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."