o this discussion by recalling a witness who, by his own account, had begun to stammer and had gone grey owing to a terrible moment. The jurymen decided that before going to sleep, each one of t

oned his own son through giving him zinc vitriol by mistake for soda. The child did not die, but the father nearly went out of his mind. A third, a man not old

ressed, fat little man, t

hat would have become of me if Natasha had refused me. My love was absolutely the real thing, just as it is described in novels - frantic, passionate, and so on. My happiness overwhelmed me and I did not know how to get a

Russia; in those days he was only just beginning to gain recognition and was not rich and famous enough to be entitled to cut an o

red moustache when I know that it is black? As I listen to an orator I may perhaps grow sentimental and weep, but my fundamental conviction, based for the most part on unmistakable evidence and fact, is not changed in the least. My lawyer maintained that I was young and foolish and that I was talking childish nonsense. In his opinion, for one thing, an obvious fact becomes still more obvious through light being thrown upon it by conscientious, well-informed people; for another, talent is an elemental force, a hurricane capable of turning even stones to dust, let alone such trif

alent, though, frankly speaking, I could not have defined exactly what I meant by conv

and that there is not a man in the whole town happier than you. But I tell you: ten or twenty minutes would

lau

enty minutes you will be happy at the thought that you need not get married.

ry it on!

good boy and it would be cruel to subject you to such

e being with youth and happiness. My happiness was so boundless that the lawyer sitting

rsisted. 'Come,

and frowned. Evidently I

your saviour; but you see I must think of your fiancée too. She loves you; your j

He had an extraordinary gift of description. He could knock you off a regular string

r, I speak as a friend, your Natasha Andreyevna is a pearl, a rare girl. Of course she

general, but at the time it seemed to me that he was talking only of Natasha. He went into ecstasies over her turn-up nose, her shrieks, her shrill

presiding judge and no one to check the diffusiveness of the lawyer. I had not time to open my mouth, besides, what could I say? What my friend said was not n

annot reproduce the tone or the form; I can only say that as I listened to my friend and walked up and down the room, I was moved to resentment, indignation, and contempt together with him. I even b

ure you: stop before it is too late. Stop! May Heaven preserve you

e to my fiancée, breaking off the engagement. As I wrote I felt relieved that it was not yet too late to rect

Natasha disappeared into the darkness of the box. 'I

ozen paces with me

for instance, belong to the class of people

e, and lay before me all the hideousn

rdinary family life, and was so eloquent, so sincere in his ecst

id, gasping. 'You have ruined me! Why did you make

men, to imagine a more violent emotion than I experienced at that moment. Oh, what I went through, what I suffered! If some

er won't reach your fiancée. It was not you who wrote the address but I, and I muddled it so they won't be abl

I leave it to t

y, and had just opened his mouth to begin his sto

y the man we are trying? He, that murderer, is spending the night in a convict cell here in the court, sitting or lying down and of cours

ce written a letter to his Natasha had suffered seemed unimportant, even not amusing; and no