According to his definition, the merchant Smelkoff was of the genuine Russian type, and had perished in consequence of his generous, trusting nature, having fallen into the hands of deeply degraded individuals.

Simeon Kartinkin was the atavistic production of serfdom, a stupefied, ignorant, unprincipled man, who had not even any religion.  Euphemia was his mistress, and a victim of heredity; all the signs of degeneration were noticeable in her.  The chief wire-puller in this affair was Maslova, presenting the phenomenon of decadence in its lowest form.  “This woman,” he said, looking at her, “has, as we have to-day heard from her mistress in this court, received an education; she cannot only read and write, but she knows French; she is illegitimate, and probably carries in her the germs of criminality.  She was educated in an enlightened, noble family and might have lived by honest work, but she deserts her benefactress, gives herself up to a life of shame in which she is distinguished from her companions by her education, and chiefly, gentlemen of the jury, as you have heard from her mistress, by her power of acting on the visitors by means of that mysterious capacity lately investigated by science, especially by the school of Charcot, known by the name of hypnotic influence.  By these means she gets hold of this Russian, this kind-hearted Sadko, [Sadko, the hero of a legend] the rich guest, and uses his trust in order first to rob and then pitilessly to murder him.”

“Well, he is piling it on now, isn’t he?” said the president with a smile, bending towards the serious member.

“A fearful blockhead!” said the serious member.

Meanwhile the public prosecutor went on with his speech.  “Gentlemen of the jury,” gracefully swaying his body, “the fate of society is to a certain extent in your power.  Your verdict will influence it.  Grasp the full meaning of this crime, the danger that awaits society from those whom I may perhaps be permitted to call pathological individuals, such as Maslova.  Guard it from infection; guard the innocent and strong elements of society from contagion or even destruction.”

And as if himself overcome by the significance of the expected verdict, the public prosecutor sank into his chair, highly delighted with his speech.

The sense of the speech, when divested of all its flowers of rhetoric, was that Maslova, having gained the merchant’s confidence, hypnotised him and went to his lodgings with his key meaning to take all the money herself, but having been caught in the act by Simeon and Euphemia had to share it with them.  Then, in order to hide the traces of the crime, she had returned to the lodgings with the merchant and there poisoned him.