want to keep quiet, and he talked about the geological cataclysm … idiocy! Come, release the monster … he’s been singing a hymn. That’s because his heart is light! It’s like a drunken man in the street bawling how ‘Vanka went to Petersburg,’ and I would give a quadrillion quadrillions for two seconds of joy. You don’t know me! Oh, how stupid all this business is! Come, take me instead of him! I didn’t come for nothing. … Why, why is everything so stupid? …”
And he began slowly, and as it were reflectively, looking round him again.
But the court was all excitement by now. Alyosha rushed towards him, but the court usher had already seized Ivan by the arm.
“What are you about?” he cried, staring into the man’s face, and suddenly seizing him by the shoulders, he flung him violently to the floor.
But the police were on the spot and he was seized. He screamed furiously. And all the time he was being removed, he yelled and screamed something incoherent.
The whole court was thrown into confusion. I don’t remember everything as it happened. I was excited myself and could not follow. I only know that afterwards, when everything was quiet again and everyone understood what had happened, the court usher came in for a reprimand, though he very reasonably explained that the witness had been quite well, that the doctor had seen him an hour ago, when he had a slight attack of giddiness, but that, until he had come into the court, he had talked quite consecutively, so that nothing could have been foreseen—that he had, in fact, insisted on giving evidence. But before everyone had completely regained their composure and recovered from this scene, it was followed by another. Katerina Ivanovna had an attack of hysterics. She sobbed, shrieking loudly, but refused to leave the court, struggled, and besought them not to remove