“He is no great talker, but so much the better. There’s no need for the Petersburg man to teach him: he could teach all Petersburg himself. He’s the father of twelve children. Think of that!”
“Upon my word, you don’t suppose they won’t acquit him?” one of our young officials exclaimed in another group.
“They’ll acquit him for certain,” said a resolute voice.
“It would be shameful, disgraceful, not to acquit him!” cried the official. “Suppose he did murder him—there are fathers and fathers! And, besides, he was in such a frenzy. … He really may have done nothing but swing the pestle in the air, and so knocked the old man down. But it was a pity they dragged the valet in. That was simply an absurd theory! If I’d been in Fetyukovitch’s place, I should simply have said straight out: ‘He murdered him; but he is not guilty, hang it all!’ ”
“That’s what he did, only without saying, ‘Hang it all!’ ”
“No, Mihail Semyonovitch, he almost said that, too,” put in a third voice.
“Why, gentlemen, in Lent an actress was acquitted in our town who had cut the throat of her lover’s lawful wife.”
“Oh, but she did not finish cutting it.”
“That makes no difference. She began cutting it.”
“What did you think of what he said about children? Splendid, wasn’t it?”
“Splendid!”
“And about mysticism, too!”