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- 134 CRIME AND PUNISHMENT
man and who has more opportunity than any one else for study-
ing human nature — how can you fail to see the character of
the man in the whole story? Don't you see at once that the an-
swers hehas given in the examination are the holy truth? They
came into his hand precisely as he has told us — he stepped on
the box and picked it up."
"The holy truth! But didn't he own himself that he told a
lie at first?"
"Listen to me, listen attentively. The porter and Koch and
Peitryakov and the other porter and the wife of the first porter
and the woman who was sitting in the porter's lodge and the
man Kryukov, who had just got out of a cab at that minute and
went in at the entry with a lady on his arm, that is eight or ten
witnesses, agree that Nikolay had Dmitri on the ground, was
lying on him beating him, while Dmitri hung on to his hair,
beating him, too. They lay right across the way, blocking the
thoroughfare. They were sworn at on all sides while they 'like
children' (the very words of the witnesses) were falling over
one another, squealing, fighting and laughing with the funniest
faces, and, chasing one another like children, they ran into the
street. Now take careful note. The bodies upstairs were warm,
you understand, warm when they found them! If they, or
Nikolay alone, had murdered them and broken open the boxes,
or simply taken part in the robbery, allow me to ask you one
question: do their state of mind, their squeals and giggles and
childish scuffling at the gate fit in with axes, bloodshed, fiendish
cunning, robbery? They'd just killed them, not five or ten
minutes before, for the bodies were still warm, and at once, leav-
ing the flat open, knowing that people would go there at once,
flinging away their booty, they rolled about like children, laugh-
ing and attracting general attention. And there are a dozen
witnesses to swear to that!"
"Of course it is strange! It's impossible, indeed, but . . ."
"No, brother, no huts. And if the ear-rings' being found in
Nikolay's hands at the very day and hour of the murder con-
stitutes animportant piece of circumstantial evidence against
him — although the explanation given by him accounts for it,
and therefore it does not tell seriously against him — one must
take into consideration the facts which prove him innocent,
especially as they are facts that cannot be denied. And do you
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