Such mingled feelings filled Nekhludoff’s breast as he sat listening to the examination of the witnesses.

FOOTNOTES: 

[Footnote E:  A contemptuous diminutive of Liuba.  Tr.]

CHAPTER XX.

As if to spite him, the case dragged out to a weary length.  After the examination of the witnesses and the expert, and after all the unnecessary questions by the prosecutor and the attorneys, usually made with an important air, the justiciary told the jury to look at the exhibits, which consisted of an enormous ring with a diamond rosette, evidently made for the forefinger, and a glass tube containing the poison.  These were sealed and labeled.

The jury were preparing to view these things, when the prosecutor rose again and demanded that before the exhibits were examined the medical report of the condition of the body be read.

The justiciary was hurrying the case, and though he knew that the reading of the report would only bring ennui and delay the dinner, and that the prosecutor demanded it only because he had the right to do so, he could not refuse the request and gave his consent.  The secretary produced the report, and, lisping the letters l and r, began to read in a sad voice.

The external examination disclosed: 

1.  The height of Therapout Smelkoff was six feet five inches.

“But what a huge fellow,” the merchant whispered in Nekhludoff’s ear with solicitude.

2.  From external appearances he seemed to be about forty years of age.

3.  The body had a swollen appearance.

4.  The color of the pall was green, streaked with dark spots.

5.  The skin on the surface of the body rose in bubbles of various sizes, and in places hung in patches.

6.  The hair was dark and thick, and fell off at a slight touch.

7.  The eyes came out of their orbits, and the pupils were dull.

8.  A frothy, serous fluid flowed continuously from the cavity of the mouth, the nostrils and ears.  The mouth was half open.

9.  The neck almost disappeared in the swelling of the face and breast, et cetera, et cetera.

Thus, over four pages and twenty-seven clauses, ran the description of the external appearance of the terrible, large, stout, swollen and decomposing body of the merchant who amused himself in the city.  The loathing which Nekhludoff felt increased with the reading of the description.  Katiousha’s life, the sanies running from the nostrils, the eyes that came out of their sockets, and his conduct toward her—­all seemed to him to belong to the same order, and he was surrounded and swallowed up by these things.  When the reading was finally over, the justiciary sighed deeply and raised his head in the hope that it was all over, but the secretary immediately began to read the report on the internal condition of the body.