Acquittal

Without boasting, I can tell you that, when Volodya struck me across the ear and spat in my face, I really got him, so that he won't forget it. It was only after that that I hit him with his primus and it was evening when I hit him with the iron. So he didn't die straight away by any means. This doesn't prove that I cut his leg off as early as the afternoon. He was still alive then. Whereas Andryusha I killed simply from inertia, and I can't hold myself responsible for that. Why did Andryusha and Yelizaveta Antonovna fall into my hands anyway? They had no business springing out from behind the door. I am being accused of bloodthirstiness; they say I drank blood, but that is not true: I licked up the pools of blood and stains -- it is a man's natural urge to wipe out the traces of even the most trivial of crimes. And also I did not rape Yelizaveta Antonovna. In the first place, she was no longer a virgin; and secondly I was having dealings with a corpse, so she has no cause for complaint. What about the fact that she just happened to have to give birth? Well, I did pull out the infant. The fact that he was not long for this world anyway, well that's really not my fault. I didn't tear his head off; it was his thin neck that did that. He was simply not created for this life. It's true that I stomped their dog to a pulp around the floor, but it's really cynical to accuse me of murdering the dog when in the immediate vicinity, it might be said, three human lives had been obliterated. The infant I don't count. Well, all right then, in all this (I can agree with you) it is possible to discern a degree of severity on my part. But to consider it a crime that I squatted down and defecated on my victims -- that is really, if you'll excuse me, absurd. Defecation is an urge of nature and consequently can in no sense be criminal. All things considered, I do understand the misgivings of my defence counsel, but all the same I am hoping for a complete acquittal.