Resurrection

The accused himself confessed everything, and looking round

stupidly, like an animal that is caught, related how it had all

happened. Still the public prosecutor, drawing up his shoulders

as he had done the day before, asked subtle questions calculated

to catch a cunning criminal.

In his speech he proved that the theft had been committed from a

dwelling-place, and a lock had been broken; and that the boy,

therefore, deserved a heavy punishment. The advocate appointed by

the Court proved that the theft was not committed from a

dwelling-place, and that, though the crime was a serious one, the

prisoner was not so very dangerous to society as the prosecutor

stated. The president assumed the role of absolute neutrality in

the same way as he had done on the previous day, and impressed on

the jury facts which they all knew and could not help knowing.

Then came an interval, just as the day before, and they smoked;

and again the usher called out "The judges are coming," and in

the same way the two gendarmes sat trying to keep awake and

threatening the prisoner with their naked weapons.

The proceedings showed that this boy was apprenticed by his

father at a tobacco factory, where he remained five years. This

year he had been discharged by the owner after a strike, and,

having lost his place, he wandered about the town without any

work, drinking all he possessed. In a traktir [cheap restaurant]

he met another like himself, who had lost his place before the

prisoner had, a locksmith by trade and a drunkard. One night,

those two, both drunk, broke the lock of a shed and took the

first thing they happened to lay hands on. They confessed all and

were put in prison, where the locksmith died while awaiting the

trial. The boy was now being tried as a dangerous creature, from

whom society must be protected.

"Just as dangerous a creature as yesterday's culprit," thought

Nekhludoff, listening to all that was going on before him. "They

are dangerous, and we who judge them? I, a rake, an adulterer, a

deceiver. We are not dangerous. But, even supposing that this boy

is the most dangerous of all that are here in the court, what

should be done from a common-sense point of view when he has

been caught? It is clear that he is not an exceptional evil-doer,

but a most ordinary boy; every one sees it--and that he has

become what he is simply because he got into circumstances that

create such characters, and, therefore, to prevent such a boy

from going wrong the circumstances that create these unfortunate

beings must be done away with.

"But what do we do? We seize one such lad who happens to get

caught, knowing well that there are thousands like him whom we

have not caught, and send him to prison, where idleness, or most

unwholesome, useless labour is forced on him, in company of

others weakened and ensnared by the lives they have led. And then

we send him, at the public expense, from the Moscow to the

Irkoutsk Government, in company with the most depraved of men.