The Brothers Karamazov

This section covers the following chapters: “The Fatal Day,” “Dangerous Witnesses,” “Medical Expertise and One Pound of Nuts,” “Fortune Smiles on Mitya,” “A Sudden Catastrophe,” “The Prosecutor’s Speech. Characterizations,” “A Historical Survey,” “A Treatise on Smerdyakov,” “Psychology at Full Steam. The Galloping Troika. The Finale of the Prosecutor’s Speech,” “The Defense Attorney’s Speech. A Stick with Two Ends,” “There Was No Money. There Was No Robbery,” “And There Was No Murder Either,” “An Adulterer of Thought,” and “Our Peasants Stood Up for Themselves.”

The day of the trial arrives. A famous Moscow lawyer, Fetyukovich, is on the defense side. Fetyukovich creates doubt around each of the witnesses’ testimonies by damaging their credibility. Dr. Herzenstube’s testimony helps Dmitri by showing Dmitri’s grateful, thoughtful nature: He says that Dmitri thanked him for a moment of kindness he showed him in childhood when Dr. Herzenstube gave him a pound of nuts.

Alyosha remembers that Dmitri, when angry with himself, beat his own chest and said that he could remove “half the disgrace” from himself (678). Dmitri beat his chest where the amulet was, which supports Dmitri’s claim that he had the money in the amulet and hadn’t stolen the money from Fyodor’s envelope.