Resurrection

According to his definition, the merchant Smelkoff was of the

genuine Russian type, and had perished in consequence of his

generous, trusting nature, having fallen into the hands of deeply

degraded individuals.

Simeon Kartinkin was the atavistic production of serfdom, a

stupefied, ignorant, unprincipled man, who had not even any

religion. Euphemia was his mistress, and a victim of heredity;

all the signs of degeneration were noticeable in her. The chief

wire-puller in this affair was Maslova, presenting the phenomenon

of decadence in its lowest form. "This woman," he said, looking

at her, "has, as we have to-day heard from her mistress in this

court, received an education; she cannot only read and write, but

she knows French; she is illegitimate, and probably carries in

her the germs of criminality. She was educated in an enlightened,

noble family and might have lived by honest work, but she deserts

her benefactress, gives herself up to a life of shame in which

she is distinguished from her companions by her education, and

chiefly, gentlemen of the jury, as you have heard from her

mistress, by her power of acting on the visitors by means of that

mysterious capacity lately investigated by science, especially by

the school of Charcot, known by the name of hypnotic influence.

By these means she gets hold of this Russian, this kind-hearted

Sadko, [Sadko, the hero of a legend] the rich guest, and uses his

trust in order first to rob and then pitilessly to murder him."

"Well, he is piling it on now, isn't he?" said the president with

a smile, bending towards the serious member.

"A fearful blockhead!" said the serious member.

Meanwhile the public prosecutor went on with his speech.

"Gentlemen of the jury," gracefully swaying his body, "the fate

of society is to a certain extent in your power. Your verdict

will influence it. Grasp the full meaning of this crime, the

danger that awaits society from those whom I may perhaps be

permitted to call pathological individuals, such as Maslova.

Guard it from infection; guard the innocent and strong elements

of society from contagion or even destruction."

And as if himself overcome by the significance of the expected

verdict, the public prosecutor sank into his chair, highly

delighted with his speech.

The sense of the speech, when divested of all its flowers of

rhetoric, was that Maslova, having gained the merchant's

confidence, hypnotised him and went to his lodgings with his key

meaning to take all the money herself, but having been caught in

the act by Simeon and Euphemia had to share it with them. Then,

in order to hide the traces of the crime, she had returned to the

lodgings with the merchant and there poisoned him.

After the prosecutor had spoken, a middle-aged man in

swallow-tail coat and low-cut waistcoat showing a large

half-circle of starched white shirt, rose from the advocates'

bench and made a speech in defence of Kartinkin and Botchkova;

this was an advocate engaged by them for 300 roubles. He

acquitted them both and put all the blame on Maslova. He denied

the truth of Maslova's statements that Botchkova and Kartinkin

were with her when she took the money, laying great stress on the

point that her evidence could not be accepted, she being charged

with poisoning. "The 2,500 roubles," the advocate said, "could

have been easily earned by two honest people getting from three

to five roubles per day in tips from the lodgers. The merchant's

money was stolen by Maslova and given away, or even lost, as she

was not in a normal state."