The Brothers Karamazov

“Listen, my friend, what was that remark you came out with as I was leaving you at the hospital, that if I said nothing about you being an expert at shamming the falling sickness, then you also would not tell the district attorney about the whole of our conversation at the gate that time? What whole? What could you mean by that? Were you threatening me or what? Have I entered into some league with you or what? Am I afraid of you or what?”

Ivan Fyodorovich uttered this quite in a rage, obviously and purposely letting it be known that he scorned all deviousness, all beating around the bush, and was playing an open hand. Smerdyakov’s eyes flashed maliciously, his left eye began winking, and at once, though, as was his custom, with measure and reserve, he gave his answer—as if to say, “You want us to come clean, here’s some cleanness for you.”

“This is what I meant then, and this is why I said it then: that you, having known beforehand about the murder of your own parent, left him then as a sacrifice; and so as people wouldn’t conclude anything bad about your feelings because of that, and maybe about various other things as well—that’s what I was promising not to tell the authorities.”

Though Smerdyakov spoke unhurriedly and was apparently in control of himself, all the same there was something hard and insistent, malicious and insolently defiant in his voice. He stared boldly at Ivan Fyodorovich, who was even dazed for the first moment.

“How? What? Are you out of your mind?”

“I’m perfectly in my mind, sir.”

“But did I know about the murder then?” Ivan Fyodorovich cried out at last, and brought his fist down hard on the table. “What is the meaning of ‘various other things’? Speak, scoundrel!”

Smerdyakov was silent and went on studying Ivan Fyodorovich with the same insolent look.

“Speak, you stinking scum, what ‘various other things’?” the latter screamed.

“And by ‘various other things’ just now, I meant that maybe you yourself were even wishing very much for your parent’s death then.”

Ivan Fyodorovich jumped up and hit him as hard as he could on the shoulder with his fist, so that he rocked back towards the wall. In an instant his whole face was flooded with tears, and saying, “Shame on you, sir, to strike a weak man!” he suddenly covered his eyes with his blue-checkered and completely sodden handkerchief and sank into quiet, tearful weeping. About a minute passed.

“Enough! Stop it!” Ivan Fyodorovich finally said peremptorily, sitting down on the chair again. “Don’t drive me out of all patience.”

Smerdyakov took the rag from his eyes. Every line on his puckered face spoke of the offense he had just endured.

“So, you scoundrel, you thought I was at one with Dmitri in wanting to kill father?”

“I didn’t know your thoughts then, sir,” Smerdyakov said in an injured voice, “and that was why I stopped you then, as you were coming in the gate, in order to test you on that same point, sir.”

“To test what? What?”

“Precisely that same circumstance: whether you did or did not want your parent to be killed soon.”

What aroused Ivan Fyodorovich’s indignation most of all was this insistent, insolent tone, which Smerdyakov stubbornly refused to give up.

“You killed him!” he exclaimed suddenly. Smerdyakov grinned contemptuously. “That I did not kill him, you yourself know for certain. And I’d have thought that for an intelligent man there was no more to be said about it.”

“But why, why did you have such a suspicion about me then?”

“From fear only, sir, as you already know. Because I was in such a state then, all shaking from fear, that I suspected everybody. And I decided to test you, sir, because I thought that if you, too, wanted the same thing as your brother, then it would be the end of the whole business, and I’d perish, too, like a fly.”

“Listen, you said something else two weeks ago.”

“It was the same thing I had in mind when I spoke with you in the hospital, only I thought you’d understand without so many words, and that you yourself didn’t want to talk straight out, being a most intelligent man, sir.”

“Is that so! But answer me, answer, I insist: precisely how could I then have instilled such a base suspicion about myself into your mean soul?”

“As for killing—you, personally, could never have done it, sir, and you didn’t want to do it either; but as for wanting someone else to kill—that you did want.”

“And he says it so calmly, so calmly! But why should I want it, why in hell should I have wanted it?”