“Well, then, what have you decided?”

“One moment.  Tell him,” he said to his assistant, who had just come in, “that I keep to what I have said.  If he can, it’s all right; if not, no matter.”

“But he won’t agree.”

“Well, no matter,” and the advocate frowned.

“There now, and it is said that we advocates get our money for nothing,” he remarked, after a pause.  “I have freed one insolvent debtor from a totally false charge, and now they all flock to me.  Yet every such case costs enormous labour.  Why, don’t we, too, ‘lose bits of flesh in the inkstand?’ as some writer or other has said.  Well, as to your case, or, rather, the case you are taking an interest in.  It has been conducted abominably.  There is no good reason for appealing.  Still,” he continued, “we can but try to get the sentence revoked.  This is what I have noted down.”  He took up several sheets of paper covered with writing, and began to read rapidly, slurring over the uninteresting legal terms and laying particular stress on some sentences.  “To the Court of Appeal, criminal department, etc., etc.  According to the decisions, etc., the verdict, etc., So-and-so Maslova pronounced guilty of having caused the death through poison of the merchant Smelkoff, and has, according to Statute 1454 of the penal code, been sentenced to Siberia,” etc., etc.  He stopped.  Evidently, in spite of his being so used to it, he still felt pleasure in listening to his own productions.  “This sentence is the direct result of the most glaring judicial perversion and error,” he continued, impressively, “and there are grounds for its revocation.  Firstly, the reading of the medical report of the examination of Smelkoff’s intestines was interrupted by the president at the very beginning.  This is point one.”

“But it was the prosecuting side that demanded this reading,” Nekhludoff said, with surprise.

“That does not matter.  There might have been reasons for the defence to demand this reading, too.”

“Oh, but there could have been no reason whatever for that.”

“It is a ground for appeal, though.  To continue:  ‘Secondly,’ he went on reading, ’when Maslova’s advocate, in his speech for the defence, wishing to characterise Maslova’s personality, referred to the causes of her fall, he was interrupted by the president calling him to order for the alleged deviation from the direct subject.  Yet, as has been repeatedly pointed out by the Senate, the elucidation of the criminal’s characteristics and his or her moral standpoint in general has a significance of the first importance in criminal cases, even if only as a guide in the settling of the question of imputation.’  That’s point two,” he said, with a look at Nekhludoff.

“But he spoke so badly that no one could make anything of it,” Nekhludoff said, still more astonished.