The Brothers Karamazov

The narrator stopped. Ivan had listened to him all the while in deathly silence, without stirring, without taking his eyes off him. And Smerdyakov, as he was telling his story, merely glanced at him occasionally, but most of the time looked aside. By the end he had evidently become agitated himself and was breathing heavily. Sweat broke out on his face. It was impossible to tell, however, whether he felt repentant or what. “Wait,” Ivan picked up, putting things together. “What about the door? If he only opened the door for you, then how could Grigory have seen it open before you? Because he did see it before you?”

Remarkably, Ivan asked this in a most peaceful voice, even in quite a different tone, not at all angry, so that if someone had opened the door at that moment and looked in at them from the doorway, he would certainly have concluded that they were sitting and talking peaceably about some ordinary, though interesting, subject.

“Concerning the door, and that Grigory Vasilievich supposedly saw it open, he only fancied it was so,” Smerdyakov grinned crookedly. “Because he is not a man, let me tell you, but just like a stubborn mule, sir: he didn’t see it, but he fancied he saw it—and you’ll never be able to shake him, sir. It was just a great piece of luck for you and me that he thought it up, because Dmitri Fyodorovich will undoubtedly be thoroughly convicted after that.”

“Listen,” Ivan Fyodorovich said, as if he were beginning to get lost again and were trying hard to figure something out, “listen ... I wanted to ask you many other things, but I’ve forgotten ... I get confused and forget everything ... Ah! Tell me just this one thing: why did you open the envelope and leave it there on the floor? Why didn’t you simply take it, envelope and all ... ? As you were telling it, it seemed to me you were speaking of the envelope as if that was how it should have been done ... but why, I don’t understand ...”

“That I did for a certain reason, sir. Because if it was a man who knew and was familiar, like me, for example, who had seen that money himself beforehand, and maybe wrapped it in the envelope himself, and watched with his own eyes while it was sealed and addressed, then why on earth would such a man, if, for example, it was he who killed him, unseal the envelope after the murder, and in such a flurry besides, knowing quite for certain anyway that the money was sure to be in that envelope, sir? On the contrary, if the thief was like me, for example, he’d simply shove the envelope in his pocket without opening it in the least, and make his getaway as fast as he could, sir. Now Dmitri Fyodorovich is quite another thing: he knew about the envelope only from hearsay, he never saw it, and so supposing, for example, he took it from under the mattress, he’d open it right away to find out if that same money was really there. And he’d throw the envelope down, having no time by then to consider that he was leaving evidence behind, because he’s an unaccustomed thief, sir, and before that never stole anything obviously, because he’s a born nobleman, sir, and even if he did decide to steal this time, it was not precisely to steal, as it were, but only to get his own back, since he gave the whole town preliminary notice of it, and boasted out loud beforehand in front of everybody that he would go and take his property back from Fyodor Pavlovich. In my interrogation, I told this same thought to the prosecutor, not quite clearly, but, on the contrary, as if I were leading him to it by a hint, as if I didn’t understand it myself, and as if he had thought it up, and not that I’d prompted him, sir—and Mr. Prosecutor even started drooling over that same hint of mine, sir ...”

“But can you possibly have thought of all that right there on the spot?” Ivan Fyodorovich exclaimed, beside himself with astonishment. He again looked fearfully at Smerdyakov.

“For pity’s sake, sir, how could I have thought it all up in such a flurry? It was all thought out beforehand.”

“Well ... well, then the devil himself helped you!”Ivan Fyodorovich exclaimed again. “No, you’re not stupid, you’re much more intelligent than I thought ...”

He rose, obviously intending to walk about the room. He was in terrible anguish. But as the table was in his way and he could barely squeeze between the table and the wall, he merely turned on the spot and sat down again. Perhaps it irritated him suddenly that he had not managed to walk about, for he suddenly shouted almost in his former frenzy: