In his speech he proved that the theft had been committed from a dwelling-place, and a lock had been broken; and that the boy, therefore, deserved a heavy punishment.  The advocate appointed by the Court proved that the theft was not committed from a dwelling-place, and that, though the crime was a serious one, the prisoner was not so very dangerous to society as the prosecutor stated.  The president assumed the role of absolute neutrality in the same way as he had done on the previous day, and impressed on the jury facts which they all knew and could not help knowing.  Then came an interval, just as the day before, and they smoked; and again the usher called out “The judges are coming,” and in the same way the two gendarmes sat trying to keep awake and threatening the prisoner with their naked weapons.

The proceedings showed that this boy was apprenticed by his father at a tobacco factory, where he remained five years.  This year he had been discharged by the owner after a strike, and, having lost his place, he wandered about the town without any work, drinking all he possessed.  In a traktir [cheap restaurant] he met another like himself, who had lost his place before the prisoner had, a locksmith by trade and a drunkard.  One night, those two, both drunk, broke the lock of a shed and took the first thing they happened to lay hands on.  They confessed all and were put in prison, where the locksmith died while awaiting the trial.  The boy was now being tried as a dangerous creature, from whom society must be protected.

“Just as dangerous a creature as yesterday’s culprit,” thought Nekhludoff, listening to all that was going on before him.  “They are dangerous, and we who judge them?  I, a rake, an adulterer, a deceiver.  We are not dangerous.  But, even supposing that this boy is the most dangerous of all that are here in the court, what should be done from a common-sense point of view when he has been caught?  It is clear that he is not an exceptional evil-doer, but a most ordinary boy; every one sees it—­and that he has become what he is simply because he got into circumstances that create such characters, and, therefore, to prevent such a boy from going wrong the circumstances that create these unfortunate beings must be done away with.

“But what do we do?  We seize one such lad who happens to get caught, knowing well that there are thousands like him whom we have not caught, and send him to prison, where idleness, or most unwholesome, useless labour is forced on him, in company of others weakened and ensnared by the lives they have led.  And then we send him, at the public expense, from the Moscow to the Irkoutsk Government, in company with the most depraved of men.