The Brothers Karamazov
about the knocks, that was the chief thing. With his suspiciousness and
the fury which had been growing in him all those days, he was bound to
get into the house by means of those taps. That was inevitable, so I
was expecting him.”
“Stay,” Ivan interrupted; “if he had killed him, he would have taken
the money and carried it away; you must have considered that. What
would you have got by it afterwards? I don’t see.”
“But he would never have found the money. That was only what I told
him, that the money was under the mattress. But that wasn’t true. It
had been lying in a box. And afterwards I suggested to Fyodor
Pavlovitch, as I was the only person he trusted, to hide the envelope
with the notes in the corner behind the ikons, for no one would have
guessed that place, especially if they came in a hurry. So that’s where
the envelope lay, in the corner behind the ikons. It would have been
absurd to keep it under the mattress; the box, anyway, could be locked.
But all believe it was under the mattress. A stupid thing to believe.
So if Dmitri Fyodorovitch had committed the murder, finding nothing, he
would either have run away in a hurry, afraid of every sound, as always
happens with murderers, or he would have been arrested. So I could
always have clambered up to the ikons and have taken away the money
next morning or even that night, and it would have all been put down to
Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I could reckon upon that.”
“But what if he did not kill him, but only knocked him down?”
“If he did not kill him, of course, I would not have ventured to take
the money, and nothing would have happened. But I calculated that he
would beat him senseless, and I should have time to take it then, and
then I’d make out to Fyodor Pavlovitch that it was no one but Dmitri
Fyodorovitch who had taken the money after beating him.”
“Stop ... I am getting mixed. Then it was Dmitri after all who killed
him; you only took the money?”
“No, he didn’t kill him. Well, I might as well have told you now that
he was the murderer.... But I don’t want to lie to you now, because ...
because if you really haven’t understood till now, as I see for myself,
and are not pretending, so as to throw your guilt on me to my very
face, you are still responsible for it all, since you knew of the
murder and charged me to do it, and went away knowing all about it. And
so I want to prove to your face this evening that you are the only real
murderer in the whole affair, and I am not the real murderer, though I
did kill him. You are the rightful murderer.”
“Why, why, am I a murderer? Oh, God!” Ivan cried, unable to restrain
himself at last, and forgetting that he had put off discussing himself
till the end of the conversation. “You still mean that Tchermashnya?
Stay, tell me, why did you want my consent, if you really took
Tchermashnya for consent? How will you explain that now?”
“Assured of your consent, I should have known that you wouldn’t have
made an outcry over those three thousand being lost, even if I’d been
suspected, instead of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, or as his accomplice; on the
contrary, you would have protected me from others.... And when you got
your inheritance you would have rewarded me when you were able, all the
rest of your life. For you’d have received your inheritance through me,
seeing that if he had married Agrafena Alexandrovna, you wouldn’t have
had a farthing.”
“Ah! Then you intended to worry me all my life afterwards,” snarled
Ivan. “And what if I hadn’t gone away then, but had informed against
you?”
“What could you have informed? That I persuaded you to go to
Tchermashnya? That’s all nonsense. Besides, after our conversation you
would either have gone away or have stayed. If you had stayed, nothing
would have happened. I should have known that you didn’t want it done,
and should have attempted nothing. As you went away, it meant you
assured me that you wouldn’t dare to inform against me at the trial,
and that you’d overlook my having the three thousand. And, indeed, you
couldn’t have prosecuted me afterwards, because then I should have told
it all in the court; that is, not that I had stolen the money or killed
him—I shouldn’t have said that—but that you’d put me up to the theft
and the murder, though I didn’t consent to it. That’s why I needed your
consent, so that you couldn’t have cornered me afterwards, for what
proof could you have had? I could always have cornered you, revealing
your eagerness for your father’s death, and I tell you the public would
have believed it all, and you would have been ashamed for the rest of
your life.”
“Was I then so eager, was I?” Ivan snarled again.
“To be sure you were, and by your consent you silently sanctioned my
doing it.” Smerdyakov looked resolutely at Ivan. He was very weak and
spoke slowly and wearily, but some hidden inner force urged him on. He
evidently had some design. Ivan felt that.
“Go on,” he said. “Tell me what happened that night.”
“What more is there to tell! I lay there and I thought I heard the
master shout. And before that Grigory Vassilyevitch had suddenly got up
and came out, and he suddenly gave a scream, and then all was silence
and darkness. I lay there waiting, my heart beating; I couldn’t bear
it. I got up at last, went out. I saw the window open on the left into
the garden, and I stepped to the left to listen whether he was sitting
there alive, and I heard the master moving about, sighing, so I knew he
was alive. ‘Ech!’ I thought. I went to the window and shouted to the
master, ‘It’s I.’ And he shouted to me, ‘He’s been, he’s been; he’s run
away.’ He meant Dmitri Fyodorovitch had been. ‘He’s killed Grigory!’
‘Where?’ I whispered. ‘There, in the corner,’ he pointed. He was
whispering, too. ‘Wait a bit,’ I said. I went to the corner of the
garden to look, and there I came upon Grigory Vassilyevitch lying by
the wall, covered with blood, senseless. So it’s true that Dmitri
Fyodorovitch has been here, was the thought that came into my head, and
I determined on the spot to make an end of it, as Grigory
Vassilyevitch, even if he were alive, would see nothing of it, as he
lay there senseless. The only risk was that Marfa Ignatyevna might wake
up. I felt that at the moment, but the longing to get it done came over
me, till I could scarcely breathe. I went back to the window to the
master and said, ‘She’s here, she’s come; Agrafena Alexandrovna has
come, wants to be let in.’ And he started like a baby. ‘Where is she?’
he fairly gasped, but couldn’t believe it. ‘She’s standing there,’ said
I. ‘Open.’ He looked out of the window at me, half believing and half
distrustful, but afraid to open. ‘Why, he is afraid of me now,’ I
thought. And it was funny. I bethought me to knock on the window-frame
those taps we’d agreed upon as a signal that Grushenka had come, in his
presence, before his eyes. He didn’t seem to believe my word, but as
soon as he heard the taps, he ran at once to open the door. He opened
it. I would have gone in, but he stood in the way to prevent me
passing. ‘Where is she? Where is she?’ He looked at me, all of a
tremble. ‘Well,’ thought I, ‘if he’s so frightened of me as all that,
it’s a bad look out!’ And my legs went weak with fright that he
wouldn’t let me in or would call out, or Marfa Ignatyevna would run up,
or something else might happen. I don’t remember now, but I must have
stood pale, facing him. I whispered to him, ‘Why, she’s there, there,
under the window; how is it you don’t see her?’ I said. ‘Bring her
then, bring her.’ ‘She’s afraid,’ said I; ‘she was frightened at the
noise, she’s hidden in the bushes; go and call to her yourself from the
study.’ He ran to the window, put the candle in the window.
‘Grushenka,’ he cried, ‘Grushenka, are you here?’ Though he cried that,
he didn’t want to lean out of the window, he didn’t want to move away
from me, for he was panic-stricken; he was so frightened he didn’t dare
to turn his back on me. ‘Why, here she is,’ said I. I went up to the
window and leaned right out of it. ‘Here she is; she’s in the bush,
laughing at you, don’t you see her?’ He suddenly believed it; he was
all of a shake—he was awfully crazy about her—and he leaned right out
of the window. I snatched up that iron paper-weight from his table; do
you remember, weighing about three pounds? I swung it and hit him on
the top of the skull with the corner of it. He didn’t even cry out. He
only sank down suddenly, and I hit him again and a third time. And the
third time I knew I’d broken his skull. He suddenly rolled on his back,
face upwards, covered with blood. I looked round. There was no blood on
me, not a spot. I wiped the paper-weight, put it back, went up to the
ikons, took the money out of the envelope, and flung the envelope on
the floor and the pink ribbon beside it. I went out into the garden all
of a tremble, straight to the apple-tree with a hollow in it—you know
that hollow. I’d marked it long before and put a rag and a piece of
paper ready in it. I wrapped all the notes in the rag and stuffed it
deep down in the hole. And there it stayed for over a fortnight. I took
it out later, when I came out of the hospital. I went back to my bed,
lay down and thought, ‘If Grigory Vassilyevitch has been killed
outright it may be a bad job for me, but if he is not killed and
recovers, it will be first-rate, for then he’ll bear witness that
Dmitri Fyodorovitch has been here, and so he must have killed him and
taken the money.’ Then I began groaning with suspense and impatience,
so as to wake Marfa Ignatyevna as soon as possible. At last she got up
and she rushed to me, but when she saw Grigory Vassilyevitch was not
there, she ran out, and I heard her scream in the garden. And that set
it all going and set my mind at rest.”
He stopped. Ivan had listened all the time in dead silence without
stirring or taking his eyes off him. As he told his story Smerdyakov
glanced at him from time to time, but for the most part kept his eyes
averted. When he had finished he was evidently agitated and was
breathing hard. The perspiration stood out on his face. But it was
impossible to tell whether it was remorse he was feeling, or what.
“Stay,” cried Ivan, pondering. “What about the door? If he only opened
the door to you, how could Grigory have seen it open before? For
Grigory saw it before you went.”
It was remarkable that Ivan spoke quite amicably, in a different tone,
not angry as before, so if any one had opened the door at that moment
and peeped in at them, he would certainly have concluded that they were
talking peaceably about some ordinary, though interesting, subject.
“As for that door and Grigory Vassilyevitch’s having seen it open,
that’s only his fancy,” said Smerdyakov, with a wry smile. “He is not a
man, I assure you, but an obstinate mule. He didn’t see it, but fancied
he had seen it, and there’s no shaking him. It’s just our luck he took
that notion into his head, for they can’t fail to convict Dmitri
Fyodorovitch after that.”
“Listen ...” said Ivan, beginning to seem bewildered again and making
an effort to grasp something. “Listen. There are a lot of questions I
want to ask you, but I forget them ... I keep forgetting and getting
mixed up. Yes. Tell me this at least, why did you open the envelope and
leave it there on the floor? Why didn’t you simply carry off the
envelope?... When you were telling me, I thought you spoke about it as
though it were the right thing to do ... but why, I can’t
understand....”
“I did that for a good reason. For if a man had known all about it, as
I did for instance, if he’d seen those notes before, and perhaps had
put them in that envelope himself, and had seen the envelope sealed up
and addressed, with his own eyes, if such a man had done the murder,