After the last words of the prisoners had been heard, the form in
which the questions were to be put to the jury was settled, which
also took some time. At last the questions were formulated, and
the president began the summing up.
Before putting the case to the jury, he spoke to them for some
time in a pleasant, homely manner, explaining that burglary was
burglary and theft was theft, and that stealing from a place
which was under lock and key was stealing from a place under lock
and key. While he was explaining this, he looked several times at
Nekhludoff as if wishing to impress upon him these important
facts, in hopes that, having understood it, Nekhludoff would make
his fellow-jurymen also understand it. When he considered that
the jury were sufficiently imbued with these facts, he proceeded
to enunciate another truth--namely, that a murder is an action
which has the death of a human being as its consequence, and that
poisoning could therefore also be termed murder. When, according
to his opinion, this truth had also been received by the jury, he
went on to explain that if theft and murder had been committed at
the same time, the combination of the crimes was theft with
murder.
Although he was himself anxious to finish as soon as possible,
although he knew that his Swiss friend would be waiting for him,
he had grown so used to his occupation that, having begun to
speak, he could not stop himself, and therefore he went on to
impress on the jury with much detail that if they found the
prisoners guilty, they would have the right to give a verdict of
guilty; and if they found them not guilty, to give a verdict of
not guilty; and if they found them guilty of one of the crimes
and not of the other, they might give a verdict of guilty on the
one count and of not guilty on the other. Then he explained that
though this right was given them they should use it with reason.
He was going to add that if they gave an affirmative answer to
any question that was put to them they would thereby affirm
everything included in the question, so that if they did not wish
to affirm the whole of the question they should mention the part
of the question they wished to be excepted. But, glancing at the
clock, and seeing it was already five minutes to three, he
resolved to trust to their being intelligent enough to understand
this without further comment.
"The facts of this case are the following," began the president,
and repeated all that had already been said several times by the
advocates, the public prosecutor and the witnesses.
The president spoke, and the members on each side of him listened
with deeply-attentive expressions, but looked from time to time
at the clock, for they considered the speech too long though very
good--i.e., such as it ought to be. The public prosecutor, the
lawyers, and, in fact, everyone in the court, shared the same
impression. The president finished the summing up. Then he found
it necessary to tell the jury what they all knew, or might have
found out by reading it up--i.e., how they were to consider the
case, count the votes, in case of a tie to acquit the prisoners,
and so on.