The Brothers Karamazov
“What have I to be afraid of? Let them write down the whole truth,”
Smerdyakov pronounced firmly.
“And have you told them every word of our conversation at the gate?”
“No, not to say every word.”
“And did you tell them that you can sham fits, as you boasted then?”
“No, I didn’t tell them that either.”
“Tell me now, why did you send me then to Tchermashnya?”
“I was afraid you’d go away to Moscow; Tchermashnya is nearer, anyway.”
“You are lying; you suggested my going away yourself; you told me to
get out of the way of trouble.”
“That was simply out of affection and my sincere devotion to you,
foreseeing trouble in the house, to spare you. Only I wanted to spare
myself even more. That’s why I told you to get out of harm’s way, that
you might understand that there would be trouble in the house, and
would remain at home to protect your father.”
“You might have said it more directly, you blockhead!” Ivan suddenly
fired up.
“How could I have said it more directly then? It was simply my fear
that made me speak, and you might have been angry, too. I might well
have been apprehensive that Dmitri Fyodorovitch would make a scene and
carry away that money, for he considered it as good as his own; but who
could tell that it would end in a murder like this? I thought that he
would only carry off the three thousand that lay under the master’s
mattress in the envelope, and you see, he’s murdered him. How could you
guess it either, sir?”
“But if you say yourself that it couldn’t be guessed, how could I have
guessed and stayed at home? You contradict yourself!” said Ivan,
pondering.
“You might have guessed from my sending you to Tchermashnya and not to
Moscow.”
“How could I guess it from that?”
Smerdyakov seemed much exhausted, and again he was silent for a minute.
“You might have guessed from the fact of my asking you not to go to
Moscow, but to Tchermashnya, that I wanted to have you nearer, for
Moscow’s a long way off, and Dmitri Fyodorovitch, knowing you are not
far off, would not be so bold. And if anything had happened, you might
have come to protect me, too, for I warned you of Grigory
Vassilyevitch’s illness, and that I was afraid of having a fit. And
when I explained those knocks to you, by means of which one could go in
to the deceased, and that Dmitri Fyodorovitch knew them all through me,
I thought that you would guess yourself that he would be sure to do
something, and so wouldn’t go to Tchermashnya even, but would stay.”
“He talks very coherently,” thought Ivan, “though he does mumble;
what’s the derangement of his faculties that Herzenstube talked of?”
“You are cunning with me, damn you!” he exclaimed, getting angry.
“But I thought at the time that you quite guessed,” Smerdyakov parried
with the simplest air.
“If I’d guessed, I should have stayed,” cried Ivan.
“Why, I thought that it was because you guessed, that you went away in
such a hurry, only to get out of trouble, only to run away and save
yourself in your fright.”
“You think that every one is as great a coward as yourself?”
“Forgive me, I thought you were like me.”
“Of course, I ought to have guessed,” Ivan said in agitation; “and I
did guess there was some mischief brewing on your part ... only you are
lying, you are lying again,” he cried, suddenly recollecting. “Do you
remember how you went up to the carriage and said to me, ‘It’s always
worth while speaking to a clever man’? So you were glad I went away,
since you praised me?”
Smerdyakov sighed again and again. A trace of color came into his face.
“If I was pleased,” he articulated rather breathlessly, “it was simply
because you agreed not to go to Moscow, but to Tchermashnya. For it was
nearer, anyway. Only when I said these words to you, it was not by way
of praise, but of reproach. You didn’t understand it.”
“What reproach?”
“Why, that foreseeing such a calamity you deserted your own father, and
would not protect us, for I might have been taken up any time for
stealing that three thousand.”
“Damn you!” Ivan swore again. “Stay, did you tell the prosecutor and
the investigating lawyer about those knocks?”
“I told them everything just as it was.”
Ivan wondered inwardly again.
“If I thought of anything then,” he began again, “it was solely of some
wickedness on your part. Dmitri might kill him, but that he would
steal—I did not believe that then.... But I was prepared for any
wickedness from you. You told me yourself you could sham a fit. What
did you say that for?”
“It was just through my simplicity, and I never have shammed a fit on
purpose in my life. And I only said so then to boast to you. It was
just foolishness. I liked you so much then, and was open-hearted with
you.”
“My brother directly accuses you of the murder and theft.”
“What else is left for him to do?” said Smerdyakov, with a bitter grin.
“And who will believe him with all the proofs against him? Grigory
Vassilyevitch saw the door open. What can he say after that? But never
mind him! He is trembling to save himself.”
He slowly ceased speaking; then suddenly, as though on reflection,
added:
“And look here again. He wants to throw it on me and make out that it
is the work of my hands—I’ve heard that already. But as to my being
clever at shamming a fit: should I have told you beforehand that I
could sham one, if I really had had such a design against your father?
If I had been planning such a murder could I have been such a fool as
to give such evidence against myself beforehand? And to his son, too!
Upon my word! Is that likely? As if that could be, such a thing has
never happened. No one hears this talk of ours now, except Providence
itself, and if you were to tell of it to the prosecutor and Nikolay
Parfenovitch you might defend me completely by doing so, for who would
be likely to be such a criminal, if he is so open-hearted beforehand?
Any one can see that.”
“Well,” and Ivan got up to cut short the conversation, struck by
Smerdyakov’s last argument. “I don’t suspect you at all, and I think
it’s absurd, indeed, to suspect you. On the contrary, I am grateful to
you for setting my mind at rest. Now I am going, but I’ll come again.
Meanwhile, good-by. Get well. Is there anything you want?”
“I am very thankful for everything. Marfa Ignatyevna does not forget
me, and provides me anything I want, according to her kindness. Good
people visit me every day.”
“Good-by. But I shan’t say anything of your being able to sham a fit,
and I don’t advise you to, either,” something made Ivan say suddenly.
“I quite understand. And if you don’t speak of that, I shall say
nothing of that conversation of ours at the gate.”
Then it happened that Ivan went out, and only when he had gone a dozen
steps along the corridor, he suddenly felt that there was an insulting
significance in Smerdyakov’s last words. He was almost on the point of
turning back, but it was only a passing impulse, and muttering,
“Nonsense!” he went out of the hospital.
His chief feeling was one of relief at the fact that it was not
Smerdyakov, but Mitya, who had committed the murder, though he might
have been expected to feel the opposite. He did not want to analyze the
reason for this feeling, and even felt a positive repugnance at prying
into his sensations. He felt as though he wanted to make haste to
forget something. In the following days he became convinced of Mitya’s
guilt, as he got to know all the weight of evidence against him. There
was evidence of people of no importance, Fenya and her mother, for
instance, but the effect of it was almost overpowering. As to Perhotin,
the people at the tavern, and at Plotnikov’s shop, as well as the
witnesses at Mokroe, their evidence seemed conclusive. It was the
details that were so damning. The secret of the knocks impressed the
lawyers almost as much as Grigory’s evidence as to the open door.
Grigory’s wife, Marfa, in answer to Ivan’s questions, declared that
Smerdyakov had been lying all night the other side of the partition
wall. “He was not three paces from our bed,” and that although she was
a sound sleeper she waked several times and heard him moaning, “He was
moaning the whole time, moaning continually.”
Talking to Herzenstube, and giving it as his opinion that Smerdyakov
was not mad, but only rather weak, Ivan only evoked from the old man a
subtle smile.
“Do you know how he spends his time now?” he asked; “learning lists of
French words by heart. He has an exercise-book under his pillow with
the French words written out in Russian letters for him by some one, he
he he!”
Ivan ended by dismissing all doubts. He could not think of Dmitri
without repulsion. Only one thing was strange, however. Alyosha
persisted that Dmitri was not the murderer, and that “in all
probability” Smerdyakov was. Ivan always felt that Alyosha’s opinion
meant a great deal to him, and so he was astonished at it now. Another
thing that was strange was that Alyosha did not make any attempt to
talk about Mitya with Ivan, that he never began on the subject and only
answered his questions. This, too, struck Ivan particularly.
But he was very much preoccupied at that time with something quite
apart from that. On his return from Moscow, he abandoned himself
hopelessly to his mad and consuming passion for Katerina Ivanovna. This
is not the time to begin to speak of this new passion of Ivan’s, which
left its mark on all the rest of his life: this would furnish the
subject for another novel, which I may perhaps never write. But I
cannot omit to mention here that when Ivan, on leaving Katerina
Ivanovna with Alyosha, as I’ve related already, told him, “I am not
keen on her,” it was an absolute lie: he loved her madly, though at
times he hated her so that he might have murdered her. Many causes
helped to bring about this feeling. Shattered by what had happened with
Mitya, she rushed on Ivan’s return to meet him as her one salvation.
She was hurt, insulted and humiliated in her feelings. And here the man
had come back to her, who had loved her so ardently before (oh! she
knew that very well), and whose heart and intellect she considered so
superior to her own. But the sternly virtuous girl did not abandon
herself altogether to the man she loved, in spite of the Karamazov
violence of his passions and the great fascination he had for her. She
was continually tormented at the same time by remorse for having
deserted Mitya, and in moments of discord and violent anger (and they
were numerous) she told Ivan so plainly. This was what he had called to
Alyosha “lies upon lies.” There was, of course, much that was false in
it, and that angered Ivan more than anything.... But of all this later.
He did, in fact, for a time almost forget Smerdyakov’s existence, and
yet, a fortnight after his first visit to him, he began to be haunted
by the same strange thoughts as before. It’s enough to say that he was
continually asking himself, why was it that on that last night in
Fyodor Pavlovitch’s house he had crept out on to the stairs like a
thief and listened to hear what his father was doing below? Why had he
recalled that afterwards with repulsion? Why next morning, had he been
suddenly so depressed on the journey? Why, as he reached Moscow, had he
said to himself, “I am a scoundrel”? And now he almost fancied that
these tormenting thoughts would make him even forget Katerina Ivanovna,
so completely did they take possession of him again. It was just after
fancying this, that he met Alyosha in the street. He stopped him at
once, and put a question to him:
“Do you remember when Dmitri burst in after dinner and beat father, and
afterwards I told you in the yard that I reserved ‘the right to
desire’?... Tell me, did you think then that I desired father’s death
or not?”