Book 1 Chapter 21 The Trial - The Prosecutor and the Advocates

"You see before you, gentlemen of the jury, a crime
characteristic, if I may so express myself, of the end of our
century; bearing, so to say, the specific features of that very
painful phenomenon, the corruption to which those elements of our
present-day society, which are, so to say, particularly exposed
to the burning rays of this process, are subject."

The public prosecutor spoke at great length, trying not to forget
any of the notions he had formed in his mind, and, on the other
hand, never to hesitate, and let his speech flow on for an hour
and a quarter without a break.

Only once he stopped and for some time stood swallowing his
saliva, but he soon mastered himself and made up for the
interruption by heightened eloquence. He spoke, now with a
tender, insinuating accent, stepping from foot to foot and
looking at the jury, now in quiet, business-like tones, glancing
into his notebook, then with a loud, accusing voice, looking from
the audience to the advocates. But he avoided looking at the
prisoners, who were all three fixedly gazing at him. Every new
craze then in vogue among his set was alluded to in his speech;
everything that then was, and some things that still are,
considered to be the last words of scientific wisdom: the laws of
heredity and inborn criminality, evolution and the struggle for
existence, hypnotism and hypnotic influence.

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.