‘ 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 recognized, 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.’ And 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 favorable impression on the public. But the chief sensation in Mitya’s favor was created by the evidence of Katerina Ivanovna, which I will describe directly. Indeed, when the witnesses à décharge , that is, called by the defense, began giving evidence, fortune seemed all at once markedly more favorable to Mitya, and what was particularly striking, this was a surprise even to the counsel for the defense. 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.