Chapter 13 A Corrupter of Thought

Fetyukovitch opens by claiming the single damning fact is the father’s corpse, and that the word “parricide” distorts weak, fragmentary evidence. He argues Dmitri’s upbringing by an unworthy father bred disorder, not malice, and that Dmitri’s wildness masks a tender, ideal-seeking nature mocked by the prosecutor.

He attacks Katerina Ivanovna’s testimony as a vengeful outcry rather than evidence and cites Christian injunctions about fathers not provoking children, expanding this into a civic sermon: a true father must earn filial love through duty. The courtroom repeatedly breaks into applause despite the President’s attempts to restore order.

Recounting the fatal night, Fetyukovitch insists Dmitri came not for money or murder but for Grushenka; the brass pestle was seized in a blind impulse. Even if Dmitri struck, it was unpremeditated passion, not parricide, and he fled without knowing whether Fyodor was dead. He questions whether Dmitri killed at all.

Turning to punishment and reform, he warns that conviction will harden Dmitri; mercy would pierce his conscience and regenerate him. He invokes Russia’s justice as salvific rather than retributive, urging the jury to acquit and thus defend the spirit of the law. The speech ends amid renewed applause.