The Brothers Karamazov
what should have made him tear open the envelope afterwards, especially
in such desperate haste, since he’d know for certain the notes must be
in the envelope? No, if the robber had been some one like me, he’d
simply have put the envelope straight in his pocket and got away with
it as fast as he could. But it’d be quite different with Dmitri
Fyodorovitch. He only knew about the envelope by hearsay; he had never
seen it, and if he’d found it, for instance, under the mattress, he’d
have torn it open as quickly as possible to make sure the notes were in
it. And he’d have thrown the envelope down, without having time to
think that it would be evidence against him. Because he was not an
habitual thief and had never directly stolen anything before, for he is
a gentleman born, and if he did bring himself to steal, it would not be
regular stealing, but simply taking what was his own, for he’d told the
whole town he meant to before, and had even bragged aloud before every
one that he’d go and take his property from Fyodor Pavlovitch. I didn’t
say that openly to the prosecutor when I was being examined, but quite
the contrary, I brought him to it by a hint, as though I didn’t see it
myself, and as though he’d thought of it himself and I hadn’t prompted
him; so that Mr. Prosecutor’s mouth positively watered at my
suggestion.”
“But can you possibly have thought of all that on the spot?” cried
Ivan, overcome with astonishment. He looked at Smerdyakov again with
alarm.
“Mercy on us! Could any one think of it all in such a desperate hurry?
It was all thought out beforehand.”
“Well ... well, it was the devil helped you!” Ivan cried again. “No,
you are not a fool, you are far cleverer than I thought....”
He got up, obviously intending to walk across the room. He was in
terrible distress. But as the table blocked his way, and there was
hardly room to pass between the table and the wall, he only turned
round where he stood and sat down again. Perhaps the impossibility of
moving irritated him, as he suddenly cried out almost as furiously as
before.
“Listen, you miserable, contemptible creature! Don’t you understand
that if I haven’t killed you, it’s simply because I am keeping you to
answer to-morrow at the trial. God sees,” Ivan raised his hand,
“perhaps I, too, was guilty; perhaps I really had a secret desire for
my father’s ... death, but I swear I was not as guilty as you think,
and perhaps I didn’t urge you on at all. No, no, I didn’t urge you on!
But no matter, I will give evidence against myself to-morrow at the
trial. I’m determined to! I shall tell everything, everything. But
we’ll make our appearance together. And whatever you may say against me
at the trial, whatever evidence you give, I’ll face it; I am not afraid
of you. I’ll confirm it all myself! But you must confess, too! You
must, you must; we’ll go together. That’s how it shall be!”
Ivan said this solemnly and resolutely and from his flashing eyes alone
it could be seen that it would be so.
“You are ill, I see; you are quite ill. Your eyes are yellow,”
Smerdyakov commented, without the least irony, with apparent sympathy
in fact.
“We’ll go together,” Ivan repeated. “And if you won’t go, no matter,
I’ll go alone.”
Smerdyakov paused as though pondering.
“There’ll be nothing of the sort, and you won’t go,” he concluded at
last positively.
“You don’t understand me,” Ivan exclaimed reproachfully.
“You’ll be too much ashamed, if you confess it all. And, what’s more,
it will be no use at all, for I shall say straight out that I never
said anything of the sort to you, and that you are either ill (and it
looks like it, too), or that you’re so sorry for your brother that you
are sacrificing yourself to save him and have invented it all against
me, for you’ve always thought no more of me than if I’d been a fly. And
who will believe you, and what single proof have you got?”
“Listen, you showed me those notes just now to convince me.”
Smerdyakov lifted the book off the notes and laid it on one side.
“Take that money away with you,” Smerdyakov sighed.
“Of course, I shall take it. But why do you give it to me, if you
committed the murder for the sake of it?” Ivan looked at him with great
surprise.
“I don’t want it,” Smerdyakov articulated in a shaking voice, with a
gesture of refusal. “I did have an idea of beginning a new life with
that money in Moscow or, better still, abroad. I did dream of it,
chiefly because ‘all things are lawful.’ That was quite right what you
taught me, for you talked a lot to me about that. For if there’s no
everlasting God, there’s no such thing as virtue, and there’s no need
of it. You were right there. So that’s how I looked at it.”
“Did you come to that of yourself?” asked Ivan, with a wry smile.
“With your guidance.”
“And now, I suppose, you believe in God, since you are giving back the
money?”
“No, I don’t believe,” whispered Smerdyakov.
“Then why are you giving it back?”
“Leave off ... that’s enough!” Smerdyakov waved his hand again. “You
used to say yourself that everything was lawful, so now why are you so
upset, too? You even want to go and give evidence against yourself....
Only there’ll be nothing of the sort! You won’t go to give evidence,”
Smerdyakov decided with conviction.
“You’ll see,” said Ivan.
“It isn’t possible. You are very clever. You are fond of money, I know
that. You like to be respected, too, for you’re very proud; you are far
too fond of female charms, too, and you mind most of all about living
in undisturbed comfort, without having to depend on any one—that’s what
you care most about. You won’t want to spoil your life for ever by
taking such a disgrace on yourself. You are like Fyodor Pavlovitch, you
are more like him than any of his children; you’ve the same soul as he
had.”
“You are not a fool,” said Ivan, seeming struck. The blood rushed to
his face. “You are serious now!” he observed, looking suddenly at
Smerdyakov with a different expression.
“It was your pride made you think I was a fool. Take the money.”
Ivan took the three rolls of notes and put them in his pocket without
wrapping them in anything.
“I shall show them at the court to-morrow,” he said.
“Nobody will believe you, as you’ve plenty of money of your own; you
may simply have taken it out of your cash-box and brought it to the
court.”
Ivan rose from his seat.
“I repeat,” he said, “the only reason I haven’t killed you is that I
need you for to-morrow, remember that, don’t forget it!”
“Well, kill me. Kill me now,” Smerdyakov said, all at once looking
strangely at Ivan. “You won’t dare do that even!” he added, with a
bitter smile. “You won’t dare to do anything, you, who used to be so
bold!”
“Till to-morrow,” cried Ivan, and moved to go out.
“Stay a moment.... Show me those notes again.”
Ivan took out the notes and showed them to him. Smerdyakov looked at
them for ten seconds.
“Well, you can go,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “Ivan
Fyodorovitch!” he called after him again.
“What do you want?” Ivan turned without stopping.
“Good-by!”
“Till to-morrow!” Ivan cried again, and he walked out of the cottage.
The snowstorm was still raging. He walked the first few steps boldly,
but suddenly began staggering. “It’s something physical,” he thought
with a grin. Something like joy was springing up in his heart. He was
conscious of unbounded resolution; he would make an end of the wavering
that had so tortured him of late. His determination was taken, “and now
it will not be changed,” he thought with relief. At that moment he
stumbled against something and almost fell down. Stopping short, he
made out at his feet the peasant he had knocked down, still lying
senseless and motionless. The snow had almost covered his face. Ivan
seized him and lifted him in his arms. Seeing a light in the little
house to the right he went up, knocked at the shutters, and asked the
man to whom the house belonged to help him carry the peasant to the
police-station, promising him three roubles. The man got ready and came
out. I won’t describe in detail how Ivan succeeded in his object,
bringing the peasant to the police-station and arranging for a doctor
to see him at once, providing with a liberal hand for the expenses. I
will only say that this business took a whole hour, but Ivan was well
content with it. His mind wandered and worked incessantly.
“If I had not taken my decision so firmly for to-morrow,” he reflected
with satisfaction, “I should not have stayed a whole hour to look after
the peasant, but should have passed by, without caring about his being
frozen. I am quite capable of watching myself, by the way,” he thought
at the same instant, with still greater satisfaction, “although they
have decided that I am going out of my mind!”
Just as he reached his own house he stopped short, asking himself
suddenly hadn’t he better go at once to the prosecutor and tell him
everything. He decided the question by turning back to the house.
“Everything together to-morrow!” he whispered to himself, and, strange
to say, almost all his gladness and self-satisfaction passed in one
instant.
As he entered his own room he felt something like a touch of ice on his
heart, like a recollection or, more exactly, a reminder, of something
agonizing and revolting that was in that room now, at that moment, and
had been there before. He sank wearily on his sofa. The old woman
brought him a samovar; he made tea, but did not touch it. He sat on the
sofa and felt giddy. He felt that he was ill and helpless. He was
beginning to drop asleep, but got up uneasily and walked across the
room to shake off his drowsiness. At moments he fancied he was
delirious, but it was not illness that he thought of most. Sitting down
again, he began looking round, as though searching for something. This
happened several times. At last his eyes were fastened intently on one
point. Ivan smiled, but an angry flush suffused his face. He sat a long
time in his place, his head propped on both arms, though he looked
sideways at the same point, at the sofa that stood against the opposite
wall. There was evidently something, some object, that irritated him
there, worried him and tormented him.
Chapter IX.
The Devil. Ivan’s Nightmare
I am not a doctor, but yet I feel that the moment has come when I must
inevitably give the reader some account of the nature of Ivan’s
illness. Anticipating events I can say at least one thing: he was at
that moment on the very eve of an attack of brain fever. Though his
health had long been affected, it had offered a stubborn resistance to
the fever which in the end gained complete mastery over it. Though I
know nothing of medicine, I venture to hazard the suggestion that he
really had perhaps, by a terrible effort of will, succeeded in delaying
the attack for a time, hoping, of course, to check it completely. He
knew that he was unwell, but he loathed the thought of being ill at
that fatal time, at the approaching crisis in his life, when he needed
to have all his wits about him, to say what he had to say boldly and
resolutely and “to justify himself to himself.”
He had, however, consulted the new doctor, who had been brought from
Moscow by a fantastic notion of Katerina Ivanovna’s to which I have
referred already. After listening to him and examining him the doctor
came to the conclusion that he was actually suffering from some
disorder of the brain, and was not at all surprised by an admission
which Ivan had reluctantly made him. “Hallucinations are quite likely
in your condition,” the doctor opined, “though it would be better to
verify them ... you must take steps at once, without a moment’s delay,
or things will go badly with you.” But Ivan did not follow this