Chapter IV. A Hymn And A Secret

It was quite late (days are short in November) when Alyosha rang at the
prison gate. It was beginning to get dusk. But Alyosha knew that he would
be admitted without difficulty. Things were managed in our little town, as
everywhere else. At first, of course, on the conclusion of the preliminary
inquiry, relations and a few other persons could only obtain interviews
with Mitya by going through certain inevitable formalities. But later,
though the formalities were not relaxed, exceptions were made for some, at
least, of Mitya's visitors. So much so, that sometimes the interviews with
the prisoner in the room set aside for the purpose were practically
_tete-a-tete_.

These exceptions, however, were few in number; only Grushenka, Alyosha and
Rakitin were treated like this. But the captain of the police, Mihail
Mihailovitch, was very favorably disposed to Grushenka. His abuse of her
at Mokroe weighed on the old man's conscience, and when he learned the
whole story, he completely changed his view of her. And strange to say,
though he was firmly persuaded of his guilt, yet after Mitya was once in
prison, the old man came to take a more and more lenient view of him. "He
was a man of good heart, perhaps," he thought, "who had come to grief from
drinking and dissipation." His first horror had been succeeded by pity. As
for Alyosha, the police captain was very fond of him and had known him for
a long time. Rakitin, who had of late taken to coming very often to see
the prisoner, was one of the most intimate acquaintances of the "police
captain's young ladies," as he called them, and was always hanging about
their house. He gave lessons in the house of the prison superintendent,
too, who, though scrupulous in the performance of his duties, was a kind-
hearted old man. Alyosha, again, had an intimate acquaintance of long
standing with the superintendent, who was fond of talking to him,
generally on sacred subjects. He respected Ivan Fyodorovitch, and stood in
awe of his opinion, though he was a great philosopher himself; "self-
taught," of course. But Alyosha had an irresistible attraction for him.
During the last year the old man had taken to studying the Apocryphal
Gospels, and constantly talked over his impressions with his young friend.
He used to come and see him in the monastery and discussed for hours
together with him and with the monks. So even if Alyosha were late at the
prison, he had only to go to the superintendent and everything was made
easy. Besides, every one in the prison, down to the humblest warder, had
grown used to Alyosha. The sentry, of course, did not trouble him so long
as the authorities were satisfied.

When Mitya was summoned from his cell, he always went downstairs, to the
place set aside for interviews. As Alyosha entered the room he came upon
Rakitin, who was just taking leave of Mitya. They were both talking
loudly. Mitya was laughing heartily as he saw him out, while Rakitin
seemed grumbling. Rakitin did not like meeting Alyosha, especially of
late. He scarcely spoke to him, and bowed to him stiffly. Seeing Alyosha
enter now, he frowned and looked away, as though he were entirely absorbed
in buttoning his big, warm, fur-trimmed overcoat. Then he began looking at
once for his umbrella.

"I must mind not to forget my belongings," he muttered, simply to say
something.

"Mind you don't forget other people's belongings," said Mitya, as a joke,
and laughed at once at his own wit. Rakitin fired up instantly.

"You'd better give that advice to your own family, who've always been a
slave-driving lot, and not to Rakitin," he cried, suddenly trembling with
anger.

"What's the matter? I was joking," cried Mitya. "Damn it all! They are all
like that," he turned to Alyosha, nodding towards Rakitin's hurriedly
retreating figure. "He was sitting here, laughing and cheerful, and all at
once he boils up like that. He didn't even nod to you. Have you broken
with him completely? Why are you so late? I've not been simply waiting,
but thirsting for you the whole morning. But never mind. We'll make up for
it now."

"Why does he come here so often? Surely you are not such great friends?"
asked Alyosha. He, too, nodded at the door through which Rakitin had
disappeared.

"Great friends with Rakitin? No, not as much as that. Is it likely--a pig
like that? He considers I am ... a blackguard. They can't understand a
joke either, that's the worst of such people. They never understand a
joke, and their souls are dry, dry and flat; they remind me of prison
walls when I was first brought here. But he is a clever fellow, very
clever. Well, Alexey, it's all over with me now."

He sat down on the bench and made Alyosha sit down beside him.

"Yes, the trial's to-morrow. Are you so hopeless, brother?" Alyosha said,
with an apprehensive feeling.

"What are you talking about?" said Mitya, looking at him rather
uncertainly. "Oh, you mean the trial! Damn it all! Till now we've been
talking of things that don't matter, about this trial, but I haven't said
a word to you about the chief thing. Yes, the trial is to-morrow; but it
wasn't the trial I meant, when I said it was all over with me. Why do you
look at me so critically?"

"What do you mean, Mitya?"

"Ideas, ideas, that's all! Ethics! What is ethics?"

"Ethics?" asked Alyosha, wondering.

"Yes; is it a science?"

"Yes, there is such a science ... but ... I confess I can't explain to you
what sort of science it is."

"Rakitin knows. Rakitin knows a lot, damn him! He's not going to be a
monk. He means to go to Petersburg. There he'll go in for criticism of an
elevating tendency. Who knows, he may be of use and make his own career,
too. Ough! they are first-rate, these people, at making a career! Damn
ethics, I am done for, Alexey, I am, you man of God! I love you more than
any one. It makes my heart yearn to look at you. Who was Karl Bernard?"

"Karl Bernard?" Alyosha was surprised again.

"No, not Karl. Stay, I made a mistake. Claude Bernard. What was he?
Chemist or what?"

"He must be a savant," answered Alyosha; "but I confess I can't tell you
much about him, either. I've heard of him as a savant, but what sort I
don't know."

"Well, damn him, then! I don't know either," swore Mitya. "A scoundrel of
some sort, most likely. They are all scoundrels. And Rakitin will make his
way. Rakitin will get on anywhere; he is another Bernard. Ugh, these
Bernards! They are all over the place."

"But what is the matter?" Alyosha asked insistently.

"He wants to write an article about me, about my case, and so begin his
literary career. That's what he comes for; he said so himself. He wants to
prove some theory. He wants to say 'he couldn't help murdering his father,
he was corrupted by his environment,' and so on. He explained it all to
me. He is going to put in a tinge of Socialism, he says. But there, damn
the fellow, he can put in a tinge if he likes, I don't care. He can't bear
Ivan, he hates him. He's not fond of you, either. But I don't turn him
out, for he is a clever fellow. Awfully conceited, though. I said to him
just now, 'The Karamazovs are not blackguards, but philosophers; for all
true Russians are philosophers, and though you've studied, you are not a
philosopher--you are a low fellow.' He laughed, so maliciously. And I said
to him, '_De ideabus non est disputandum_.' Isn't that rather good? I can
set up for being a classic, you see!" Mitya laughed suddenly.

"Why is it all over with you? You said so just now," Alyosha interposed.

"Why is it all over with me? H'm!... The fact of it is ... if you take it
as a whole, I am sorry to lose God--that's why it is."

"What do you mean by 'sorry to lose God'?"

"Imagine: inside, in the nerves, in the head--that is, these nerves are
there in the brain ... (damn them!) there are sort of little tails, the
little tails of those nerves, and as soon as they begin quivering ... that
is, you see, I look at something with my eyes and then they begin
quivering, those little tails ... and when they quiver, then an image
appears ... it doesn't appear at once, but an instant, a second, passes
... and then something like a moment appears; that is, not a moment--devil
take the moment!--but an image; that is, an object, or an action, damn it!
That's why I see and then think, because of those tails, not at all
because I've got a soul, and that I am some sort of image and likeness.
All that is nonsense! Rakitin explained it all to me yesterday, brother,
and it simply bowled me over. It's magnificent, Alyosha, this science! A
new man's arising--that I understand.... And yet I am sorry to lose God!"

"Well, that's a good thing, anyway," said Alyosha.

"That I am sorry to lose God? It's chemistry, brother, chemistry! There's
no help for it, your reverence, you must make way for chemistry. And
Rakitin does dislike God. Ough! doesn't he dislike Him! That's the sore
point with all of them. But they conceal it. They tell lies. They pretend.
'Will you preach this in your reviews?' I asked him. 'Oh, well, if I did
it openly, they won't let it through,' he said. He laughed. 'But what will
become of men then?' I asked him, 'without God and immortal life? All
things are lawful then, they can do what they like?' 'Didn't you know?' he
said laughing, 'a clever man can do what he likes,' he said. 'A clever man
knows his way about, but you've put your foot in it, committing a murder,
and now you are rotting in prison.' He says that to my face! A regular
pig! I used to kick such people out, but now I listen to them. He talks a
lot of sense, too. Writes well. He began reading me an article last week.
I copied out three lines of it. Wait a minute. Here it is."

Mitya hurriedly pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket and read:

" 'In order to determine this question, it is above all essential to put
one's personality in contradiction to one's reality.' Do you understand
that?"

"No, I don't," said Alyosha. He looked at Mitya and listened to him with
curiosity.

"I don't understand either. It's dark and obscure, but intellectual.
'Every one writes like that now,' he says, 'it's the effect of their
environment.' They are afraid of the environment. He writes poetry, too,
the rascal. He's written in honor of Madame Hohlakov's foot. Ha ha ha!"

"I've heard about it," said Alyosha.

"Have you? And have you heard the poem?"

"No."

"I've got it. Here it is. I'll read it to you. You don't know--I haven't
told you--there's quite a story about it. He's a rascal! Three weeks ago he
began to tease me. 'You've got yourself into a mess, like a fool, for the
sake of three thousand, but I'm going to collar a hundred and fifty
thousand. I am going to marry a widow and buy a house in Petersburg.' And
he told me he was courting Madame Hohlakov. She hadn't much brains in her
youth, and now at forty she has lost what she had. 'But she's awfully
sentimental,' he says; 'that's how I shall get hold of her. When I marry
her, I shall take her to Petersburg and there I shall start a newspaper.'
And his mouth was simply watering, the beast, not for the widow, but for
the hundred and fifty thousand. And he made me believe it. He came to see
me every day. 'She is coming round,' he declared. He was beaming with
delight. And then, all of a sudden, he was turned out of the house.
Perhotin's carrying everything before him, bravo! I could kiss the silly
old noodle for turning him out of the house. And he had written this
doggerel. 'It's the first time I've soiled my hands with writing poetry,'
he said. 'It's to win her heart, so it's in a good cause. When I get hold
of the silly woman's fortune, I can be of great social utility.' They have
this social justification for every nasty thing they do! 'Anyway it's
better than your Pushkin's poetry,' he said, 'for I've managed to advocate
enlightenment even in that.' I understand what he means about Pushkin, I
quite see that, if he really was a man of talent and only wrote about
women's feet. But wasn't Rakitin stuck up about his doggerel! The vanity
of these fellows! 'On the convalescence of the swollen foot of the object
of my affections'--he thought of that for a title. He's a waggish fellow.

    A captivating little foot,
    Though swollen and red and tender!
    The doctors come and plasters put,
    But still they cannot mend her.

    Yet, 'tis not for her foot I dread--
    A theme for Pushkin's muse more fit--
    It's not her foot, it is her head:
    I tremble for her loss of wit!

    For as her foot swells, strange to say,
    Her intellect is on the wane--
    Oh, for some remedy I pray
    That may restore both foot and brain!

He is a pig, a regular pig, but he's very arch, the rascal! And he really
has put in a progressive idea. And wasn't he angry when she kicked him
out! He was gnashing his teeth!"

"He's taken his revenge already," said Alyosha. "He's written a paragraph
about Madame Hohlakov."

And Alyosha told him briefly about the paragraph in _Gossip_.

"That's his doing, that's his doing!" Mitya assented, frowning. "That's
him! These paragraphs ... I know ... the insulting things that have been
written about Grushenka, for instance.... And about Katya, too.... H'm!"

He walked across the room with a harassed air.

"Brother, I cannot stay long," Alyosha said, after a pause. "To-morrow
will be a great and awful day for you, the judgment of God will be
accomplished ... I am amazed at you, you walk about here, talking of I
don't know what ..."

"No, don't be amazed at me," Mitya broke in warmly. "Am I to talk of that
stinking dog? Of the murderer? We've talked enough of him. I don't want to
say more of the stinking son of Stinking Lizaveta! God will kill him, you
will see. Hush!"

He went up to Alyosha excitedly and kissed him. His eyes glowed.

"Rakitin wouldn't understand it," he began in a sort of exaltation; "but
you, you'll understand it all. That's why I was thirsting for you. You
see, there's so much I've been wanting to tell you for ever so long, here,
within these peeling walls, but I haven't said a word about what matters
most; the moment never seems to have come. Now I can wait no longer. I
must pour out my heart to you. Brother, these last two months I've found
in myself a new man. A new man has risen up in me. He was hidden in me,
but would never have come to the surface, if it hadn't been for this blow
from heaven. I am afraid! And what do I care if I spend twenty years in
the mines, breaking ore with a hammer? I am not a bit afraid of that--it's
something else I am afraid of now: that that new man may leave me. Even
there, in the mines, under-ground, I may find a human heart in another
convict and murderer by my side, and I may make friends with him, for even
there one may live and love and suffer. One may thaw and revive a frozen
heart in that convict, one may wait upon him for years, and at last bring
up from the dark depths a lofty soul, a feeling, suffering creature; one
may bring forth an angel, create a hero! There are so many of them,
hundreds of them, and we are all to blame for them. Why was it I dreamed
of that 'babe' at such a moment? 'Why is the babe so poor?' That was a
sign to me at that moment. It's for the babe I'm going. Because we are all
responsible for all. For all the 'babes,' for there are big children as
well as little children. All are 'babes.' I go for all, because some one
must go for all. I didn't kill father, but I've got to go. I accept it.
It's all come to me here, here, within these peeling walls. There are
numbers of them there, hundreds of them underground, with hammers in their
hands. Oh, yes, we shall be in chains and there will be no freedom, but
then, in our great sorrow, we shall rise again to joy, without which man
cannot live nor God exist, for God gives joy: it's His privilege--a grand
one. Ah, man should be dissolved in prayer! What should I be underground
there without God? Rakitin's laughing! If they drive God from the earth,
we shall shelter Him underground. One cannot exist in prison without God;
it's even more impossible than out of prison. And then we men underground
will sing from the bowels of the earth a glorious hymn to God, with Whom
is joy. Hail to God and His joy! I love Him!"

Mitya was almost gasping for breath as he uttered his wild speech. He
turned pale, his lips quivered, and tears rolled down his cheeks.

"Yes, life is full, there is life even underground," he began again. "You
wouldn't believe, Alexey, how I want to live now, what a thirst for
existence and consciousness has sprung up in me within these peeling
walls. Rakitin doesn't understand that; all he cares about is building a
house and letting flats. But I've been longing for you. And what is
suffering? I am not afraid of it, even if it were beyond reckoning. I am
not afraid of it now. I was afraid of it before. Do you know, perhaps I
won't answer at the trial at all.... And I seem to have such strength in
me now, that I think I could stand anything, any suffering, only to be
able to say and to repeat to myself every moment, 'I exist.' In thousands
of agonies--I exist. I'm tormented on the rack--but I exist! Though I sit
alone on a pillar--I exist! I see the sun, and if I don't see the sun, I
know it's there. And there's a whole life in that, in knowing that the sun
is there. Alyosha, my angel, all these philosophies are the death of me.
Damn them! Brother Ivan--"

"What of brother Ivan?" interrupted Alyosha, but Mitya did not hear.

"You see, I never had any of these doubts before, but it was all hidden
away in me. It was perhaps just because ideas I did not understand were
surging up in me, that I used to drink and fight and rage. It was to
stifle them in myself, to still them, to smother them. Ivan is not
Rakitin, there is an idea in him. Ivan is a sphinx and is silent; he is
always silent. It's God that's worrying me. That's the only thing that's
worrying me. What if He doesn't exist? What if Rakitin's right--that it's
an idea made up by men? Then if He doesn't exist, man is the chief of the
earth, of the universe. Magnificent! Only how is he going to be good
without God? That's the question. I always come back to that. For whom is
man going to love then? To whom will he be thankful? To whom will he sing
the hymn? Rakitin laughs. Rakitin says that one can love humanity without
God. Well, only a sniveling idiot can maintain that. I can't understand
it. Life's easy for Rakitin. 'You'd better think about the extension of
civic rights, or even of keeping down the price of meat. You will show
your love for humanity more simply and directly by that, than by
philosophy.' I answered him, 'Well, but you, without a God, are more
likely to raise the price of meat, if it suits you, and make a rouble on
every copeck.' He lost his temper. But after all, what is goodness? Answer
me that, Alexey. Goodness is one thing with me and another with a
Chinaman, so it's a relative thing. Or isn't it? Is it not relative? A
treacherous question! You won't laugh if I tell you it's kept me awake two
nights. I only wonder now how people can live and think nothing about it.
Vanity! Ivan has no God. He has an idea. It's beyond me. But he is silent.
I believe he is a free-mason. I asked him, but he is silent. I wanted to
drink from the springs of his soul--he was silent. But once he did drop a
word."

"What did he say?" Alyosha took it up quickly.

"I said to him, 'Then everything is lawful, if it is so?' He frowned.
'Fyodor Pavlovitch, our papa,' he said, 'was a pig, but his ideas were
right enough.' That was what he dropped. That was all he said. That was
going one better than Rakitin."

"Yes," Alyosha assented bitterly. "When was he with you?"

"Of that later; now I must speak of something else. I have said nothing
about Ivan to you before. I put it off to the last. When my business here
is over and the verdict has been given, then I'll tell you something. I'll
tell you everything. We've something tremendous on hand.... And you shall
be my judge in it. But don't begin about that now; be silent. You talk of
to-morrow, of the trial; but, would you believe it, I know nothing about
it."

"Have you talked to the counsel?"

"What's the use of the counsel? I told him all about it. He's a soft,
city-bred rogue--a Bernard! But he doesn't believe me--not a bit of it. Only
imagine, he believes I did it. I see it. 'In that case,' I asked him, 'why
have you come to defend me?' Hang them all! They've got a doctor down,
too, want to prove I'm mad. I won't have that! Katerina Ivanovna wants to
do her 'duty' to the end, whatever the strain!" Mitya smiled bitterly.
"The cat! Hard-hearted creature! She knows that I said of her at Mokroe
that she was a woman of 'great wrath.' They repeated it. Yes, the facts
against me have grown numerous as the sands of the sea. Grigory sticks to
his point. Grigory's honest, but a fool. Many people are honest because
they are fools: that's Rakitin's idea. Grigory's my enemy. And there are
some people who are better as foes than friends. I mean Katerina Ivanovna.
I am afraid, oh, I am afraid she will tell how she bowed to the ground
after that four thousand. She'll pay it back to the last farthing. I don't
want her sacrifice; they'll put me to shame at the trial. I wonder how I
can stand it. Go to her, Alyosha, ask her not to speak of that in the
court, can't you? But damn it all, it doesn't matter! I shall get through
somehow. I don't pity her. It's her own doing. She deserves what she gets.
I shall have my own story to tell, Alexey." He smiled bitterly again.
"Only ... only Grusha, Grusha! Good Lord! Why should she have such
suffering to bear?" he exclaimed suddenly, with tears. "Grusha's killing
me; the thought of her's killing me, killing me. She was with me just
now...."

"She told me she was very much grieved by you to-day."

"I know. Confound my temper! It was jealousy. I was sorry, I kissed her as
she was going. I didn't ask her forgiveness."

"Why didn't you?" exclaimed Alyosha.

Suddenly Mitya laughed almost mirthfully.

"God preserve you, my dear boy, from ever asking forgiveness for a fault
from a woman you love. From one you love especially, however greatly you
may have been in fault. For a woman--devil only knows what to make of a
woman! I know something about them, anyway. But try acknowledging you are
in fault to a woman. Say, 'I am sorry, forgive me,' and a shower of
reproaches will follow! Nothing will make her forgive you simply and
directly, she'll humble you to the dust, bring forward things that have
never happened, recall everything, forget nothing, add something of her
own, and only then forgive you. And even the best, the best of them do it.
She'll scrape up all the scrapings and load them on your head. They are
ready to flay you alive, I tell you, every one of them, all these angels
without whom we cannot live! I tell you plainly and openly, dear boy,
every decent man ought to be under some woman's thumb. That's my
conviction--not conviction, but feeling. A man ought to be magnanimous, and
it's no disgrace to a man! No disgrace to a hero, not even a Caesar! But
don't ever beg her pardon all the same for anything. Remember that rule
given you by your brother Mitya, who's come to ruin through women. No, I'd
better make it up to Grusha somehow, without begging pardon. I worship
her, Alexey, worship her. Only she doesn't see it. No, she still thinks I
don't love her enough. And she tortures me, tortures me with her love. The
past was nothing! In the past it was only those infernal curves of hers
that tortured me, but now I've taken all her soul into my soul and through
her I've become a man myself. Will they marry us? If they don't, I shall
die of jealousy. I imagine something every day.... What did she say to you
about me?"

Alyosha repeated all Grushenka had said to him that day. Mitya listened,
made him repeat things, and seemed pleased.

"Then she is not angry at my being jealous?" he exclaimed. "She is a
regular woman! 'I've a fierce heart myself!' Ah, I love such fierce
hearts, though I can't bear any one's being jealous of me. I can't endure
it. We shall fight. But I shall love her, I shall love her infinitely.
Will they marry us? Do they let convicts marry? That's the question. And
without her I can't exist...."

Mitya walked frowning across the room. It was almost dark. He suddenly
seemed terribly worried.

"So there's a secret, she says, a secret? We have got up a plot against
her, and Katya is mixed up in it, she thinks. No, my good Grushenka,
that's not it. You are very wide of the mark, in your foolish feminine
way. Alyosha, darling, well, here goes! I'll tell you our secret!"

He looked round, went close up quickly to Alyosha, who was standing before
him, and whispered to him with an air of mystery, though in reality no one
could hear them: the old warder was dozing in the corner, and not a word
could reach the ears of the soldiers on guard.

"I will tell you all our secret," Mitya whispered hurriedly. "I meant to
tell you later, for how could I decide on anything without you? You are
everything to me. Though I say that Ivan is superior to us, you are my
angel. It's your decision will decide it. Perhaps it's you that is
superior and not Ivan. You see, it's a question of conscience, question of
the higher conscience--the secret is so important that I can't settle it
myself, and I've put it off till I could speak to you. But anyway it's too
early to decide now, for we must wait for the verdict. As soon as the
verdict is given, you shall decide my fate. Don't decide it now. I'll tell
you now. You listen, but don't decide. Stand and keep quiet. I won't tell
you everything. I'll only tell you the idea, without details, and you keep
quiet. Not a question, not a movement. You agree? But, goodness, what
shall I do with your eyes? I'm afraid your eyes will tell me your
decision, even if you don't speak. Oo! I'm afraid! Alyosha, listen! Ivan
suggests my _escaping_. I won't tell you the details: it's all been
thought out: it can all be arranged. Hush, don't decide. I should go to
America with Grusha. You know I can't live without Grusha! What if they
won't let her follow me to Siberia? Do they let convicts get married? Ivan
thinks not. And without Grusha what should I do there underground with a
hammer? I should only smash my skull with the hammer! But, on the other
hand, my conscience? I should have run away from suffering. A sign has
come, I reject the sign. I have a way of salvation and I turn my back on
it. Ivan says that in America, 'with the good-will,' I can be of more use
than underground. But what becomes of our hymn from underground? What's
America? America is vanity again! And there's a lot of swindling in
America, too, I expect. I should have run away from crucifixion! I tell
you, you know, Alexey, because you are the only person who can understand
this. There's no one else. It's folly, madness to others, all I've told
you of the hymn. They'll say I'm out of my mind or a fool. I am not out of
my mind and I am not a fool. Ivan understands about the hymn, too. He
understands, only he doesn't answer--he doesn't speak. He doesn't believe
in the hymn. Don't speak, don't speak. I see how you look! You have
already decided. Don't decide, spare me! I can't live without Grusha. Wait
till after the trial!"

Mitya ended beside himself. He held Alyosha with both hands on his
shoulders, and his yearning, feverish eyes were fixed on his brother's.

"They don't let convicts marry, do they?" he repeated for the third time
in a supplicating voice.

Alyosha listened with extreme surprise and was deeply moved.

"Tell me one thing," he said. "Is Ivan very keen on it, and whose idea was
it?"

"His, his, and he is very keen on it. He didn't come to see me at first,
then he suddenly came a week ago and he began about it straight away. He
is awfully keen on it. He doesn't ask me, but orders me to escape. He
doesn't doubt of my obeying him, though I showed him all my heart as I
have to you, and told him about the hymn, too. He told me he'd arrange it;
he's found out about everything. But of that later. He's simply set on it.
It's all a matter of money: he'll pay ten thousand for escape and give me
twenty thousand for America. And he says we can arrange a magnificent
escape for ten thousand."

"And he told you on no account to tell me?" Alyosha asked again.

"To tell no one, and especially not you; on no account to tell you. He is
afraid, no doubt, that you'll stand before me as my conscience. Don't tell
him I told you. Don't tell him, for anything."

"You are right," Alyosha pronounced; "it's impossible to decide anything
before the trial is over. After the trial you'll decide of yourself. Then
you'll find that new man in yourself and he will decide."

"A new man, or a Bernard who'll decide _a la_ Bernard, for I believe I'm a
contemptible Bernard myself," said Mitya, with a bitter grin.

"But, brother, have you no hope then of being acquitted?"

Mitya shrugged his shoulders nervously and shook his head. "Alyosha,
darling, it's time you were going," he said, with a sudden haste. "There's
the superintendent shouting in the yard. He'll be here directly. We are
late; it's irregular. Embrace me quickly. Kiss me! Sign me with the cross,
darling, for the cross I have to bear to-morrow."

They embraced and kissed.

"Ivan," said Mitya suddenly, "suggests my escaping; but, of course, he
believes I did it."

A mournful smile came on to his lips.

"Have you asked him whether he believes it?" asked Alyosha.

"No, I haven't. I wanted to, but I couldn't. I hadn't the courage. But I
saw it from his eyes. Well, good-by!"

Once more they kissed hurriedly, and Alyosha was just going out, when
Mitya suddenly called him back.

"Stand facing me! That's right!" And again he seized Alyosha, putting both
hands on his shoulders. His face became suddenly quite pale, so that it
was dreadfully apparent, even through the gathering darkness. His lips
twitched, his eyes fastened upon Alyosha.

"Alyosha, tell me the whole truth, as you would before God. Do you believe
I did it? Do you, do you in yourself, believe it? The whole truth, don't
lie!" he cried desperately.

Everything seemed heaving before Alyosha, and he felt something like a
stab at his heart.

"Hush! What do you mean?" he faltered helplessly.

"The whole truth, the whole, don't lie!" repeated Mitya.

"I've never for one instant believed that you were the murderer!" broke in
a shaking voice from Alyosha's breast, and he raised his right hand in the
air, as though calling God to witness his words.

Mitya's whole face was lighted up with bliss.

"Thank you!" he articulated slowly, as though letting a sigh escape him
after fainting. "Now you have given me new life. Would you believe it,
till this moment I've been afraid to ask you, you, even you. Well, go!
You've given me strength for to-morrow. God bless you! Come, go along!
Love Ivan!" was Mitya's last word.

Alyosha went out in tears. Such distrustfulness in Mitya, such lack of
confidence even to him, to Alyosha--all this suddenly opened before Alyosha
an unsuspected depth of hopeless grief and despair in the soul of his
unhappy brother. Intense, infinite compassion overwhelmed him instantly.
There was a poignant ache in his torn heart. "Love Ivan!"--he suddenly
recalled Mitya's words. And he was going to Ivan. He badly wanted to see
Ivan all day. He was as much worried about Ivan as about Mitya, and more
than ever now.

It's already getting quite late when Alyosha finally visits Dmitri in his cell. Rakitin is just on his way out and seems irritated with Alyosha for some reason and can barely look him in the face. Dmitri is amused by Rakitin, who wants to make a name for himself by writing an article about Dmitri's trial. Rakitin apparently had big plans for a journalistic career in Petersburg, all funded by Madame Khokhlakov's money. Rakitin wrote that catty article for Rumors because Khokhlakov had rejected him and all his career plans had fallen apart. Dmitri believes that over the past two months, sitting in prison, he has felt a "new man" arise within himself, and some possibility for redemption is available to him through suffering. Even miserable sinners like himself, stuck in prison, can assume the guilt of everyone else in the world and sing God's praises in a "tragic hymn." Dmitri tells Alyosha about how annoyed he is at Katerina, who has hired a doctor to prove him mentally ill. He doesn't want her to testify about their humiliating past together, fearing that she will humiliate not only him, but herself. But Dmitri is also tempted by a huge "secret," which he finally reveals to be Ivan's plan for his escape. Ivan wants desperately for Dmitri to escape prison and go to America. Then all of a sudden Dmitri asks Alyosha if he thinks he killed their father. Alyosha swears that he believes Dmitri to be innocent. Saddened that his brother could distrust him, Alyosha leaves to find Ivan.

A Hymn and a Secret Alyosha goes to the prison, where Rakitin has just visited Dmitri. Perplexed, Alyosha asks Dmitri about the visit, and Dmitri says Rakitin wants to write an article alleging that, because of his circumstances, Dmitri could not have helped but kill his father. Dmitri says he holds Rakitin in contempt, but allows him to visit so he can laugh at his ideas. Sobering, Dmitri tells Alyosha that even though he is not guilty of the crime of which he is accused, he has come to terms with the burden of sin he has created for himself and longs to do penance and redeem himself. He is only afraid that Grushenka will not be allowed to travel with him to his exile in Siberia, and that without her, he will lack the strength necessary for his spiritual renewal. Dmitri says that Ivan has recently offered him a plan for his escape, even though Ivan believes Dmitri to be guilty of the murder. This plan is the secret that they have been keeping from Grushenka. Tormented with grief and guilt, Dmitri refuses to escape before the trial. He asks Alyosha what he believes, and Alyosha says that he has never believed Dmitri to be guilty. This declaration from his younger brother fills Dmitri with courage and hope


Chapter V. Not You, Not You!

On the way to Ivan he had to pass the house where Katerina Ivanovna was
living. There was light in the windows. He suddenly stopped and resolved
to go in. He had not seen Katerina Ivanovna for more than a week. But now
it struck him that Ivan might be with her, especially on the eve of the
terrible day. Ringing, and mounting the staircase, which was dimly lighted
by a Chinese lantern, he saw a man coming down, and as they met, he
recognized him as his brother. So he was just coming from Katerina
Ivanovna.

"Ah, it's only you," said Ivan dryly. "Well, good-by! You are going to
her?"

"Yes."

"I don't advise you to; she's upset and you'll upset her more."

A door was instantly flung open above, and a voice cried suddenly:

"No, no! Alexey Fyodorovitch, have you come from him?"

"Yes, I have been with him."

"Has he sent me any message? Come up, Alyosha, and you, Ivan Fyodorovitch,
you must come back, you must. Do you hear?"

There was such a peremptory note in Katya's voice that Ivan, after a
moment's hesitation, made up his mind to go back with Alyosha.

"She was listening," he murmured angrily to himself, but Alyosha heard it.

"Excuse my keeping my greatcoat on," said Ivan, going into the drawing-
room. "I won't sit down. I won't stay more than a minute."

"Sit down, Alexey Fyodorovitch," said Katerina Ivanovna, though she
remained standing. She had changed very little during this time, but there
was an ominous gleam in her dark eyes. Alyosha remembered afterwards that
she had struck him as particularly handsome at that moment.

"What did he ask you to tell me?"

"Only one thing," said Alyosha, looking her straight in the face, "that
you would spare yourself and say nothing at the trial of what" (he was a
little confused) "... passed between you ... at the time of your first
acquaintance ... in that town."

"Ah! that I bowed down to the ground for that money!" She broke into a
bitter laugh. "Why, is he afraid for me or for himself? He asks me to
spare--whom? Him or myself? Tell me, Alexey Fyodorovitch!"

Alyosha watched her intently, trying to understand her.

"Both yourself and him," he answered softly.

"I am glad to hear it," she snapped out maliciously, and she suddenly
blushed.

"You don't know me yet, Alexey Fyodorovitch," she said menacingly. "And I
don't know myself yet. Perhaps you'll want to trample me under foot after
my examination to-morrow."

"You will give your evidence honorably," said Alyosha; "that's all that's
wanted."

"Women are often dishonorable," she snarled. "Only an hour ago I was
thinking I felt afraid to touch that monster ... as though he were a
reptile ... but no, he is still a human being to me! But did he do it? Is
he the murderer?" she cried, all of a sudden, hysterically, turning
quickly to Ivan. Alyosha saw at once that she had asked Ivan that question
before, perhaps only a moment before he came in, and not for the first
time, but for the hundredth, and that they had ended by quarreling.

"I've been to see Smerdyakov.... It was you, you who persuaded me that he
murdered his father. It's only you I believed!" she continued, still
addressing Ivan. He gave her a sort of strained smile. Alyosha started at
her tone. He had not suspected such familiar intimacy between them.

"Well, that's enough, anyway," Ivan cut short the conversation. "I am
going. I'll come to-morrow." And turning at once, he walked out of the
room and went straight downstairs.

With an imperious gesture, Katerina Ivanovna seized Alyosha by both hands.

"Follow him! Overtake him! Don't leave him alone for a minute!" she said,
in a hurried whisper. "He's mad! Don't you know that he's mad? He is in a
fever, nervous fever. The doctor told me so. Go, run after him...."

Alyosha jumped up and ran after Ivan, who was not fifty paces ahead of
him.

"What do you want?" He turned quickly on Alyosha, seeing that he was
running after him. "She told you to catch me up, because I'm mad. I know
it all by heart," he added irritably.

"She is mistaken, of course; but she is right that you are ill," said
Alyosha. "I was looking at your face just now. You look very ill, Ivan."

Ivan walked on without stopping. Alyosha followed him.

"And do you know, Alexey Fyodorovitch, how people do go out of their
mind?" Ivan asked in a voice suddenly quiet, without a trace of
irritation, with a note of the simplest curiosity.

"No, I don't. I suppose there are all kinds of insanity."

"And can one observe that one's going mad oneself?"

"I imagine one can't see oneself clearly in such circumstances," Alyosha
answered with surprise.

Ivan paused for half a minute.

"If you want to talk to me, please change the subject," he said suddenly.

"Oh, while I think of it, I have a letter for you," said Alyosha timidly,
and he took Lise's note from his pocket and held it out to Ivan. They were
just under a lamp-post. Ivan recognized the handwriting at once.

"Ah, from that little demon!" he laughed maliciously, and, without opening
the envelope, he tore it into bits and threw it in the air. The bits were
scattered by the wind.

"She's not sixteen yet, I believe, and already offering herself," he said
contemptuously, striding along the street again.

"How do you mean, offering herself?" exclaimed Alyosha.

"As wanton women offer themselves, to be sure."

"How can you, Ivan, how can you?" Alyosha cried warmly, in a grieved
voice. "She is a child; you are insulting a child! She is ill; she is very
ill, too. She is on the verge of insanity, too, perhaps.... I had hoped to
hear something from you ... that would save her."

"You'll hear nothing from me. If she is a child I am not her nurse. Be
quiet, Alexey. Don't go on about her. I am not even thinking about it."

They were silent again for a moment.

"She will be praying all night now to the Mother of God to show her how to
act to-morrow at the trial," he said sharply and angrily again.

"You ... you mean Katerina Ivanovna?"

"Yes. Whether she's to save Mitya or ruin him. She'll pray for light from
above. She can't make up her mind for herself, you see. She has not had
time to decide yet. She takes me for her nurse, too. She wants me to sing
lullabies to her."

"Katerina Ivanovna loves you, brother," said Alyosha sadly.

"Perhaps; but I am not very keen on her."

"She is suffering. Why do you ... sometimes say things to her that give
her hope?" Alyosha went on, with timid reproach. "I know that you've given
her hope. Forgive me for speaking to you like this," he added.

"I can't behave to her as I ought--break off altogether and tell her so
straight out," said Ivan, irritably. "I must wait till sentence is passed
on the murderer. If I break off with her now, she will avenge herself on
me by ruining that scoundrel to-morrow at the trial, for she hates him and
knows she hates him. It's all a lie--lie upon lie! As long as I don't break
off with her, she goes on hoping, and she won't ruin that monster, knowing
how I want to get him out of trouble. If only that damned verdict would
come!"

The words "murderer" and "monster" echoed painfully in Alyosha's heart.

"But how can she ruin Mitya?" he asked, pondering on Ivan's words. "What
evidence can she give that would ruin Mitya?"

"You don't know that yet. She's got a document in her hands, in Mitya's
own writing, that proves conclusively that he did murder Fyodor
Pavlovitch."

"That's impossible!" cried Alyosha.

"Why is it impossible? I've read it myself."

"There can't be such a document!" Alyosha repeated warmly. "There can't
be, because he's not the murderer. It's not he murdered father, not he!"

Ivan suddenly stopped.

"Who is the murderer then, according to you?" he asked, with apparent
coldness. There was even a supercilious note in his voice.

"You know who," Alyosha pronounced in a low, penetrating voice.

"Who? You mean the myth about that crazy idiot, the epileptic,
Smerdyakov?"

Alyosha suddenly felt himself trembling all over.

"You know who," broke helplessly from him. He could scarcely breathe.

"Who? Who?" Ivan cried almost fiercely. All his restraint suddenly
vanished.

"I only know one thing," Alyosha went on, still almost in a whisper, "_it
wasn't you_ killed father."

" 'Not you'! What do you mean by 'not you'?" Ivan was thunderstruck.

"It was not you killed father, not you!" Alyosha repeated firmly.

The silence lasted for half a minute.

"I know I didn't. Are you raving?" said Ivan, with a pale, distorted
smile. His eyes were riveted on Alyosha. They were standing again under a
lamp-post.

"No, Ivan. You've told yourself several times that you are the murderer."

"When did I say so? I was in Moscow.... When have I said so?" Ivan
faltered helplessly.

"You've said so to yourself many times, when you've been alone during
these two dreadful months," Alyosha went on softly and distinctly as
before. Yet he was speaking now, as it were, not of himself, not of his
own will, but obeying some irresistible command. "You have accused
yourself and have confessed to yourself that you are the murderer and no
one else. But you didn't do it: you are mistaken: you are not the
murderer. Do you hear? It was not you! God has sent me to tell you so."

They were both silent. The silence lasted a whole long minute. They were
both standing still, gazing into each other's eyes. They were both pale.
Suddenly Ivan began trembling all over, and clutched Alyosha's shoulder.

"You've been in my room!" he whispered hoarsely. "You've been there at
night, when he came.... Confess ... have you seen him, have you seen him?"

"Whom do you mean--Mitya?" Alyosha asked, bewildered.

"Not him, damn the monster!" Ivan shouted, in a frenzy. "Do you know that
he visits me? How did you find out? Speak!"

"Who is _he_! I don't know whom you are talking about," Alyosha faltered,
beginning to be alarmed.

"Yes, you do know ... or how could you--? It's impossible that you don't
know."

Suddenly he seemed to check himself. He stood still and seemed to reflect.
A strange grin contorted his lips.

"Brother," Alyosha began again, in a shaking voice, "I have said this to
you, because you'll believe my word, I know that. I tell you once and for
all, it's not you. You hear, once for all! God has put it into my heart to
say this to you, even though it may make you hate me from this hour."

But by now Ivan had apparently regained his self-control.

"Alexey Fyodorovitch," he said, with a cold smile, "I can't endure
prophets and epileptics--messengers from God especially--and you know that
only too well. I break off all relations with you from this moment and
probably for ever. I beg you to leave me at this turning. It's the way to
your lodgings, too. You'd better be particularly careful not to come to me
to-day! Do you hear?"

He turned and walked on with a firm step, not looking back.

"Brother," Alyosha called after him, "if anything happens to you to-day,
turn to me before any one!"

But Ivan made no reply. Alyosha stood under the lamp-post at the cross
roads, till Ivan had vanished into the darkness. Then he turned and walked
slowly homewards. Both Alyosha and Ivan were living in lodgings; neither
of them was willing to live in Fyodor Pavlovitch's empty house. Alyosha
had a furnished room in the house of some working people. Ivan lived some
distance from him. He had taken a roomy and fairly comfortable lodge
attached to a fine house that belonged to a well-to-do lady, the widow of
an official. But his only attendant was a deaf and rheumatic old crone who
went to bed at six o'clock every evening and got up at six in the morning.
Ivan had become remarkably indifferent to his comforts of late, and very
fond of being alone. He did everything for himself in the one room he
lived in, and rarely entered any of the other rooms in his abode.

He reached the gate of the house and had his hand on the bell, when he
suddenly stopped. He felt that he was trembling all over with anger.
Suddenly he let go of the bell, turned back with a curse, and walked with
rapid steps in the opposite direction. He walked a mile and a half to a
tiny, slanting, wooden house, almost a hut, where Marya Kondratyevna, the
neighbor who used to come to Fyodor Pavlovitch's kitchen for soup and to
whom Smerdyakov had once sung his songs and played on the guitar, was now
lodging. She had sold their little house, and was now living here with her
mother. Smerdyakov, who was ill--almost dying--had been with them ever since
Fyodor Pavlovitch's death. It was to him Ivan was going now, drawn by a
sudden and irresistible prompting.

On his way to look for Ivan, Alyosha notes that the lights are on at Katerina's, and figures Ivan must be visiting her. Sure enough, he meets Ivan just as he's leaving Katerina's. They both go up to see her. Alyosha tells Katerina that Dmitri doesn't want her to testify, but Katerina scoffs at him. She reveals that she's been to visit Smerdyakov because Ivan has told her that Smerdyakov is the real killer, but she still seems unconvinced. When Ivan leaves, Alyosha chases after him and gives him Lise's note. Ivan tears up the letter. Ivan then tells Alyosha that he's only staying friendly with Katerina because he doesn't want her to ruin Dmitri's chances at the trial. Ivan claims he's no longer in love with Katerina, but he also believes that Katerina has a document that "mathematically" proves that Dmitri killed their father, an idea that Alyosha rejects. When Ivan asks Alyosha who he thinks killed their father, Alyosha insists that he doesn't think it was Dmitri. Ivan is strangely disturbed, then accuses Alyosha of spying on him in his room when he was visited by an unnamed man. Alyosha is completely mystified and denies spying on his brother. Ivan tells Alyosha to leave him alone, and they go their separate ways. Instead of going home, Ivan decides on impulse to go to Smerdyakov's.

Not You. Not You. Alyosha finds Ivan outside Katerina's. Ivan tells him that Katerina has a letter from Dmitri that proves he is the murderer. Alyosha does not believe it. He insists that Dmitri is innocent. Ivan asks cuttingly who the murderer could be, if it is not Dmitri. Alyosha says that Ivan obviously considers himself indirectly responsible for the crime, and Alyosha reassures him that he is not. He says that God has sent him to soothe Ivan's conscience. Ivan is troubled by Alyosha's religiosity and storms away


Chapter VI. The First Interview With Smerdyakov

This was the third time that Ivan had been to see Smerdyakov since his
return from Moscow. The first time he had seen him and talked to him was
on the first day of his arrival, then he had visited him once more, a
fortnight later. But his visits had ended with that second one, so that it
was now over a month since he had seen him. And he had scarcely heard
anything of him.

Ivan had only returned five days after his father's death, so that he was
not present at the funeral, which took place the day before he came back.
The cause of his delay was that Alyosha, not knowing his Moscow address,
had to apply to Katerina Ivanovna to telegraph to him, and she, not
knowing his address either, telegraphed to her sister and aunt, reckoning
on Ivan's going to see them as soon as he arrived in Moscow. But he did
not go to them till four days after his arrival. When he got the telegram,
he had, of course, set off post-haste to our town. The first to meet him
was Alyosha, and Ivan was greatly surprised to find that, in opposition to
the general opinion of the town, he refused to entertain a suspicion
against Mitya, and spoke openly of Smerdyakov as the murderer. Later on,
after seeing the police captain and the prosecutor, and hearing the
details of the charge and the arrest, he was still more surprised at
Alyosha, and ascribed his opinion only to his exaggerated brotherly
feeling and sympathy with Mitya, of whom Alyosha, as Ivan knew, was very
fond.

By the way, let us say a word or two of Ivan's feeling to his brother
Dmitri. He positively disliked him; at most, felt sometimes a compassion
for him, and even that was mixed with great contempt, almost repugnance.
Mitya's whole personality, even his appearance, was extremely unattractive
to him. Ivan looked with indignation on Katerina Ivanovna's love for his
brother. Yet he went to see Mitya on the first day of his arrival, and
that interview, far from shaking Ivan's belief in his guilt, positively
strengthened it. He found his brother agitated, nervously excited. Mitya
had been talkative, but very absent-minded and incoherent. He used violent
language, accused Smerdyakov, and was fearfully muddled. He talked
principally about the three thousand roubles, which he said had been
"stolen" from him by his father.

"The money was mine, it was my money," Mitya kept repeating. "Even if I
had stolen it, I should have had the right."

He hardly contested the evidence against him, and if he tried to turn a
fact to his advantage, it was in an absurd and incoherent way. He hardly
seemed to wish to defend himself to Ivan or any one else. Quite the
contrary, he was angry and proudly scornful of the charges against him; he
was continually firing up and abusing every one. He only laughed
contemptuously at Grigory's evidence about the open door, and declared
that it was "the devil that opened it." But he could not bring forward any
coherent explanation of the fact. He even succeeded in insulting Ivan
during their first interview, telling him sharply that it was not for
people who declared that "everything was lawful," to suspect and question
him. Altogether he was anything but friendly with Ivan on that occasion.
Immediately after that interview with Mitya, Ivan went for the first time
to see Smerdyakov.

In the railway train on his way from Moscow, he kept thinking of
Smerdyakov and of his last conversation with him on the evening before he
went away. Many things seemed to him puzzling and suspicious. But when he
gave his evidence to the investigating lawyer Ivan said nothing, for the
time, of that conversation. He put that off till he had seen Smerdyakov,
who was at that time in the hospital.

Doctor Herzenstube and Varvinsky, the doctor he met in the hospital,
confidently asserted in reply to Ivan's persistent questions, that
Smerdyakov's epileptic attack was unmistakably genuine, and were surprised
indeed at Ivan asking whether he might not have been shamming on the day
of the catastrophe. They gave him to understand that the attack was an
exceptional one, the fits persisting and recurring several times, so that
the patient's life was positively in danger, and it was only now, after
they had applied remedies, that they could assert with confidence that the
patient would survive. "Though it might well be," added Doctor
Herzenstube, "that his reason would be impaired for a considerable period,
if not permanently." On Ivan's asking impatiently whether that meant that
he was now mad, they told him that this was not yet the case, in the full
sense of the word, but that certain abnormalities were perceptible. Ivan
decided to find out for himself what those abnormalities were.

At the hospital he was at once allowed to see the patient. Smerdyakov was
lying on a truckle-bed in a separate ward. There was only one other bed in
the room, and in it lay a tradesman of the town, swollen with dropsy, who
was obviously almost dying; he could be no hindrance to their
conversation. Smerdyakov grinned uncertainly on seeing Ivan, and for the
first instant seemed nervous. So at least Ivan fancied. But that was only
momentary. For the rest of the time he was struck, on the contrary, by
Smerdyakov's composure. From the first glance Ivan had no doubt that he
was very ill. He was very weak; he spoke slowly, seeming to move his
tongue with difficulty; he was much thinner and sallower. Throughout the
interview, which lasted twenty minutes, he kept complaining of headache
and of pain in all his limbs. His thin emasculate face seemed to have
become so tiny; his hair was ruffled, and his crest of curls in front
stood up in a thin tuft. But in the left eye, which was screwed up and
seemed to be insinuating something, Smerdyakov showed himself unchanged.
"It's always worth while speaking to a clever man." Ivan was reminded of
that at once. He sat down on the stool at his feet. Smerdyakov, with
painful effort, shifted his position in bed, but he was not the first to
speak. He remained dumb, and did not even look much interested.

"Can you talk to me?" asked Ivan. "I won't tire you much."

"Certainly I can," mumbled Smerdyakov, in a faint voice. "Has your honor
been back long?" he added patronizingly, as though encouraging a nervous
visitor.

"I only arrived to-day.... To see the mess you are in here." Smerdyakov
sighed.

"Why do you sigh? You knew of it all along," Ivan blurted out.

Smerdyakov was stolidly silent for a while.

"How could I help knowing? It was clear beforehand. But how could I tell
it would turn out like that?"

"What would turn out? Don't prevaricate! You've foretold you'd have a fit;
on the way down to the cellar, you know. You mentioned the very spot."

"Have you said so at the examination yet?" Smerdyakov queried with
composure.

Ivan felt suddenly angry.

"No, I haven't yet, but I certainly shall. You must explain a great deal
to me, my man; and let me tell you, I am not going to let you play with
me!"

"Why should I play with you, when I put my whole trust in you, as in God
Almighty?" said Smerdyakov, with the same composure, only for a moment
closing his eyes.

"In the first place," began Ivan, "I know that epileptic fits can't be
told beforehand. I've inquired; don't try and take me in. You can't
foretell the day and the hour. How was it you told me the day and the hour
beforehand, and about the cellar, too? How could you tell that you would
fall down the cellar stairs in a fit, if you didn't sham a fit on
purpose?"

"I had to go to the cellar anyway, several times a day, indeed,"
Smerdyakov drawled deliberately. "I fell from the garret just in the same
way a year ago. It's quite true you can't tell the day and hour of a fit
beforehand, but you can always have a presentiment of it."

"But you did foretell the day and the hour!"

"In regard to my epilepsy, sir, you had much better inquire of the doctors
here. You can ask them whether it was a real fit or a sham; it's no use my
saying any more about it."

"And the cellar? How could you know beforehand of the cellar?"

"You don't seem able to get over that cellar! As I was going down to the
cellar, I was in terrible dread and doubt. What frightened me most was
losing you and being left without defense in all the world. So I went down
into the cellar thinking, 'Here, it'll come on directly, it'll strike me
down directly, shall I fall?' And it was through this fear that I suddenly
felt the spasm that always comes ... and so I went flying. All that and
all my previous conversation with you at the gate the evening before, when
I told you how frightened I was and spoke of the cellar, I told all that
to Doctor Herzenstube and Nikolay Parfenovitch, the investigating lawyer,
and it's all been written down in the protocol. And the doctor here, Mr.
Varvinsky, maintained to all of them that it was just the thought of it
brought it on, the apprehension that I might fall. It was just then that
the fit seized me. And so they've written it down, that it's just how it
must have happened, simply from my fear."

As he finished, Smerdyakov drew a deep breath, as though exhausted.

"Then you have said all that in your evidence?" said Ivan, somewhat taken
aback. He had meant to frighten him with the threat of repeating their
conversation, and it appeared that Smerdyakov had already reported it all
himself.

"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?"

"I did think so," answered Alyosha, softly.

"It was so, too; it was not a matter of guessing. But didn't you fancy
then that what I wished was just that 'one reptile should devour another';
that is, just that Dmitri should kill father, and as soon as possible ...
and that I myself was even prepared to help to bring that about?"

Alyosha turned rather pale, and looked silently into his brother's face.

"Speak!" cried Ivan, "I want above everything to know what you thought
then. I want the truth, the truth!"

He drew a deep breath, looking angrily at Alyosha before his answer came.

"Forgive me, I did think that, too, at the time," whispered Alyosha, and
he did not add one softening phrase.

"Thanks," snapped Ivan, and, leaving Alyosha, he went quickly on his way.
From that time Alyosha noticed that Ivan began obviously to avoid him and
seemed even to have taken a dislike to him, so much so that Alyosha gave
up going to see him. Immediately after that meeting with him, Ivan had not
gone home, but went straight to Smerdyakov again.

At this point, the novel backtracks a couple months to the time of Dmitri's arrest. Ivan, you might remember, was far from the fray in Moscow and only got the message about his father's death four days after it all happened. On his first day back in town, he met with Dmitri, then he went to visit Smerdyakov. Smerdyakov was laid up in the hospital, very ill after a series of epileptic seizures. Ivan confronted him about a number of things Smerdyakov had said before Ivan left for Moscow. Did Smerdyakov fake a seizure? Why did he want Ivan to go to Chermashnya? In his usual sly way, Smerdyakov seems to have an explanation for everything, but he still implies that they're somehow complicit in their father's death - or at least that's what Ivan reads into Smerdyakov's promise that he won't tell the police about their conversation. On his return Ivan had also become madly in love with Katerina, although he denied it to Alyosha. Two weeks after his return, he confronted Alyosha about whether he thinks he might have wished their father dead. Alyosha reluctantly agrees. After this conversation, Ivan decides to visit Smerdyakov again.

The First Meeting with Smerdyakov Since the murder, Smerdyakov has been sick and is now near death. Ivan has visited him twice, and now goes to see him again. During their first visit, Smerdyakov asserts that Ivan left his father on the day of the murder because he suspected his brother Dmitri would kill their father, and Ivan secretly wanted their father to die


Chapter VII. The Second Visit To Smerdyakov

By that time Smerdyakov had been discharged from the hospital. Ivan knew
his new lodging, the dilapidated little wooden house, divided in two by a
passage on one side of which lived Marya Kondratyevna and her mother, and
on the other, Smerdyakov. No one knew on what terms he lived with them,
whether as a friend or as a lodger. It was supposed afterwards that he had
come to stay with them as Marya Kondratyevna's betrothed, and was living
there for a time without paying for board or lodging. Both mother and
daughter had the greatest respect for him and looked upon him as greatly
superior to themselves.

Ivan knocked, and, on the door being opened, went straight into the
passage. By Marya Kondratyevna's directions he went straight to the better
room on the left, occupied by Smerdyakov. There was a tiled stove in the
room and it was extremely hot. The walls were gay with blue paper, which
was a good deal used however, and in the cracks under it cockroaches
swarmed in amazing numbers, so that there was a continual rustling from
them. The furniture was very scanty: two benches against each wall and two
chairs by the table. The table of plain wood was covered with a cloth with
pink patterns on it. There was a pot of geranium on each of the two little
windows. In the corner there was a case of ikons. On the table stood a
little copper samovar with many dents in it, and a tray with two cups. But
Smerdyakov had finished tea and the samovar was out. He was sitting at the
table on a bench. He was looking at an exercise-book and slowly writing
with a pen. There was a bottle of ink by him and a flat iron candlestick,
but with a composite candle. Ivan saw at once from Smerdyakov's face that
he had completely recovered from his illness. His face was fresher,
fuller, his hair stood up jauntily in front, and was plastered down at the
sides. He was sitting in a parti-colored, wadded dressing-gown, rather
dirty and frayed, however. He had spectacles on his nose, which Ivan had
never seen him wearing before. This trifling circumstance suddenly
redoubled Ivan's anger: "A creature like that and wearing spectacles!"

Smerdyakov slowly raised his head and looked intently at his visitor
through his spectacles; then he slowly took them off and rose from the
bench, but by no means respectfully, almost lazily, doing the least
possible required by common civility. All this struck Ivan instantly; he
took it all in and noted it at once--most of all the look in Smerdyakov's
eyes, positively malicious, churlish and haughty. "What do you want to
intrude for?" it seemed to say; "we settled everything then; why have you
come again?" Ivan could scarcely control himself.

"It's hot here," he said, still standing, and unbuttoned his overcoat.

"Take off your coat," Smerdyakov conceded.

Ivan took off his coat and threw it on a bench with trembling hands. He
took a chair, moved it quickly to the table and sat down. Smerdyakov
managed to sit down on his bench before him.

"To begin with, are we alone?" Ivan asked sternly and impulsively. "Can
they overhear us in there?"

"No one can hear anything. You've seen for yourself: there's a passage."

"Listen, my good fellow; what was that you babbled, as I was leaving the
hospital, that if I said nothing about your faculty of shamming fits, you
wouldn't tell the investigating lawyer all our conversation at the gate?
What do you mean by _all_? What could you mean by it? Were you threatening
me? Have I entered into some sort of compact with you? Do you suppose I am
afraid of you?"

Ivan said this in a perfect fury, giving him to understand with obvious
intention that he scorned any subterfuge or indirectness and meant to show
his cards. Smerdyakov's eyes gleamed resentfully, his left eye winked, and
he at once gave his answer, with his habitual composure and deliberation.
"You want to have everything above-board; very well, you shall have it,"
he seemed to say.

"This is what I meant then, and this is why I said that, that you, knowing
beforehand of this murder of your own parent, left him to his fate, and
that people mightn't after that conclude any evil about your feelings and
perhaps of something else, too--that's what I promised not to tell the
authorities."

Though Smerdyakov spoke without haste and obviously controlling himself,
yet there was something in his voice, determined and emphatic, resentful
and insolently defiant. He stared impudently at Ivan. A mist passed before
Ivan's eyes for the first moment.

"How? What? Are you out of your mind?"

"I'm perfectly in possession of all my faculties."

"Do you suppose I _knew_ of the murder?" Ivan cried at last, and he
brought his fist violently on the table. "What do you mean by 'something
else, too'? Speak, scoundrel!"

Smerdyakov was silent and still scanned Ivan with the same insolent stare.

"Speak, you stinking rogue, what is that 'something else, too'?"

"The 'something else' I meant was that you probably, too, were very
desirous of your parent's death."

Ivan jumped up and struck him with all his might on the shoulder, so that
he fell back against the wall. In an instant his face was bathed in tears.
Saying, "It's a shame, sir, to strike a sick man," he dried his eyes with
a very dirty blue check handkerchief and sank into quiet weeping. A minute
passed.

"That's enough! Leave off," Ivan said peremptorily, sitting down again.
"Don't put me out of all patience."

Smerdyakov took the rag from his eyes. Every line of his puckered face
reflected the insult he had just received.

"So you thought then, you scoundrel, that together with Dmitri I meant to
kill my father?"

"I didn't know what thoughts were in your mind then," said Smerdyakov
resentfully; "and so I stopped you then at the gate to sound you on that
very point."

"To sound what, what?"

"Why, that very circumstance, whether you wanted your father to be
murdered or not."

What infuriated Ivan more than anything was the aggressive, insolent tone
to which Smerdyakov persistently adhered.

"It was you murdered him?" he cried suddenly.

Smerdyakov smiled contemptuously.

"You know of yourself, for a fact, that it wasn't I murdered him. And I
should have thought that there was no need for a sensible man to speak of
it again."

"But why, why had you such a suspicion about me at the time?"

"As you know already, it was simply from fear. For I was in such a
position, shaking with fear, that I suspected every one. I resolved to
sound you, too, for I thought if you wanted the same as your brother, then
the business was as good as settled and I should be crushed like a fly,
too."

"Look here, you didn't say that a fortnight ago."

"I meant the same when I talked to you in the hospital, only I thought
you'd understand without wasting words, and that being such a sensible man
you wouldn't care to talk of it openly."

"What next! Come answer, answer, I insist: what was it ... what could I
have done to put such a degrading suspicion into your mean soul?"

"As for the murder, you couldn't have done that and didn't want to, but as
for wanting some one else to do it, that was just what you did want."

"And how coolly, how coolly he speaks! But why should I have wanted it;
what grounds had I for wanting it?"

"What grounds had you? What about the inheritance?" said Smerdyakov
sarcastically, and, as it were, vindictively. "Why, after your parent's
death there was at least forty thousand to come to each of you, and very
likely more, but if Fyodor Pavlovitch got married then to that lady,
Agrafena Alexandrovna, she would have had all his capital made over to her
directly after the wedding, for she's plenty of sense, so that your parent
would not have left you two roubles between the three of you. And were
they far from a wedding, either? Not a hair's-breadth: that lady had only
to lift her little finger and he would have run after her to church, with
his tongue out."

Ivan restrained himself with painful effort.

"Very good," he commented at last. "You see, I haven't jumped up, I
haven't knocked you down, I haven't killed you. Speak on. So, according to
you, I had fixed on Dmitri to do it; I was reckoning on him?"

"How could you help reckoning on him? If he killed him, then he would lose
all the rights of a nobleman, his rank and property, and would go off to
exile; so his share of the inheritance would come to you and your brother
Alexey Fyodorovitch in equal parts; so you'd each have not forty, but
sixty thousand each. There's not a doubt you did reckon on Dmitri
Fyodorovitch."

"What I put up with from you! Listen, scoundrel, if I had reckoned on any
one then, it would have been on you, not on Dmitri, and I swear I did
expect some wickedness from you ... at the time.... I remember my
impression!"

"I thought, too, for a minute, at the time, that you were reckoning on me
as well," said Smerdyakov, with a sarcastic grin. "So that it was just by
that more than anything you showed me what was in your mind. For if you
had a foreboding about me and yet went away, you as good as said to me,
'You can murder my parent, I won't hinder you!' "

"You scoundrel! So that's how you understood it!"

"It was all that going to Tchermashnya. Why! You were meaning to go to
Moscow and refused all your father's entreaties to go to Tchermashnya--and
simply at a foolish word from me you consented at once! What reason had
you to consent to Tchermashnya? Since you went to Tchermashnya with no
reason, simply at my word, it shows that you must have expected something
from me."

"No, I swear I didn't!" shouted Ivan, grinding his teeth.

"You didn't? Then you ought, as your father's son, to have had me taken to
the lock-up and thrashed at once for my words then ... or at least, to
have given me a punch in the face on the spot, but you were not a bit
angry, if you please, and at once in a friendly way acted on my foolish
word and went away, which was utterly absurd, for you ought to have stayed
to save your parent's life. How could I help drawing my conclusions?"

Ivan sat scowling, both his fists convulsively pressed on his knees.

"Yes, I am sorry I didn't punch you in the face," he said with a bitter
smile. "I couldn't have taken you to the lock-up just then. Who would have
believed me and what charge could I bring against you? But the punch in
the face ... oh, I'm sorry I didn't think of it. Though blows are
forbidden, I should have pounded your ugly face to a jelly."

Smerdyakov looked at him almost with relish.

"In the ordinary occasions of life," he said in the same complacent and
sententious tone in which he had taunted Grigory and argued with him about
religion at Fyodor Pavlovitch's table, "in the ordinary occasions of life,
blows on the face are forbidden nowadays by law, and people have given
them up, but in exceptional occasions of life people still fly to blows,
not only among us but all over the world, be it even the fullest Republic
of France, just as in the time of Adam and Eve, and they never will leave
off, but you, even in an exceptional case, did not dare."

"What are you learning French words for?" Ivan nodded towards the
exercise-book lying on the table.

"Why shouldn't I learn them so as to improve my education, supposing that
I may myself chance to go some day to those happy parts of Europe?"

"Listen, monster." Ivan's eyes flashed and he trembled all over. "I am not
afraid of your accusations; you can say what you like about me, and if I
don't beat you to death, it's simply because I suspect you of that crime
and I'll drag you to justice. I'll unmask you."

"To my thinking, you'd better keep quiet, for what can you accuse me of,
considering my absolute innocence? and who would believe you? Only if you
begin, I shall tell everything, too, for I must defend myself."

"Do you think I am afraid of you now?"

"If the court doesn't believe all I've said to you just now, the public
will, and you will be ashamed."

"That's as much as to say, 'It's always worth while speaking to a sensible
man,' eh?" snarled Ivan.

"You hit the mark, indeed. And you'd better be sensible."

Ivan got up, shaking all over with indignation, put on his coat, and
without replying further to Smerdyakov, without even looking at him,
walked quickly out of the cottage. The cool evening air refreshed him.
There was a bright moon in the sky. A nightmare of ideas and sensations
filled his soul. "Shall I go at once and give information against
Smerdyakov? But what information can I give? He is not guilty, anyway. On
the contrary, he'll accuse me. And in fact, why did I set off for
Tchermashnya then? What for? What for?" Ivan asked himself. "Yes, of
course, I was expecting something and he is right...." And he remembered
for the hundredth time how, on the last night in his father's house, he
had listened on the stairs. But he remembered it now with such anguish
that he stood still on the spot as though he had been stabbed. "Yes, I
expected it then, that's true! I wanted the murder, I did want the murder!
Did I want the murder? Did I want it? I must kill Smerdyakov! If I don't
dare kill Smerdyakov now, life is not worth living!"

Ivan did not go home, but went straight to Katerina Ivanovna and alarmed
her by his appearance. He was like a madman. He repeated all his
conversation with Smerdyakov, every syllable of it. He couldn't be calmed,
however much she tried to soothe him: he kept walking about the room,
speaking strangely, disconnectedly. At last he sat down, put his elbows on
the table, leaned his head on his hands and pronounced this strange
sentence: "If it's not Dmitri, but Smerdyakov who's the murderer, I share
his guilt, for I put him up to it. Whether I did, I don't know yet. But if
he is the murderer, and not Dmitri, then, of course, I am the murderer,
too."

When Katerina Ivanovna heard that, she got up from her seat without a
word, went to her writing-table, opened a box standing on it, took out a
sheet of paper and laid it before Ivan. This was the document of which
Ivan spoke to Alyosha later on as a "conclusive proof" that Dmitri had
killed his father. It was the letter written by Mitya to Katerina Ivanovna
when he was drunk, on the very evening he met Alyosha at the crossroads on
the way to the monastery, after the scene at Katerina Ivanovna's, when
Grushenka had insulted her. Then, parting from Alyosha, Mitya had rushed
to Grushenka. I don't know whether he saw her, but in the evening he was
at the "Metropolis," where he got thoroughly drunk. Then he asked for pen
and paper and wrote a document of weighty consequences to himself. It was
a wordy, disconnected, frantic letter, a drunken letter in fact. It was
like the talk of a drunken man, who, on his return home, begins with
extraordinary heat telling his wife or one of his household how he has
just been insulted, what a rascal had just insulted him, what a fine
fellow he is on the other hand, and how he will pay that scoundrel out;
and all that at great length, with great excitement and incoherence, with
drunken tears and blows on the table. The letter was written on a dirty
piece of ordinary paper of the cheapest kind. It had been provided by the
tavern and there were figures scrawled on the back of it. There was
evidently not space enough for his drunken verbosity and Mitya not only
filled the margins but had written the last line right across the rest.
The letter ran as follows:

    FATAL KATYA: To-morrow I will get the money and repay your three
    thousand and farewell, woman of great wrath, but farewell, too, my
    love! Let us make an end! To-morrow I shall try and get it from
    every one, and if I can't borrow it, I give you my word of honor I
    shall go to my father and break his skull and take the money from
    under the pillow, if only Ivan has gone. If I have to go to
    Siberia for it, I'll give you back your three thousand. And
    farewell. I bow down to the ground before you, for I've been a
    scoundrel to you. Forgive me! No, better not forgive me, you'll be
    happier and so shall I! Better Siberia than your love, for I love
    another woman and you got to know her too well to-day, so how can
    you forgive? I will murder the man who's robbed me! I'll leave you
    all and go to the East so as to see no one again. Not _her_
    either, for you are not my only tormentress; she is too. Farewell!

    P.S.--I write my curse, but I adore you! I hear it in my heart. One
    string is left, and it vibrates. Better tear my heart in two! I
    shall kill myself, but first of all that cur. I shall tear three
    thousand from him and fling it to you. Though I've been a
    scoundrel to you, I am not a thief! You can expect three thousand.
    The cur keeps it under his mattress, in pink ribbon. I am not a
    thief, but I'll murder my thief. Katya, don't look disdainful.
    Dmitri is not a thief! but a murderer! He has murdered his father
    and ruined himself to hold his ground, rather than endure your
    pride. And he doesn't love you.

    P.P.S.--I kiss your feet, farewell! P.P.P.S.--Katya, pray to God
    that some one'll give me the money. Then I shall not be steeped in
    gore, and if no one does--I shall! Kill me!

    Your slave and enemy,

    D. KARAMAZOV.

When Ivan read this "document" he was convinced. So then it was his
brother, not Smerdyakov. And if not Smerdyakov, then not he, Ivan. This
letter at once assumed in his eyes the aspect of a logical proof. There
could be no longer the slightest doubt of Mitya's guilt. The suspicion
never occurred to Ivan, by the way, that Mitya might have committed the
murder in conjunction with Smerdyakov, and, indeed, such a theory did not
fit in with the facts. Ivan was completely reassured. The next morning he
only thought of Smerdyakov and his gibes with contempt. A few days later
he positively wondered how he could have been so horribly distressed at
his suspicions. He resolved to dismiss him with contempt and forget him.
So passed a month. He made no further inquiry about Smerdyakov, but twice
he happened to hear that he was very ill and out of his mind.

"He'll end in madness," the young doctor Varvinsky observed about him, and
Ivan remembered this. During the last week of that month Ivan himself
began to feel very ill. He went to consult the Moscow doctor who had been
sent for by Katerina Ivanovna just before the trial. And just at that time
his relations with Katerina Ivanovna became acutely strained. They were
like two enemies in love with one another. Katerina Ivanovna's "returns"
to Mitya, that is, her brief but violent revulsions of feeling in his
favor, drove Ivan to perfect frenzy. Strange to say, until that last scene
described above, when Alyosha came from Mitya to Katerina Ivanovna, Ivan
had never once, during that month, heard her express a doubt of Mitya's
guilt, in spite of those "returns" that were so hateful to him. It is
remarkable, too, that while he felt that he hated Mitya more and more
every day, he realized that it was not on account of Katya's "returns"
that he hated him, but just _because he was the murderer of his father_.
He was conscious of this and fully recognized it to himself.

Nevertheless, he went to see Mitya ten days before the trial and proposed
to him a plan of escape--a plan he had obviously thought over a long time.
He was partly impelled to do this by a sore place still left in his heart
from a phrase of Smerdyakov's, that it was to his, Ivan's, advantage that
his brother should be convicted, as that would increase his inheritance
and Alyosha's from forty to sixty thousand roubles. He determined to
sacrifice thirty thousand on arranging Mitya's escape. On his return from
seeing him, he was very mournful and dispirited; he suddenly began to feel
that he was anxious for Mitya's escape, not only to heal that sore place
by sacrificing thirty thousand, but for another reason. "Is it because I
am as much a murderer at heart?" he asked himself. Something very deep
down seemed burning and rankling in his soul. His pride above all suffered
cruelly all that month. But of that later....

When, after his conversation with Alyosha, Ivan suddenly decided with his
hand on the bell of his lodging to go to Smerdyakov, he obeyed a sudden
and peculiar impulse of indignation. He suddenly remembered how Katerina
Ivanovna had only just cried out to him in Alyosha's presence: "It was
you, you, persuaded me of his" (that is, Mitya's) "guilt!" Ivan was
thunderstruck when he recalled it. He had never once tried to persuade her
that Mitya was the murderer; on the contrary, he had suspected himself in
her presence, that time when he came back from Smerdyakov. It was _she_,
she, who had produced that "document" and proved his brother's guilt. And
now she suddenly exclaimed: "I've been at Smerdyakov's myself!" When had
she been there? Ivan had known nothing of it. So she was not at all so
sure of Mitya's guilt! And what could Smerdyakov have told her? What,
what, had he said to her? His heart burned with violent anger. He could
not understand how he could, half an hour before, have let those words
pass and not have cried out at the moment. He let go of the bell and
rushed off to Smerdyakov. "I shall kill him, perhaps, this time," he
thought on the way.

By the time of Ivan's second visit, Smerdyakov is holed up with Maria Kondratievna, who is now his fiancee. In contrast to the first visit, Smerdyakov seems quite well, and he seems to be studying when Ivan walks in on him. Ivan again confronts Smerdyakov, this time about Smerdyakov's suggestion that he won't tell the authorities about the "whole" of their conversation. This time Smerdyakov is at his most direct and accuses Ivan of being as good as responsible for their father's murder. If Ivan suspected Smerdyakov of planning their father's murder, he did nothing to prevent it or to protect him, making him indirectly guilty. Ivan goes so far as to punch Smerdyakov in the shoulder, but when he leaves, he's crazed with doubt and guilt. He goes straight to Katerina's and tells her about his conversation with Smerdyakov. She pulls out a letter from Dmitri, which Dmitri had written after Katerina's encounter with Grushenka . In this letter Dmitri vowed that if he was unable to find someone to loan him 3,000 roubles, he would kill his father and steal the money from him. This letter reassures Ivan and calms his fears. And yet, perhaps because he sees some truth in Smerdyakov's sly suggestion that he wants Dmitri convicted so he can have more of his father's inheritance, he visits Dmitri ten days before his trial and offers him 30,000 roubles toward his escape. Finally the novel catches up to the present moment. Surprised that Katerina had been to visit Smerdyakov, Ivan decides to visit him a third time.

The Second Visit to Smerdyakov During Ivan's second visit, Smerdyakov says that he believes Ivan wished Fyodor Pavlovich to die so that he would inherit a large portion of his wealth. After this visit, Ivan is suddenly forced to accept that he bears part of the blame for the murder. He goes to visit Katerina, and she shows him a letter in which Dmitri promises to kill Fyodor Pavlovich if necessary to repay her 3,000 rubles. This reassures Ivan that Dmitri is responsible for the murder, and that he himself bears no responsibility for it