The Brothers Karamazov (109 page)

“Oh, it’s you,” Ivan said coldly. “Well, see you some other time—good-by. You going to see her?”

“Right.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you. She’s in one of those emotional states, you know, and you’ll only make her more irritated.”

“No, no, Alexei, do come up!” a woman’s voice called from upstairs, as a door was quickly flung open. “Have you just come from there?”

“Yes, I saw him.”

“Did he give you a message for me? Do come in, Alexei, and you, Ivan, please come back . . . I want you to come back, Ivan, do you hear!”

Katerina’s invitation sounded so imperious that, after a second’s hesitation, Ivan decided to follow Alyosha upstairs.

“She was listening,” he muttered angrily to himself, but Alyosha heard him.

“I hope you don’t mind if I keep my coat on,” Ivan said, stepping into Katerina’s drawing room. “I won’t even sit down, because I can’t stay more than a minute really.”

“Sit down, Alexei,” Katerina said, although she herself remained standing.

She had not changed much during this time, but there was a malevolent glow in her dark eyes. Alyosha remembered later how much he was struck by her beauty that evening.

“So what did he ask you to tell me?”

“Just this,” Alyosha said, looking straight into her eyes. “He doesn’t want you to say anything at the trial that would compromise you . . . You know . . .” Alyosha hesitated for a second. “Well, about what happened between you and him when you first met . . . in that other town, you know.”

“You mean about my prostrating myself before him for the money?” Katerina laughed loudly. “I’d like to know, though, who he’s afraid for—is it really for me or is it for himself? Whom doesn’t he want me to compromise—him or myself? Do tell me, Alexei.”

Alyosha was looking at her, trying hard to understand her.

“Yourself and him,” he said quietly.

“I see,” she said in a spiteful tone, suddenly turning red. “I’m afraid you don’t know me very well,” she said threateningly. “Indeed, I don’t really know myself yet. It may be that you’ll be longing to trample me to death after I’m through testifying tomorrow.”

“I’m sure you’ll testify honestly and that’s all that’s needed.”

“A woman can often be dishonest,” she said in cold fury. “Only an hour ago I thought I would not be able to bring myself to touch that monster, just as I can’t touch reptiles. But I was wrong—he’s still a human being for me. And it remains to be seen whether he’s the killer. Was it he who killed him?” she cried hysterically, turning now to Ivan, and Alyosha understood at once that she had already asked Ivan that question, perhaps only a few minutes before, and probably for the hundredth time rather than the first, and that they had quarreled just before Ivan had left.

“I went to see Smerdyakov . . . It was you, Vanya, you who convinced me that he was the parricide, and I believed it only because you told me so!”

Ivan forced himself to grin. Alyosha started when he heard Katerina call him Vanya. He had never suspected that sort of relationship between them.

“Well, anyway, I must be going now,” Ivan said coldly. “I’ll come and see you tomorrow,” And, without a moment’s pause, he walked straight out of the room and downstairs. Katerina suddenly seized Alyosha by both hands and whispered peremptorily to him:

“Catch him! Run after him! Don’t leave him alone for one second! He’s insane. Don’t you realize he’s gone mad? He’s feverish. It’s a sort of nervous fever, a doctor told me. Please go—run after him!”

Alyosha jumped up and ran after Iavn. Ivan had not gone fifty yards when, hearing Alyosha running after him, he turned back.

“What do you want of me? I bet she told you to run after me because I’m crazy. I know her by heart,” he said irritatedly.

“She’s wrong about your being crazy, but she’s right that you’re not well,” Alyosha said. “I was looking at you back there. You look very sick.”

Ivan kept walking. Alyosha followed him.

“Do you have any idea, Alexei, how people go insane?” Ivan suddenly asked Alyosha in a voice that was no longer irritated but simply curious and amused.

“No, I don’t really, but I suppose there are many different forms of madness.”

“Do you think a man can watch himself go insane?”

“I don’t suppose a person could make very clear observations under such circumstances,” Alyosha said, surprised.

Ivan remained silent for a while.

“Listen, if there’s something you’d like to talk to me about,” he said suddenly, “please change the subject.”

“Here, I have a letter for you. Take it now in case I forget about it later,” Alyosha said timidly. He took Lise’s letter out of his pocket and handed it to his brother just as they were passing a street light.

Ivan recognized her writing at once.

“Ah, this is from that hell kitten.” Ivan laughed spitefully and, without opening the letter, tore it in several pieces and tossed them to the wind. “She’s not yet sixteen and she’s already offering herself,” he said scornfully, walking quickly on again.

“What do you mean she’s offering herself?” Alyosha cried.

“Why, don’t you understand? The way a whore would, of course.”

“What are you saying, Ivan? How can you!” Alyosha came bitterly and heatedly to Lise’s defense. “She’s just a little girl. You’re hurting and insulting a child . . . She’s sick too, very sick, and she, too, is going mad perhaps . . . I couldn’t not give you her letter . . . In fact, I hoped you’d tell me about her . . . to try to save her.”

“There’s nothing I can tell you. She may be a small child, but I’m not her nanny. Don’t keep on about it, Alexei. I don’t even want to be bothered with thinking about it!”

They walked on in silence for another minute.

“Now she’ll be praying all night to the Mother of God for guidance about what she should say in court tomorrow,” Ivan said, breaking the silence in an abrupt and angry voice.

“You mean Katerina?”

“Yes. She’ll be praying for light from above, to know whether she should save her dear Mitya or spell his doom. Because, you see, she hasn’t had time to work it out for herself, so she’s quite open-minded about it. She, too, thinks I’m a nanny and would like me to sing her lullabies to put her to sleep.”

“Katerina loves you,” Alyosha said sadly.

“Could be. Only I don’t feel any inclination toward her.”

“She’s suffering . . . Why do you say things to her sometimes that . . . that give her hope?” Alyosha asked in timid reproach. “I know you’ve done so . . . I hope you’ll forgive me for saying this.”

“I can’t act as I ought to toward her and tell her now that we’re through,” Ivan said irritably. “I must keep on pretending until they’ve decided who’s the murderer. If I break with her right away, she’ll ruin that miserable wretch in court tomorrow just to avenge herself on me, because she really hates him and she knows it. It’s all lies, lies on top of more lies. But as long as I haven’t broken with her yet, she still has hope and she won’t spell the monster’s doom because she knows how anxious I am to get him out of trouble. Ah, I can hardly wait for that damned verdict!”

The words “murderer” and “monster” echoed painfully in Alyosha’s heart.

“But what can she do that would ruin Dmitry?” he asked, weighing Ivan’s words. “What direct evidence can she possibly produce that would harm him so badly?”

“It’s something you don’t know about. She has a certain document written in our dear Mitya’s own hand which proves mathematically that it was he who killed father.”

“That’s impossible!” Alyosha cried.

“What are you talking about? I’ve read it myself.”

“Such a document cannot exist,” Alyosha said heatedly, “for the very good reason that he’s not the murderer. He didn’t kill father. Not he!”

Ivan suddenly came to a halt.

“So who do you think is the murderer?” he said icily, a scornful note creeping into his voice.

“You know very well,” Alyosha said in a low and penetrating voice.

“Who? Are you trying to drag in that cock and bull story about that crazy epileptic idiot, Smerdyakov?”

Alyosha suddenly realized that his whole body was shaking.

“You know who did it yourself.” The words escaped him involuntarily. He was trying to control his breathing.

“But who, who?” Ivan shouted almost fiercely, dropping all restraint.

“I only know one thing,” Alyosha said, still in almost a whisper. “It was 
not you
 who killed our father.”

“‘Not you’! What does that mean?”

Ivan stood there dumbfounded.

“It was not you who killed father,” Alyosha repeated firmly.

For half a minute neither of them spoke.

“I’m well aware that I didn’t kill him. You must be raving really,” Ivan said with a faint, twisted grin, his eyes fastened on Alyosha like tentacles. They were standing quite close to a street light now.

“No, Ivan, you said several times yourself that you were the murderer.”

“When did I say that? I was in Moscow . . . When could I possibly have said that?” Ivan muttered, looking completely bewildered.

“You’ve said it many times when you were alone during these terrible two months,” Alyosha said in the same low, quiet, clear voice, but he was no longer in control of what he was saying and the words came from his lips as if obeying some irresistible outside force. “You accused yourself and confessed that you were the murderer and no one else. But you are wrong, understand that—you’re wrong. You are not the murderer. It was not you, not you! God has sent me to tell you this.”

There was a silence, a silence that lasted for a whole minute. They stood there looking into each other’s eyes. They were both pale. All of a sudden Ivan began to shake and seized Alyosha by the shoulder.

“You were in my room!” he said in a rasping whisper. “You were there the night he came . . . Admit it! You saw him, you saw him, didn’t you?”

“Who are you talking about? Mitya?” Alyosha said, puzzled.

“Hell no, not that damned idiot monster!” Ivan shouted in furious impatience. “You know, he keeps coming to see me! How did you find out? You must tell me!”

“Who are you talking about? I have no idea what you mean . . .” Alyosha mumbled, becoming very worried.

“It’s not true—you must know . . . Otherwise you wouldn’t . . . It’s impossible that you don’t know . . .”

But suddenly Ivan seemed to recover his self-control. He stopped and stood there for a while, apparently deliberating. A wan smile twisted his lips.

“Ivan,” Alyosha said in a quivering voice, “I told you this because I knew you would believe it if it came from me. I tell you again—it was 
not you
 and I want you to remember that for the rest of your life. You understand, you must remember it as long as you live. God has entrusted me to tell you this, even if you hate me forever afterward.”

Obviously Ivan had now managed to regain complete control of his emotions.

“You know, Alexei,” he said with an icy smile, “there are two things I cannot stand—prophets and epileptics, especially messengers from God, as I’m sure you’re well aware. So, from now on, consider we don’t know each other—and this is for good. I beg you to leave me at this corner. Besides, to get home you have to turn right here. And, above all, don’t get it into your head to come and see me tonight. Is that clear?”

He turned away, walking off with a firm step without looking back.

“Ivan,” Alyosha called after him, “if anything should happen to you tonight, think of me first!”

Ivan did not answer. Alyosha stood under the street light on the corner until Ivan had vanished into the darkness. Then he turned into the side street and walked slowly toward his lodgings.

Neither Alyosha nor Ivan had wanted to live in their father’s house, which now stood empty, and each had his own lodgings. Alyosha had a furnished room that he rented from a family of tradespeople. In a different part of the town Ivan had a very comfortable apartment in the wing of a house belonging to the well-to-do widow of a civil servant. The only servant he had was a deaf and arthritic old woman who went to bed at six in the evening and got up at six in the morning. But Ivan had become strangely undemanding in the past two months; above all, he was anxious not to have anyone about him. He even made his own bed and cleaned the room himself; he practically never went into the other rooms of his apartment.

As he entered the gate of his house and was reaching out for the bell, his hand suddenly stopped in mid-air. He realized that he was trembling, vibrating with fury. He pulled back his hand, spat with rage, turned around, and walked quickly off to the other end of the town, a mile and a half away, to a small, sagging wooden house. This was where Maria Kondratiev now lived, old Fyodor Karamazov’s former neighbor, who used to come to his kitchen for a bowl of soup, and to whom Smerdyakov used to sing songs to the accompaniment of his guitar. She had sold her house and now lived with her mother in an old, ramshackle cottage. With them also lived Smerdyakov, who had been very ill, close to death, ever since Fyodor Karamazov’s death. It was to see him that Ivan was going now, on a sudden hunch that he felt impelled to follow up.

Chapter 6: The First Meeting With Smerdyakov

THIS WAS the third time, since his return from Moscow, that Ivan had been to see Smerdyakov. The first time after the murder that he had seen and spoken to him was on the very day of his arrival. Then he had paid him another visit two weeks later. But he had not returned after that second visit, so it was now over a month since he had seen Smerdyakov and, since that time, he had hardly heard anything about him.

Ivan had returned from Moscow on the fifth day after his father’s death; he had even missed the funeral, which took place the day before his arrival. Ivan’s delay was due to the fact that Alyosha, not knowing his brother’s address in Moscow, had asked Katerina to send him a telegram. Not knowing his address herself, she had wired her sister and aunt, expecting that Ivan would call on them as soon as he arrived. But Ivan had not gone to see them until his fourth day in Moscow. Of course, as soon as he saw the telegram, he rushed back to our town. The first person he met in town was Alyosha. After talking to him, Ivan was amazed to find that Alyosha had never for a minute thought that Mitya could be the murderer and openly accused Smerdyakov—in complete disagreement with the opinion held by everyone else in town. Then Ivan had been to see, in turn, Inspector Makarov, the assistant public prosecutor, and the examining magistrate; when he learned about the available evidence and the circumstances surrounding the accused’s arrest, he was even more surprised at Alyosha’s stubborn stand and ascribed it to his unreasoning brotherly bias. Besides, Ivan knew how fond Alyosha was of their older brother.