that Fyodor Pavlovitch had wronged his son in their money relations,
Grigory, to the surprise of every one, had no proof at all to bring
forward, but he still persisted that the arrangement with the son was
"unfair," and that he ought "to have paid him several thousand roubles
more." I must note, by the way, that the prosecutor asked this question
whether Fyodor Pavlovitch had really kept back part of Mitya's inheritance
with marked persistence of all the witnesses who could be asked it, not
excepting Alyosha and Ivan, but he obtained no exact information from any
one; all alleged that it was so, but were unable to bring forward any
distinct proof. Grigory's description of the scene at the dinner-table,
when Dmitri had burst in and beaten his father, threatening to come back
to kill him, made a sinister impression on the court, especially as the
old servant's composure in telling it, his parsimony of words and peculiar
phraseology, were as effective as eloquence. He observed that he was not
angry with Mitya for having knocked him down and struck him on the face;
he had forgiven him long ago, he said. Of the deceased Smerdyakov he
observed, crossing himself, that he was a lad of ability, but stupid and
afflicted, and, worse still, an infidel, and that it was Fyodor Pavlovitch
and his elder son who had taught him to be so. But he defended
Smerdyakov's honesty almost with warmth, and related how Smerdyakov had
once found the master's money in the yard, and, instead of concealing it,
had taken it to his master, who had rewarded him with a "gold piece" for
it, and trusted him implicitly from that time forward. He maintained
obstinately that the door into the garden had been open. But he was asked
so many questions that I can't recall them all.

At last the counsel for the defense began to cross-examine him, and the
first question he asked was about the envelope in which Fyodor Pavlovitch
was supposed to have put three thousand roubles for "a certain person."
"Have you ever seen it, you, who were for so many years in close
attendance on your master?" Grigory answered that he had not seen it and
had never heard of the money from any one "till everybody was talking