VIII. The Third and Last Meeting with Smerdyakov

He was still only halfway there when a sharp, dry wind rose, the same as there had been early that morning, and a fine, thick, dry snow began to fall. It fell on the ground without sticking to it, the wind whirled it about, and soon a regular blizzard was blowing. In the part of town where Smerdyakov lived there are almost no streetlamps. Ivan Fyodorovich strode along in the darkness, not noticing the blizzard, making out the road by instinct. His head ached and there was a tormenting pounding in his temples. In his wrists, he could feel it, there were cramps. A little before he reached Marya Kondratyevna’s little house, Ivan Fyodorovich suddenly came upon a solitary drunk, a puny little peasant in a patched coat, walking in zigzags, grumbling and cursing, and then suddenly leaving off cursing and starting up a song in a hoarse drunken voice:

Ah, Vanka’s gone off to Piter,
I won’t wait for him to come!

But he kept breaking off at that second line and starting to curse someone again, then suddenly striking up the same song once more. Ivan Fyodorovich had long been feeling a terrible hatred for him, before he had even thought about him at all, and suddenly he became aware of him. At once he felt an irresistible longing to knock the little peasant down with a blow of his fist from above. Just at that moment they came abreast, and the little peasant, lurching heavily, suddenly bumped into Ivan with all his might. Ivan shoved him away furiously. The little peasant went flying and smacked down like a log on the frozen ground, moaning painfully just once: “O-oh!” and went silent. Ivan stepped up to him. He was lying on his back, completely motionless, unconscious. “He’ll freeze!” thought Ivan, and strode on again to Smerdyakov’s.

While he was still in the entryway, Marya Kondratyevna, who had run out with a candle in her hand to open the door, began whispering to him that Pavel Fyodorovich (that is, Smerdyakov) was awful sick, sir, it wasn’t that he was lying down, sir, but almost as if he wasn’t in his right mind, sir, and he had even told them to take away the tea, he didn’t want to drink it.

“Why, is he getting violent, or what?” Ivan Fyodorovich asked rudely.

“Oh no, on the contrary, he’s quite quiet, sir, only don’t talk with him very long…” Marya Kondratyevna begged.

Ivan Fyodorovich opened the door and stepped into the room.

It was as heavily heated as the time before, but certain changes could be noticed in the room: one of the side benches had been carried out, and in its place had appeared a big old leather sofa of imitation mahogany. A bed had been made up on it, with fairly clean white pillows. Smerdyakov was sitting on the bed, still in the same dressing gown of his. The table had been moved in front of the sofa, so that it had become very cramped in the room. On the table lay some thick book in a yellow cover, but Smerdyakov was not reading it; he was, it seemed, sitting and doing nothing. He met Ivan Fyodorovich with a long, silent look and, apparently, was not in the least surprised at his coming. His face had changed greatly; he had grown very thin and sallow. His eyes had sunk, his lower eyelids had turned blue.

“So you really are ill?” Ivan Fyodorovich stopped. “I won’t keep you long, and I won’t even take off my coat. Where can a man sit down here?”

He went around to the other end of the table, pulled a chair up to it, and sat down.

“Why do you look at me and say nothing? I’ve come with just one question, and I swear I won’t leave you without an answer: was the young lady here to see you, Katerina Ivanovna?”

Smerdyakov was silent a long while, still looking quietly at Ivan as before, but suddenly waved his hand and turned his face away from him.

“What’s the matter with you?” exclaimed Ivan.

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“Well, she was, well, and it’s all the same to you. Leave me alone, sir.”

“No, I won’t leave you alone! Speak, when was she here?”

“Why, I’ve forgotten even to remember about her,” Smerdyakov grinned contemptuously, and suddenly, again turning his face toward Ivan, fixed on him a sort of frenziedly hateful look, the very same look with which he had looked at him at that meeting a month before.

“You’re ill yourself, it seems; look how drawn you are, you look like death,” he said to Ivan.

“Leave my health alone, answer what you’re asked.”

“And why have your eyes gone yellow, the whites are quite yellow. Are you tormenting yourself very much, or what?”

He grinned contemptuously and suddenly broke into outright laughter.

“Listen, I said I wouldn’t leave you without an answer!” Ivan shouted in terrible irritation.

“Why do you keep pestering me, sir? Why do you torment me?” Smerdyakov said with suffering.

“Ah, the devil! I have no business with you. Answer the question and I’ll leave at once.”

“I have nothing to answer you!” Smerdyakov looked down again.

“I assure you I will make you answer!”

“Why do you keep worrying?” Smerdyakov suddenly stared at him, not exactly with contempt, but almost with a sort of squeamish disgust now. “Is it because the trial starts tomorrow? But nothing will happen to you, rest assured of that at last! Go home, lie down and sleep easy, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

“I don’t understand you… what should I be afraid of tomorrow?” Ivan brought out in surprise, and suddenly a sort of fright really did blow coldly on his soul. Smerdyakov measured him with his eyes.

“You don’t un-der-stand?” he drawled reproachfully. “Fancy a clever man wanting to put on such a comedy!”

Ivan looked at him in silence. This unexpected tone alone, a quite unheard-of, haughty sort of tone, in which this former lackey of his now addressed him, was extraordinary. There had been no such tone even the last time.

“I tell you, you have nothing to be afraid of. I won’t testify to anything against you, there’s no evidence. Look how your hands are shaking. What are your fingers twitching for? Go home, it was not you who killed him.”

Ivan started; he remembered Alyosha.

“I know it wasn’t me…” he began to murmur.

“You kno-o-ow?” Smerdyakov caught him up again.

Ivan jumped up and seized him by the shoulder:

“Tell me everything, you viper! Tell me everything!”

Smerdyakov was not in the least frightened. He only fastened his eyes on him with insane hatred.

“Well, it was you who killed him, then, if that’s how it is,” he whispered to him furiously.

Ivan sank onto his chair, as though he had reasoned something out. He grinned spitefully.

“Is it all about that time again? The same as last time?”

“Last time too you stood before me and understood everything, and you understand now too.”

“All I understand is that you’re mad.”

“Doesn’t a man ever get tired of it! Here we sit face to face, so why, it would seem, should we fool each other, play a comedy? Or do you still want to put it all on me alone, and to my face? You killed him, you are the main murderer, and I was only your henchman, your faithful servant Lichard, and I did this deed at your word.”

“Did it? But was it you who killed him?” Ivan went cold.

Something seemed to shake in his brain, and he began to tremble all over with a fine, cold trembling. At this point Smerdyakov himself looked at him in surprise: probably Ivan’s fright had at last struck him by its sincerity.

“But can it be that you really didn’t know anything?” he murmured mistrustfully, grinning crookedly into his eyes.

Ivan kept looking at him; it was as though his tongue had been taken away.

Ah, Vanka’s gone off to Piter,
I won’t wait for him to come,

suddenly rang in his head.

“You know what: I’m afraid that you’re a dream, that it’s a ghost sitting in front of me?” he murmured.

“There’s no ghost here at all, sir, except the two of us, sir, and also a certain third one. Without doubtation, he is here now, this third one, he is present, between the two of us.”

“Who is he? Who is present? Who is the third?” Ivan Fyodorovich said in fright, looking around and hastily searching for someone with his eyes in all the corners.

“This third one is God, sir, Providence itself, sir, it is here now beside us, sir, only don’t you look for it, you won’t find it.”

“You lied when you said you killed him!” Ivan howled furiously. “You’re either mad or you’re teasing me, as you did last time!”

Smerdyakov, as before, not frightened at all, kept watching him searchingly. He still could not overcome his mistrust; it still seemed to him that Ivan “knew everything” and was only pretending so as “to put it all on him alone, and to his face.”

“Wait, sir,” he said at last in a weak voice, and suddenly, pulling his left leg out from under the table, he began rolling up his trouser leg. The leg turned out to be in a long white stocking and shod in a slipper. Without hurrying, Smerdyakov took off his garter and thrust his fingers deep into the stocking. Ivan Fyodorovich looked at him and suddenly began to shake in convulsive fright.

“Madman!” he howled and, quickly jumping up from his place, staggered back so that he struck his back against the wall and seemed to stick to the wall, drawn out straight as a thread. He was looking at Smerdyakov in insane horror. Smerdyakov, not in the least disconcerted by his fright, was still rummaging in the stocking, as though still struggling to catch hold of something in it with his fingers and draw it out. At last he caught hold of it and began to tug. Ivan Fyodorovich saw that it was some papers or some bundle of papers. Smerdyakov pulled it out and laid it on the table.

“Here, sir!” he said quietly.

“What?” answered Ivan, trembling.

“Kindly take a look, sir,” Smerdyakov said just as quietly.

Ivan stepped up to the table, took hold of the bundle and began unwrapping it, but suddenly snatched his fingers back as though at the touch of some loathsome, terrible viper.

“Your fingers keep shaking, sir, in a cramp,” Smerdyakov remarked, and unhurriedly unwrapped the paper himself. Under the wrapping there turned out to be three packets of rainbow-colored hundred-ruble notes.

“It’s all here, sir, all three thousand, you needn’t even count it. Take it, sir,” he invited Ivan, nodding at the money. Ivan sank onto his chair. He was as white as a handkerchief.

“You frightened me… with that stocking…” he said, grinning somehow strangely.

“Can it be, can it be that you really didn’t know till now?” Smerdyakov asked once more.

“No, I didn’t know. I kept thinking it was Dmitri. Brother! Brother! Ah!” He suddenly seized his head in both hands. “Listen: did you kill him by yourself? Without my brother, or with my brother?”

“Only together with you, sir; I killed him together with you, sir, and Dmitri Fyodorovich is as innocent as can be, sir.”

“All right, all right… About me later. Why do I keep trembling… I can’t get a word out.”

“You were so bold then, sir, ‘everything is permitted,’ you used to say, sir, and now look how frightened you are!” Smerdyakov murmured in wonder. “Wouldn’t you like some lemonade, I’ll have some made this minute, sir. It can be very refreshing. Only this ought to be covered up first, sir.”

And he nodded at the packets again. He made a move to get up and call through the door to Marya Kondratyevna to have her make lemonade and bring it in, but, looking for something to cover the money with so that she would not see it, he first took out his handkerchief, but as that again turned out to be completely snotted up, he took from the table the single thick yellow book that lay on it, which Ivan had noticed on coming in, and weighed the money down with it. The title of the book was: The Homilies of Our Holy Father Isaac the Syrian. Ivan Fyodorovich had time to read the title mechanically.

“I don’t want lemonade,” he said. “About me later. Sit down and tell me: how did you do it? Tell me everything…”

“You might at least take off your coat, sir, or you’ll get all in a sweat.”

Ivan Fyodorovich, as though only now realizing it, tore off his coat and, without rising from the chair, flung it onto the bench.

“Speak, then, please, speak!”

He seemed to have grown calm. He waited confidently for Smerdyakov to tell him everything now.

“About how it was done, sir?” Smerdyakov sighed. “It was done in the most natural manner, sir, from those very words of yours…”

“About my words later,” Ivan interrupted again, but no longer shouting as before, pronouncing his words firmly and as though he had completely mastered himself. “Just tell me in detail how you did it. Everything in order. Don’t forget anything. Details, details above all. I beg you.”

“You left, and then I fell into the cellar, sir…”

“In a fit, or did you sham it?”

“Of course I shammed it, sir. I shammed it all. I went down the stairs calmly, sir, to the very bottom, sir, and calmly lay down, sir, and when I’d lain down, then I howled. And thrashed about until they carried me out.”

“Wait! And all the time, and afterward, and in the hospital, were you shamming all along?”

“No, sir, not at all. The very next day, in the morning, before the hospital even, a real one struck, and so strong that there hadn’t been one like it for many years. For two days I was completely unconscious.”

“All right, all right. Go on.”

“They laid me on that cot, sir; I knew it would be behind the partition, sir, because Marfa Ignatyevna, every time I was ill, always put me for the night behind that very partition in her quarters, sir. She was always tender to me, ever since I was born, sir. In the night I moaned, sir, only quietly. I kept waiting for Dmitri Fyodorovich.”

“Waiting how, for him to come to you?”

“Why to me? I was waiting for him to come to the house, because there was no doubtation left for me that he would come that very night, for, havin’ lost me and havin’ no information, he would have to climb into the house over the fence himself for certain sure, sir, the way he knew how, sir, and do whatever there was to do.”

“And if he hadn’t come?”

“Then there wouldn’t have been anything, sir. Without him I wouldn’t have ventured.”

“All right, all right… speak more clearly, don’t hurry, and above all don’t leave anything out!”

“I was expecting him to kill Fyodor Pavlovich, sir… that for sure, sir. Because I had got him so prepared… in the last days, sir… and above all he had come to know those signals. With his suspiciousness and the fury that had piled up in him those days, he was bound for certain sure to get into the very house through the signals, sir. For certain sure. That’s how I was expecting him, sir.”

“Wait,” Ivan interrupted, “why, if he had killed him, he would have taken the money and carried it off; that’s precisely how you must have reasoned, isn’t it? So what would have been left for you after him? I don’t see.”

“But he would never have found the money, sir. It was only me who taught him that the money was under the mattress. Only that wasn’t true, sir. Before, it lay in the little box-case, that’s how it was, sir. And then I taught Fyodor Pavlovich, since he trusted me alone in all mankind, to move that very envelope with the money into the corner behind the icons, because no one at all would guess there, especially if he came in a hurry. So there it lay, that envelope, in his corner behind the icons, sir. And to keep it under the mattress would have been downright ridiculous; in the box-case at least it was under lock and key. And now everyone here believes it was supposedly lying under the mattress. A stupid reasoning, sir. So, if Dmitri Fyodorovich had committed that very murderment, then, finding nothing, he would either have run off in a hurry, sir, afraid of every rustle, as always happens with murderers, or he’d have been arrested, sir. So then I could always, sir, the next day or even that very same night, sir, climb up behind the icons and carry off that very money, sir, and it would all have fallen on Dmitri Fyodorovich. That I could always count on.”

“Well, and if he hadn’t killed him, but only beaten him?”

“If he hadn’t killed him, then of course I wouldn’t have dared to take the money, and it would have stayed there for nothing. But there was also this calculation, that he’d beat him senseless, and I’d have time to take it meanwhile, and then afterward I’d make my reportation to Fyodor Pavlovich that it was none other than Dmitri Fyodorovich who, havin’ beaten him, made off with the money.”

“Wait… I’m getting muddled. So it was Dmitri who killed him after all, and you only took the money?”

“No, it wasn’t he who killed him, sir. Well, I could tell you even now that he’s the murderer… but I don’t want to lie before you now, because… because if you really, as I see myself, understood nothing till now and weren’t pretending before me so as to put your open guilt on me, and to my face, then you are guilty of everything all the same, sir, for you knew about the murder, sir, and charged me with the killing, sir, and went away yourself, knowin’ everything. That is why I want to prove it to your face this evening, that the main murderer in all this is you alone, sir, and I am only the very least main one, though it was I who killed him. And you are the most lawful murderer of all!”

“Why, why am I a murderer? Oh God!” Ivan could not hold out at last, forgetting that he had put off everything about himself until the end of the conversation. “Is it still that same Chermashnya? Wait, tell me, why did you need my consent, if you had already taken Chermashnya for consent? How will you explain that now?”

“Being sure of your consent, I would have known that, when you came back, you wouldn’t raise an outcry over that lost three thousand, if for some reason the authorities suspected me instead of Dmitri Fyodorovich, or suspected me as Dmitri Fyodorovich’s accomplice; on the contrary, you would have protected me from the others… And having got the inheritance, you could reward me afterward too, sometime, all the rest of my life, because, after all, it was through me that you had been pleased to get that inheritance, otherwise, if he’d married Agrafena Alexandrovna, all you’d have got is a fig.”

“Ah! So you meant to torment me afterward too, all my life!” Ivan ground out. “And what if I hadn’t left then, but had denounced you?”

“And what could you have denounced then? That I was talking you into going to Chermashnya? Why, that’s nonsense, sir. Besides, after our conversation you would either go or stay. If you stayed, then nothing would have happened, I would have known, sir, that you didn’t want this business, and I wouldn’t have undertaken anything. And if you did go, then it meant you had assured me that you wouldn’t dare denounce me in court and would forgive me that three thousand. And you couldn’t have prosecuted me afterward at all, because then I would have told everything in court, sir, that is, not that I stole or killed, I wouldn’t have said that, sir, but that you yourself incited me to steal and kill, and I only didn’t agree. That’s why I needed your consent then, so that you couldn’t corner me with anything, sir, because where would you have the proof of it, whereas I could always corner you, sir, by revealing what a thirst you had for your parent’s death, and I give you my word, the public would all have believed it, and you would have been ashamed for the rest of your life.”

“So I had it, I had that thirst, did I?” Ivan ground out again.

“Undoubtedly you had it, sir, and by your consent you silently permitted me this business then, sir,” Smerdyakov looked firmly at Ivan. He was very weak and spoke quietly and wearily, but something inward and hidden was kindling him; he evidently had some intention. Ivan sensed it.

“Go on,” he said to him, “go on about that night.”

“What more is there, sir! So I’m lying there and I hear as if the master cried out. And before that Grigory Vasilyich suddenly got up and went out and suddenly howled, then all was quiet, darkness. I’m lying there, waiting, my heart pounding, I can’t bear it. At last I got up and went, sir; I see the window to the left, onto the garden, is open at his place, and I took another step to the left, sir, to listen whether he was sitting there alive or not, and I hear the master tossing about and groaning, so he’s alive, sir. Ah, I think! I went up to the window and called to the master: ‘It’s me,’ I says. And he says to me: ‘He was here, he was here, he ran away!’ Meaning Dmitri Fyodorovich had been there, sir. ‘He’s killed Grigory!’ ‘Where?’ I whisper to him. ‘There, in the corner,’ he points, whispering too. ‘Wait,’ I say. I went to the corner to look and by the wall I stumbled on Grigory Vasilyevich lying there, all covered in blood, unconscious. So it’s true that Dmitri Fyodorovich was here, it jumped into my head at once, and right then and there I decided to finish it all off suddenly, sir, since Grigory Vasilyevich, even if he was still alive, lying unconscious, wouldn’t see anything for now. There was only one risk, sir, that Marfa Ignatyevna might suddenly wake up. I felt that at that moment, only that thirst had taken hold of me entirely, it fair took my breath away. I came back under the master’s window and I say: ‘She’s here, she’s come, Agrafena Alexandrovna is here, she’s asking to be let in.’ Why, he just started all over, like a baby: ‘Where is she? Where?’ he’s gasping, and still he doesn’t believe it. ‘She’s standing there,’ I say, ‘open the door!’ He looks at me through the window, and he believes and he doesn’t believe, and he’s afraid to open, it’s me he’s afraid of, I think. And it was funny, too: suddenly I took it into my head to tap out those very signals on the window frame, meaning that Grushenka had come, right there before his eyes: he didn’t seem to believe my words, but as soon as I tapped out the signals, off he ran to open the door straightaway. He opened it. I was about to go in, but he stands there and won’t let me past him with his whole body. ‘Where is she, where is she?’ He looks at me and trembles. Well, I think: if he’s so afraid of me, it’s bad! And then even my legs went weak with fright myself, that he wouldn’t let me into the rooms, or would cry out, or Marfa Ignatyevna would come running, or something or other would happen; I don’t remember now, I must have been standing before him pale myself. I whisper to him: ‘Why, she’s there, there under the window, how is it you didn’t see her?’ I say. ‘Bring her, then, bring her!’ ‘But she’s afraid,’ I say, ‘the shouting frightened her, she’s hiding in a bush, go and call her yourself,’ I say, ‘from the study.’ He ran, went up to the window, set the candle on the windowsill. ‘Grushenka,’ he shouts, ‘Grushenka, are you there?’ He shouts it himself, but he won’t lean out of the window, won’t move away from me, out of that very fear, because he’d got awful afraid of me by then, and so he doesn’t dare move away from me. ‘Why, there she is,’ I say (I went up to the window, leaned all the way out myself), ‘there she is in the bush, laughing at you, do you see?’ He suddenly believed it, he just started shaking, he was terribly in love with her, sir, and he leaned all the way out of the window. Then I grabbed that very cast-iron paperweight, on his table, you remember, sir, it must weigh a good three pounds, swung it, and from behind, right on the crown of his head, with the corner. He didn’t even cry out. Only suddenly sank down, and I a second time and a third. With the third I felt I’d broken it through. He suddenly fell over backward, face up, all covered in blood. I looked myself over: no blood on me, none had spattered, I wiped the paperweight, put it back, went behind the icons, took the money out of the envelope, and threw the envelope on the floor and that very pink ribbon beside it. I went down into the garden, shaking all over. Straight to that little apple tree with the hollow in it; you know that hollow, and I’d had my eye on it for a long time, there was a rag and some paper lying in it already, I’d got them ready long before; I wrapped the whole sum in the paper, and then in the rag, and stuffed it in deep. And there it stayed for more than two weeks, that very sum, sir; I took it out afterward, after the hospital. I went back to my bed, lay down, and I think in fear: ‘Now if Grigory Vasilyevich is killed outright, then by that very thing it may turn out very badly, but if he isn’t killed and comes to, then it will turn out awful well, because then he will be a witness that Dmitri Fyodorovich came, and so it was he who killed and carried off the money, sir.’ Then out of doubtation and impatience I began to moan, so as to get Marfa Ignatyevna awake the quicker. At last she got up and was about to rush to me, but when she suddenly saw that Grigory Vasilyevich wasn’t there, she ran out, and I hear her howling in the garden. Well, then, sir, it all got going for the whole night, and I was easy in my mind about everything by then.”

The narrator stopped. Ivan had been listening to him the whole time in deathly silence, not stirring, not taking his eyes off him. Smerdyakov, though, while telling his story, only glanced at him now and then, but mostly squinted off to the side. When he finished his story, he evidently became agitated himself and was breathing heavily. Sweat appeared on his face. It was impossible, however, to guess whether he felt remorse or what.

“Wait,” Ivan took up, considering. “What about the door? If he opened the door only for you, then how could Grigory have seen it open before you? Because Grigory did see it before you, didn’t he?”

It is remarkable that Ivan asked this in a most peaceable voice, even in what seemed an entirely different tone, not spiteful at all, so that if someone had opened their door just then and looked at them from the threshold, he would certainly have concluded that they were sitting and talking amicably about some ordinary, though interesting, subject.

“As for that door, and Grigory Vasilyevich supposedly seeing it open, it only seemed so to him,” Smerdyakov grinned crookedly. “Why, he isn’t a man, I tell you, sir, but just like a stubborn gelding: he didn’t see it, but it seemed to him he saw it, and now you won’t shake him, sir. It’s a piece of luck for you and me that he made it up, because after that they’ll convict Dmitri Fyodorovich beyond any doubt.”

“Listen,” said Ivan Fyodorovich, as though beginning to lose his way again and straining to work something out, “listen… There was a lot more I wanted to ask you, but I’ve forgotten… I keep forgetting and getting muddled… Yes! Tell me at least this one thing: why did you tear open the envelope and leave it right there on the floor? Why didn’t you simply carry it off in the envelope… When you were telling it, it seemed to me that you spoke of this envelope as if that was how it had to be done… but why it had to be so I can’t understand…”

“I did that for a certain reason, sir. For if it was a man in the know and used to it, like me, for instance, who had seen that money himself beforehand-like and maybe wrapped it into that envelope himself and watched with his own eyes how it was sealed and addressed, then why on earth would such a man, sir, if, let’s say, it was he who killed him, start tearing open that envelope then, after the murderment, and in such a rush, too, knowing quite surely without that that the money was lying in that envelope for certain sure, sir? On the contrary, if it was a robber, like me, for instance, he would simply have shoved that envelope into his pocket, without tearing it open at all, and made off with it as fast as he could, sir. Dmitri Fyodorovich is quite another matter here: he knew about the envelope only by hearsay, he had never seen it himself, and so, as soon as he got it out, let’s say, from under the mattress, he would quickly tear it open right there, to make sure: is that very money really in it? And he would throw down the envelope right there, not having time to reason that it would remain behind him as evidence, because he’s an unpracticed thief, sir, and had never openly stolen anything before, for he’s a born nobleman, sir, and if he’d decided to steal now, then it was precisely as though not to steal but only to come and take back his very own, since he had announced it to the whole town beforehand and even boasted out loud before everyone beforehand-like that he would go and take his property back from Fyodor Pavlovich. I didn’t exactly tell the prosecutor this very thought plainly at my questioning, but, on the contrary, led him up to it, sir, as if by a hint, as if not understanding it myself, and as if he had thought it up himself and I hadn’t prompted him, sir, so that the prosecutor’s mouth even began to water at that very hint of mine, sir…”

“But can it be, can it be that you thought all this out right there on the spot?” exclaimed Ivan Fyodorovich, beside himself with astonishment. Again he looked at Smerdyakov in fright.

“Have mercy, could anyone think all that up in such a rush, sir? It was all thought out beforehand.”

“Well… well, then the devil himself was helping you!” Ivan Fyodorovich exclaimed again. “No, you’re not stupid, you’re much cleverer than I thought…”

He got up with the evident intention of walking about the room. He was in terrible anguish. But since the table blocked the way and one almost had to squeeze between the table and the wall, he only turned around on the spot and sat down again. That he had not been able to walk about may have suddenly irritated him, so that he suddenly howled, almost in his former frenzy:

“Listen, you wretched, contemptible man! Don’t you understand that if I haven’t killed you yet, it’s only because I’m keeping you for tomorrow’s answer at the trial? God sees,” Ivan lifted his hand on high, “it may be I too was guilty, it may be I really did have a secret wish that… my father should die, but I swear to you, I was not as guilty as you think, and perhaps I didn’t incite you at all. No, no, I didn’t incite you! But all the same, I’ll testify against myself, tomorrow, at the trial, I’ve decided! I’ll tell everything, everything. But we shall appear together! And whatever you say against me at the trial, whatever you testify, I accept it and I’m not afraid of you; I’ll confirm everything myself! But you too must confess before the court! You must, you must, we’ll go together! So it shall be!”

Ivan said this solemnly and energetically, and one could see from his flashing eyes alone that so it would be.

“You’re ill, I see, sir, quite ill, sir. Your eyes are quite yellow, sir,” said Smerdyakov, but without any mockery at all, even as though sympathizing.

“We’ll go together!” Ivan repeated. “And if you won’t go, I’ll confess alone all the same.”

Smerdyakov was silent, as though thinking it over.

“None of this will happen, sir, and you won’t go, sir,” he decided at last, beyond appeal.

“You don’t understand me!” Ivan exclaimed reproachfully.

“You’ll be too ashamed, sir, if you confess everything against yourself. And what’s more, it will be useless, quite useless, sir, because I’ll say straight out that I never told you anything of the sort, sir, and that you are either in some sort of illness (and it looks like it, sir), or else you felt so sorry for your brother that you sacrificed yourself and made it all up against me, since all your life you have regarded me as no better than a gnat anyway, and not as a man. Well, and who will believe you, and what proof do you have, even one?”

“Listen, you showed me this money now, of course, in order to convince me.”

Smerdyakov took Isaac the Syrian off the packets and laid him aside.

“Take this money with you, sir, and carry it away,” Smerdyakov sighed.

“Of course I’ll carry it away! But why are you giving it to me, if you killed for it?” Ivan looked at him in great surprise.

“I don’t need it at all, sir,” Smerdyakov said in a trembling voice, with a wave of his hand. “I did have such a notion before, sir, that I’d begin a life with such money, in Moscow, or better still abroad, I had such a dream, sir, and most of all because ‘everything is permitted.’ This you really did teach me, sir, for you told me a great deal of it then: for if there is no infinite God, then there is no virtue either, and no need of it then at all. That you really did. That’s how I reasoned it.”

“Got there by your own wits?” Ivan grinned crookedly.

“By your guidance, sir.”

“And now, I suppose, you’ve come to believe in God, since you’re giving the money back?”

“No, sir, I haven’t come to believe, sir,” Smerdyakov whispered.

“Then why are you giving it back?”

“Enough of that… there’s no point, sir!” Smerdyakov waved his hand again. “You yourself kept saying then that everything is permitted, so why are you so alarmed now, you yourself, sir? You even want to go and testify against yourself… Only none of that will happen! You won’t go and testify!” Smerdyakov decided again, firmly and with conviction.

“You’ll see!” said Ivan.

“It can’t be. You’re very clever, sir. You love money, that I know, sir, you love honor too, because you’re very proud, you love the charms of women excessively, and most of all you love to live in peaceful comfort and not bow down to anyone—that most of all, sir. You won’t want to spoil your life forever, taking such shame on yourself in court. You’re like Fyodor Pavlovich, the most, sir, of all his children you’ve turned out the most like him, with the same soul as his, sir.”

“You’re not stupid,” said Ivan, as though struck; the blood rushed to his face. “I used to think you were stupid. You’re serious now!” he remarked, somehow suddenly looking at Smerdyakov in a new way.

“It was out of your pride you thought I was stupid. Take the money, sir.”

Ivan took all three packets of notes and stuffed them into his pocket without wrapping them in anything.

“Tomorrow I’ll show them at the trial,” he said.

“Nobody there will believe you, sir, seeing you have plenty of money of your own now; you took it out of your box-case and brought it, sir.”

Ivan got up from his place.

“I repeat to you, if I haven’t killed you, it’s solely because I need you for tomorrow; remember that, don’t forget it!”

“Why not, kill me, sir. Kill me now,” Smerdyakov suddenly said strangely, looking strangely at Ivan. “You won’t dare do that either, sir,” he added, grinning bitterly. “You won’t dare do anything, you who were once so bold, sir!”

“Till tomorrow!” Ivan shouted, and made to go.

“Wait… show them to me once more.”

Ivan pulled out the notes and let him see them. Smerdyakov looked at them for some ten seconds.

“Well, go,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “Ivan Fyodorovich!” he suddenly shouted after him again.

“What do you want?” Ivan turned around, already on his way out.

“Farewell, sir!”

“Till tomorrow!” Ivan shouted again, and went out of the cottage.

The blizzard was still going on. He walked the first few steps briskly, but suddenly he seemed to begin to stagger. “This is something physical,” he thought, with a grin. A kind of joy, as it were, had descended into his soul now. He felt in himself a sort of infinite firmness: an end to the wavering that had tormented him so terribly all this last time! The decision was taken, “and it will not change now,” he thought with happiness. At that instant he suddenly stumbled over something and almost fell. Stopping, he made out at his feet the little peasant he had knocked down, still lying in the very same place, unconscious and motionless. The blizzard had already covered almost his whole face. Ivan suddenly seized him and half carried, half dragged him along. Seeing a light in a little house to the right, he went up, knocked on the shutters, and asked the tradesman who owned the little house and answered him to help him drag the peasant to the police station, promising to give him three rubles for it on the spot. The tradesman got ready and came out. I will not describe in detail how Ivan Fyodorovich managed then to reach his goal and get the peasant settled at the police station, with arrangements for a doctor to examine him at once, and here again he handed out money “for expenses” with a generous hand. I will say only that the business took almost a whole hour. But Ivan Fyodorovich was left very satisfied. His thoughts were ranging and working. “If my decision for tomorrow had not been taken so firmly,” he suddenly thought with delight, “I would not have stopped for a whole hour to get the little peasant settled, but would have walked past him and only spat at the thought that he would freeze… And yet how well I am able to observe myself,” he thought at the same moment with still greater delight, “and they decided over there that I am going mad!” Reaching his house, he suddenly stopped before a sudden question: “Oughtn’t I to go to the prosecutor at once, right now, and declare everything?” He settled the question by turning toward the house again: “Tomorrow, all together!” he whispered to himself, and, strangely, almost all his joy, all his satisfaction with himself, passed in a single instant. And when he stepped into his room, something icy suddenly touched his heart, like a memory, or rather a reminder, of something tormenting and loathsome that was precisely in this room now, at this moment, and had been there before as well. He sank wearily onto his sofa. The old woman brought him the samovar; he made tea but did not touch it; he sent the old woman away until morning. He sat on the sofa, and his head was spinning. He felt that he was ill and powerless. He began to doze off, but got up uneasily and walked about the room to drive away sleep. At moments it seemed to him that he was delirious, as it were. But it was not his illness that occupied him most; sitting down again, he began now and then to look around, as though watching for something. This happened several times. At last his gaze fixed intently on one point. Ivan grinned, but a flush of anger flooded his face. He sat in his place for a long time, propping his head firmly in both hands and yet squinting all the while at the same point, at the sofa that stood by the opposite wall. Evidently something there was irritating him, some object, was troubling him, tormenting him.