ement made by the
young lady on the subject was different, perfectly different. In the
second statement we heard only cries of resentment and revenge, cries of
long-concealed hatred. And the very fact that the witness gave her first
evidence incorrectly, gives us a right to conclude that her second piece
of evidence may have been incorrect also. The prosecutor will not, dare
not (his own words) touch on that story. So be it. I will not touch on it
either, but will only venture to observe that if a lofty and
high-principled person, such as that highly respected young lady
unquestionably is, if such a person, I say, allows herself suddenly in
court to contradict her first statement, with the obvious motive of
ruining the prisoner, it is clear that this evidence has been given not
impartially, not coolly. Have not we the right to assume that a revengeful
woman might have exaggerated much? Yes, she may well have exaggerated, in
particular, the insult and humiliation of her offering him the money. No,
it was offered in such a way that it was possible to take it, especially
for a man so easy-going as the prisoner, above all, as he expected to
receive shortly from his father the three thousand roubles that he
reckoned was owing to him. It was unreflecting of him, but it was just his
irresponsible want of reflection that made him so confident that his
father would give him the money, that he would get it, and so could always
dispatch the money entrusted to him and repay the debt.

"But the prosecutor refuses to allow that he could the same day have set
aside half the money and sewn it up in a little bag. That's not his
character, he tells us, he couldn't have had such feelings. But yet he
talked himself of the broad Karamazov nature; he cried out about the two
extremes which a Karamazov can contemplate at once. Karamazov is just such
a two-sided nature, fluctuating between two extremes, that even when moved
by the most violent craving for riotous gayety, he can pull himself up, if
something strikes him on the other side. And on the other side is
love--that new love which had flamed up in his heart, and for that love he
needed money; oh, far more than for carousing with his mistress. If she
were to say to him, 'I am yours, I won't have Fyodor Pavlovitch,' then he
must have money to take her away. That was more important than carousing.
Could a Karamazov fail to understand it? That anxiety was just what he was
suffering from--what