The Brothers Karamazov

“I don’t understand you ... what could I have to fear tomorrow?” Ivan spoke in surprise, and suddenly some sort of fear indeed blew cold on his soul. Smerdyakov measured him with his eyes.

“You don’t un-der-stand?” he drawled reproachfully. “Why would an intelligent man want to put on such an act?”

Ivan gazed at him silently. The unexpected tone in which his former lackey now addressed him, full of quite unheard-of arrogance, was unusual in itself. There had been no such tone even at their last meeting.

“I’m telling you, you have nothing to fear. I won’t say anything against you, there’s no evidence. Look, his hands are trembling. Why are your fingers moving like that? Go home, it was not you that killed him.”

Ivan gave a start; he remembered Alyosha.

“I know it was not me ... ,” he began to murmur.

“You know?” Smerdyakov picked up again.

Ivan jumped up and seized him by the shoulder.

“Tell all, viper! Tell all!”

Smerdyakov was not in the least frightened. He merely fastened his eyes on him with insane hatred.

“Well, it was you who killed him in that case,” he whispered furiously.

Ivan sank onto his chair as if he had just figured something out. He grinned maliciously.

“You’re still talking about that? The same as last time?”

“But last time, too, you stood there and understood everything, and you understand it now.”

“I understand only that you are crazy.”

“Doesn’t a man get tired of it? Here we are, just the two of us, so what’s the use of putting on such an act, trying to fool each other? Or do you still want to shift it all onto me, right to my face? You killed him, you are the main killer, and I was just your minion, your faithful servant Licharda,^[301] and I performed the deed according to your word.”

“Performed? Was it you that killed him?” Ivan went cold.

Something shook, as it were, in his brain, and he began shivering all over with cold little shivers. Now Smerdyakov in turn looked at him in surprise: he probably was struck, at last, by the genuineness of Ivan’s fear.

“You mean you really didn’t know anything? “ he murmured mistrustfully, looking him in the eye with a crooked grin.

Ivan kept staring at him; he seemed to have lost his tongue.

Ah, Vanka’s gone to Petersburg And I’ll not wait for him—

suddenly rang in his head.

“You know what: I’m afraid you’re a dream, a ghost sitting there in front of me,” he murmured.

“There’s no ghost, sir, besides the two of us, sir, and some third one. No doubt he’s here now, that third one, between the two of us.”

“Who is it? Who is here? What third one?” Ivan Fyodorovich said fearfully, looking around, his eyes hastily searching for someone in all the corners.

“That third one is God, sir, Providence itself, sir, it’s right here with us now, sir, only don’t look for it, you won’t find it.” “It’s a lie that you killed him!” Ivan shouted in a rage. “You’re either crazy, or you’re taunting me like the last time!”

Smerdyakov kept watching him inquisitively, as before, with no trace of fear. He still could not manage to get over his mistrust, he still thought Ivan “knew everything” and was merely pretending in order to “shift it all onto him, right to his face.”

“Just a moment, sir,” he finally said in a weak voice, and suddenly pulled his left leg from under the table and began rolling up his trouser. The leg turned out to have a long white stocking on it, and a slipper. Unhurriedly, Smerdyakov removed the garter and thrust his hand far down into the stocking. Ivan Fyodorovich stared at him and suddenly began shaking with convulsive fear.

“Madman!” he shouted, and, jumping quickly from his seat, he reeled backwards so that his back struck the wall and was as if glued to it, drawn up tight as a string. He looked at Smerdyakov with insane horror. The latter, not in the least disturbed by his fear, kept fishing around in his stocking as if he were trying to get hold of something and pull it out. Finally he got hold of it and began to pull. Ivan Fyodorovich saw that it was some papers, or a bundle of papers. Smerdyakov pulled it out and placed it on the table.

“Here, sir,” he said softly.

“What?” Ivan answered, shaking.

“Take a look, if you please, sir,” Smerdyakov said, just as softly.

Ivan stepped to the table, took the bundle, and began to unwrap it, but suddenly jerked his hands back as if he had touched some loathsome, horrible viper.

“Your fingers are trembling, sir, you’ve got a cramp,” Smerdyakov observed, and he slowly unwrapped the bundle himself. Under the wrapping were found three packets of iridescent hundred-rouble bills.

“It’s all there, sir, all three thousand, no need to count it. Have it, sir,” he invited Ivan, nodding towards the money. Ivan sank onto the chair. He was white as a sheet.

“You frightened me ... with that stocking ... ,” he said, grinning somehow strangely.

“Can it possibly be that you didn’t know till now?” Smerdyakov asked once again.