“You mean to say that the penitentiary system should be improved.”
“It cannot be improved. Improved prisons would cost more than all that is being now spent on the people’s education, and would lay a still heavier burden on the people.”
“The shortcomings of the penitentiary system in nowise invalidate the law itself,” Rogozhinsky continued again, without heeding his brother-in-law.
“There is no remedy for these shortcomings,” said Nekhludoff, raising his voice.
“What of that? Shall we therefore go and kill, or, as a certain statesman proposed, go putting out people’s eyes?” Rogozhinsky remarked.
“Yes; that would be cruel, but it would be effective. What is done now is cruel, and not only ineffective, but so stupid that one cannot understand how people in their senses can take part in so absurd and cruel a business as criminal law.”
“But I happen to take part in it,” said Rogozhinsky, growing pale.
“That is your business. But to me it is incomprehensible.”
“I think there are a good many things incomprehensible to you,” said Rogozhinsky, with a trembling voice.
“I have seen how one public prosecutor did his very best to get an unfortunate boy condemned, who could have evoked nothing but sympathy in an unperverted mind. I know how another cross-examined a sectarian and put down the reading of the Gospels as a criminal offence; in fact, the whole business of the Law Courts consists in senseless and cruel actions of that sort.”