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.