But the unexpected pronouncement of Doctor Varvinsky gave the last touch of comedy to the difference of opinion between the experts.
In his opinion the prisoner was now, and had been all along, in a perfectly normal condition, and, although he certainly must have been in a nervous and exceedingly excited state before his arrest, this might have been due to several perfectly obvious causes, jealousy, anger, continual drunkenness, and so on.
But this nervous condition would not involve the mental abberation of which mention had just been made.
As to the question whether the prisoner should have looked to the left or to the right on entering the court, "in his modest opinion," the prisoner would naturally look straight before him on entering the court, as he had in fact done, as that was where the judges, on whom his fate depended, were sitting. So that it was just by looking straight before him that he showed his perfectly normal state of mind at the present. The young doctor concluded his "modest" testimony with some heat.
"Bravo, doctor!" cried Mitya, from his seat, "just so!"
Mitya, of course, was checked, but the young doctor's opinion had a decisive influence on the judges and on the public, and, as appeared afterwards, everyone agreed with him.
But Doctor Herzenstube, when called as a witness, was quite unexpectedly of use to Mitya.
As an old resident in the town, who had known the Karamazov family for years, he furnished some facts of great value for the prosecution, and suddenly, as though recalling something, he added:
"But the poor young man might have had a very different life, for he had a good heart both in childhood and after childhood, that I know.
But the Russian proverb says,
'If a man has one head, it's good, but if another clever man comes to visit him, it would be better still, for then there will be two heads and not only one."'
"One head is good, but two are better," the prosecutor put in impatiently. He knew the old man's habit of talking slowly and deliberately, regardless of the impression he was making and of the delay he was causing, and highly prizing his flat, dull and always gleefully complacent German wit.
The old man was fond of making jokes.
"Oh, yes, that's what I say," he went on stubbornly. "One head is good, but two are much better, but he did not meet another head with wits, and his wits went. Where did they go?
I've forgotten the word." He went on, passing his hand before his eyes, "Oh, yes, spazieren."* * Promenading.
"Wandering?"
"Oh, yes, wandering, that's what I say.
Well, his wits went wandering and fell in such a deep hole that he lost himself.
And yet he was a grateful and sensitive boy. Oh, I remember him very well, a little chap so high, left neglected by his father in the back yard, when he ran about without boots on his feet, and his little breeches hanging by one button."
A note of feeling and tenderness suddenly came into the honest old man's voice.
Fetyukovitch positively started, as though scenting something, and caught at it instantly.
"Oh, yes, I was a young man then.... I was... well, I was forty-five then, and had only just come here.
And I was so sorry for the boy then; I asked myself why shouldn't I buy him a pound of... a pound of what?
I've forgotten what it's called. A pound of what children are very fond of, what is it, what is it?" The doctor began waving his hands again. "It grows on a tree and is gathered and given to everyone..."
"Apples?"
"Oh, no, no.
You have a dozen of apples, not a pound.... No, there are a lot of them, and call little. You put them in the mouth and crack."
"Quite so, nuts, I say so." The doctor repeated in the calmest way as though he had been at no loss for a word. "And I bought him a pound of nuts, for no one had ever bought the boy a pound of nuts before. And I lifted my finger and said to him,
'Boy, Gott der Vater.' He laughed and said,
'Gott der Vater'... 'Gott der Sohn.' He laughed again and lisped
'Gott der Sohn.' 'Gott der heilige Geist.' Then he laughed and said as best he could,
'Gott der heilige Geist.'
I went away, and two days after I happened to be passing, and he shouted to me of himself,
'Uncle, Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn,' and he had only forgotten
'Gott der heilige Geist.' But I reminded him of it and I felt very sorry for him again.
But he was taken away, and I did not see him again.
Twenty-three years passed. I am sitting one morning in my study, a white-haired old man, when there walks into the room a blooming young man, whom I should never have recognised, but he held up his finger and said, laughing,
'Gott der Vater, Gott der Sohn, and Gott der heilige Geist.
I have just arrived and have come to thank you for that pound of nuts, for no one else ever bought me a pound of nuts; you are the only one that ever did.' then I remembered my happy youth and the poor child in the yard, without boots on his feet, and my heart was touched and I said,
'You are a grateful young man, for you have remembered all your life the pound of nuts I bought you in your childhood.'
And I embraced him and blessed him.
And I shed tears.
He laughed, but he shed tears, too... for the Russian often laughs when he ought to be weeping.
But he did weep; I saw it.
And now, alas!..."
"And I am weeping now, German, I am weeping now, too, you saintly man," Mitya cried suddenly.
In any case the anecdote made a certain favourable impression on the public.
But the chief sensation in Mitya's favour was created by the evidence of Katerina Ivanovna, which I will describe directly.
Indeed, when the witnesses a decharge, that is, called the defence, began giving evidence, fortune seemed all at once markedly more favourable to Mitya, and what was particularly striking, this was a surprise even to the counsel for the defence.
But before Katerina Ivanovna was called, Alyosha was examined, and he recalled a fact which seemed to furnish positive evidence against one important point made by the prosecution.