Book XII

well deserved such prejudice. Outraged morality, and still more outraged taste, is often relentless. We have, in the talented prosecutor’s speech, heard a stern analysis of the prisoner’s character and conduct, and his severe critical attitude to the case was evident. And, what’s more, he went into psychological subtleties into which he could not have entered, if he had the least conscious and malicious prejudice against the prisoner. But there are things which are even worse, even more fatal in such cases, than the most malicious and consciously unfair attitude. It is worse if we are carried away by the artistic instinct, by the desire to create, so to speak, a romance, especially if God has endowed us with psychological insight. Before I started on my way here, I was warned in Petersburg, and was myself aware, that I should find here a talented opponent whose psychological insight and subtlety had gained him peculiar renown in legal circles of recent years. But profound as psychology is, it’s a knife that cuts both ways.” (Laughter among the public.) “You will, of course, forgive me my comparison; I can’t boast of eloquence. But I will take as an example any point in the prosecutor’s speech.