I felt no emotion. I was stunned as yet, like a man who has received a blow between the eyes. My brain had turned to stone. I repeated over to myself all that the captain had said. The words wrought no effect. I did not even experience pain as I thought of her. She is dead? I queried. They were three vapid syllables. My senses I had recovered—I could see and hear plainly now—could remember the events of the morning in detail and in their correct order. But somehow I had lost all capacity for feeling.
AND so it continued throughout the inquest and throughout the trial—for, yes, they tried me for my sweetheart’s murder. I ate, drank, slept, and answered the questions that were put to me, all in a dazed, dull way, but suffered no pain, no surprise, no indignation, had no more sensation than a dead man. That Veronika had been killed, and that I was accused of having killed her, were the facts which I heard told and told again from morning till night each day; yet I had not the least conception of what they signified. I was too stunned and benumbed to realize.
The first day passed by, and the second and the third, every one of them busy with events that meant life or death for me: yet I took no notice. When left to myself, invariably I closed my eyes, and the stupor settled over my senses like a cloud of smoke. When aroused, I did whatever was required as passively as an automaton. I remember those first few days as one remembers a hateful dream. I remember being driven in a dark, noisy vehicle from the station-house to the city prison, and having in the latter place a cell assigned to me which was destined to serve as my home for many weeks. I remember making several trips, handcuffed to my custodian, from the jail to the office where the inquest was held and back: but my only recollection of the inquest itself is a confused one—a crowded, foul-smelling room, a chaos of faces and voices, endless talking, endless questioning of myself by men who were strangers to me. I remember that by and by these journeys came to an end: but what the verdict of the inquest was I do not remember—I do not think I troubled myself to ask at the time. Then I remember that after some days spent alone in my cell one of the keepers said, “You are indicted,” and inquired whether I wished to communicate with my attorney. Indicted? My attorney? I did not comprehend. I do not remember what I answered.