The Brothers Karamazov (111 page)

After knocking at the door for a considerable time, Ivan was let in and Maria Kondratiev showed him to the room on the left that was occupied by Smerdyakov. There was a tiled stove in the room and it was very hot. The walls were covered with bright blue wallpaper full of cracks, in which cockroaches swarmed in such amazing numbers that there was a continuous rustling. There was practically no furniture, just two benches along the walls and two chairs by the unpainted wooden table that had on it, however, a white tablecloth with a pink design. There was a pot of geraniums in each window and a stand with icons in a corner. A battered copper samovar stood on the table next to a tray, on which there were two cups. But Smerdyakov had obviously finished his tea and the candle under the samovar had gone out. He was now sitting at the table copying something into his notebook in pen. The inkpot and a short iron candlestick with a tallow candle in it also stood in front of him on the table. Ivan saw at once from Smerdyakov’s appearance that he had completely recovered from his illness: his face was much fresher and fuller, his forelock was carefully brushed up in the middle of his forehead, as in the old days, and the hair at his temples was neatly combed back. He wore a bright-colored, quilted dressing gown that was, however, very worn and stained. He had glasses on, which surprised Ivan, who had never seen him wearing glasses before. Somehow this particular detail doubled the irritation that was already seething within Ivan: “Why, the creature has taken to wearing glasses now, as well,” he thought indignantly.

Smerdyakov slowly raised his head and looked at Ivan through the glasses. Then unhurriedly he removed them and raised himself slightly from his seat, apparently not particularly eager to make a great show of respect. As a matter of fact, he moved rather lackadaisically, like a man trying to observe the minimum requirements of civility. Ivan at once noticed and weighed all this; he was struck above all by the look the fellow gave him—a markedly displeased, hostile, and even contemptuous look that seemed to say something like, “Why the hell do you keep pestering me? Haven’t we already agreed on everything once and for all? What do you want of me now?”

Ivan barely managed to control himself.

“It’s too hot here,” he said, still standing, and unbuttoned his overcoat.

“Take off your overcoat,” Smerdyakov invited him.

Ivan removed his coat and threw it on the bench. His hands were trembling as he pulled a chair up to the table and sat down. Smerdyakov had already resumed his seat.

“First of all, are we alone here?” Ivan asked in a stern, business-like tone. “Can they hear us from the other room?”

“No one will hear us. You can see for yourself—there’s a passage.”

“Tell me, my good fellow, what did you mean the other day when, as I was leaving after visiting you in the hospital, you said that if I didn’t mention your ability to sham epileptic fits, you, for your part, wouldn’t tell the examining magistrate ‘all the rest of our talk by the gate’? What can you possibly have meant by ‘all the rest’? Were you trying to threaten me, by any chance? Or do you imagine that there’s some kind of deal between us and that I’m afraid you may talk? Is that it?”

Ivan spoke with unconcealed anger, apparently deliberately showing Smerdyakov that he didn’t want to bother to be diplomatic with him and had no need to put up any pretenses. An evil spark appeared in Smerdyakov’s eyes and the left one began to twitch. And, as usual, he was ready with his answer and delivered it in his calm, restrained tone, while the expression on his face seemed to say, “All right, if you want to bring it out in the open, I’ll meet you there too!”

“What I meant by that, and the reason I said it then,” Smerdyakov said, “was that, although you knew your own father was about to be murdered, you left him there to be killed so that later people wouldn’t say wicked things about your feelings for him, and perhaps a few other things as well. That’s what I promised you not to report to the examining magistrate.”

Smerdyakov said this unhurriedly, seemingly in perfect possession of himself. Moreover, there was something stubborn, determined, hostile, and even challenging in his tone now and his eyes were fixed on Ivan with such insolence that Ivan had the dizzy impression that the room had begun to sway.

“What! Have you gone mad? Have you lost your senses?”

“Not at all. I’m in full command of my senses.”

“How the hell could I 
know
 then that he was going to be murdered?” Ivan shouted, banging his fist on the table. “And what are those other things you could tell them? Come on, you lout, speak up!”

Smerdyakov remained silent, still looking at Ivan with the same insolent expression on his face.

“Tell me, you reeking bastard, what are those ‘other things as well’?” Ivan screamed at the top of his voice.

“By ‘other things as well,’ I meant that you too were very eager then that your father should die.”

Ivan leaped to his feet, swung his fist back, and hit Smerdyakov. The blow landed on his shoulder and the man’s back was slammed against the wall. Within a second, Smerdyakov’s face was flooded with tears.

“Shame on you, sir, to hit a defenseless man,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes with his grimy, blue-checkered cotton handkerchief, and proceeding to whimper softly and tearfully. A whole minute passed.

“Stop it. That’s enough!” Ivan said peremptorily, sitting down again. “Just don’t push me to the limits of my patience.”

Smerdyakov removed the rag from his eyes. Every feature of his wrinkled little face expressed resentment for the indignity to which he had just been subjected.

“So I gather, then, that you assumed I was just like Dmitry and wanted to kill my father, is that right?”

“I didn’t know what you were thinking at the time,” Smerdyakov said in a peeved tone, “and that’s why I stopped you by the gate—to try and find out what your thoughts were.”

“To find out what?”

“Just that: whether you wanted your father murdered or not.”

Smerdyakov’s impudent tone, which he now maintained constantly, was driving Ivan frantic.

“It was you who killed him!” he shouted suddenly.

Smerdyakov smiled scornfully.

“You must know very well by now that I didn’t kill him. I never thought that an intelligent man like you would want to talk about that anymore.”

“But why, why, did you suspect me of such desires, then?”

“As you already know, it was fear that brought it on. I was so afraid that, in my state of terror, I sort of suspected everybody. So I decided to test even you. Because, I reasoned to myself, if you desired the same thing as your older brother, then that was the end of everything and I myself was lost, like a helpless fly.”

“But you were talking quite differently two weeks ago. Why was that?”

“No, that was exactly what I meant when I spoke to you in the hospital. Only I hoped you would understand without my having to spell everything out, and I thought you didn’t want things spelled out, because I thought you were the most intelligent of them all.”

“You don’t say! But I demand that you answer this now: What did I do to instill such a horrible suspicion into your vile mind?”

“To do the killing yourself—that was something you would never have been capable of. Nor did you have any desire to do it. But you did want someone else to do it—that, certainly, was something you wished.”

“Listen to him! What calm, what assurance! But what would I want him dead for? What interest did I have in seeing him murdered?”

“What interest, Mr. Ivan? What about your share of the inheritance?” Smerdyakov said with venomous and vengeful glee. “Why, the share of each of you three Karamazov brothers should come to almost forty thousand rubles apiece, whereas if your late father had married that Miss Svetlov, she would soon enough have transferred all the money to her own name, for I understand she’s a very smart lady. So there wouldn’t have been even two rubles of your father’s entire fortune to share between the three of you. And how much time was there left to you before he married her? It could have happened at any moment: all the lady had to do was to make him a tiny sign with her little finger and the next thing they’d have been in church and you three, you’d have been running around with your tongues hanging out.”

Ivan contained himself with great effort.

“All right,” he said after a long pause, “as you can see, I didn’t leap up and give you a good beating or kill you. So keep talking: therefore, according to you I maneuvered my brother Dmitry into doing it, reckoning that he’d do it for me?”

“How could you help counting on Mr. Dmitry’s doing it? Why, if he killed him for you, he would lose his civil rights and, along with them, his right to own property, and he’d be packed off to Siberia. Therefore, whatever was left from your papa would then be divided in half between you and Mr. Alexei and your shares would grow from forty to sixty thousand apiece. Yes, you were certainly counting on Mr. Dmitry.”

“Ah, the things I put up with from you! Now let me tell you this, you dog: if I was counting on anyone at that time, it was certainly not Dmitry, but you, and, in fact, I swear I had a feeling that you were up to something loathsome . . . Yes, I remember that feeling clearly . . .”

“Yes, I also thought for a minute or two that you were counting on me too,” Smerdyakov said with a mocking grin, “and by counting on me, you only gave yourself away even more. For if you felt I was likely to do it and nevertheless you left, that was just like saying to me: ‘Go ahead, kill my father. I’m not stopping you.’ ”

“Ah, so that’s the way you understood it, you low scoundrel!”

“Yes, and all because of Chermashyna. Good Lord, Mr. Ivan, just think for a moment: you decided to go to Moscow and wouldn’t listen to your father, who was begging you to go to Chermashnya for him, but then, when I asked you to go there for some stupid reason, all of a sudden, you agreed. What possible reason could you have had for agreeing to go to Chermashnya then, instead of going to Moscow, just because I asked you to? There can only be one answer: you were expecting something of me.”

“No, I swear it isn’t true!” Ivan screamed, gritting his teeth.

“How could it not be true? Otherwise why, after what I’d told you, didn’t you, Mr. Karamazov’s own son, grab me by the collar and haul me off to the police, or at least give me a good beating then and there? But you were not a bit angry at what I said; you took my advice as if it came from a good friend, and left. You knew yourself that, unless you had something in mind, it would be the most stupid thing to do, because your duty was to stay here and protect your father’s life. So how could I help drawing certain conclusions from your actions?”

Ivan sat scowling, leaning forward with his fists dug hard into his knees.

“Yes, it’s a damned shame I didn’t bash your face in for you then,” he said, grinning bitterly. “Of course, it would have been impractical to drag you to the police station, because they couldn’t just take my word for it and they’d have had nothing to go on. But I’m certainly sorry I didn’t beat you up on that occasion, despite the fact that assaulting people is against the law; I wish I had beaten your ugly mug into a bloody pulp.”

Smerdyakov was watching Ivan with close interest and seemed to be almost enjoying it all. Then he spoke in the smug, doctrinaire tone in which he used to argue with Gregory about religious matters in old Karamazov’s presence.

“It is correct that, under ordinary circumstances, the law nowadays forbids punching citizens in the face and that practice has been stopped. But there are circumstances under which, not only in our Russia but also in all the rest of the world, including even the Republic of France, people continue beating people just as they did at the time of Adam and Eve, and they’ll always do so. But you, you didn’t dare to, under just such circumstances.”

“What’s that—are you learning French words now?” Ivan said, indicating with his head the notebook on the table.

“And why shouldn’t I learn them, to improve my education? Who knows, it may be my fate some day to visit those happy places of Europe personally.”

“Now I want you to understand this, you miserable freak,” Ivan said, his eyes sparkling and his whole body beginning to shake. “I’m not afraid of your accusations and you can tell them whatever you like about me. And if I didn’t beat you up just now it was because I suspect you of murder and I intend to see you tried for it. I’ll see to it, believe me.”

“Well, if you want my advice, you’d better keep quiet, because there’s really nothing you can accuse me of for the good reason that I’m completely innocent, and, in any case, no one would believe you. Only, if you start, I’ll have to tell them everything I know, for how else do you expect me to defend myself?”

“And do you imagine I’m afraid of that?”

“Yes, because even if the court doesn’t believe what I’ve said to you today, the public will believe it and you’ll feel ashamed.”

“Does that mean again that it’s always rewarding to talk to a clever man?” Ivan asked, gnashing his teeth.

“You’ve hit the bull’s eye, Mr. Ivan, and I’m sure you’ll act like the clever man you are.”

Ivan stood up. He was trembling with rage. He put on his overcoat. He didn’t say anything more to Smerdyakov; he didn’t even look at him as he quickly walked out of the wooden house. The chilly evening air refreshed him. The moon was shining brightly. A nightmarish brew of thoughts and emotions was stewing inside him. “Should I go to the police and prefer charges against Smerdyakov?” he thought. “What could I tell them, though? For he’s innocent, after all. In fact, he would accuse me. And it’s true—why did I go to Chermashnya? What was the point of that? What? I did, indeed, expect something to happen. He’s right.” And for the hundredth time he remembered himself opening the door of his room on that last night in his father’s house and listening for his father’s movements downstairs. But this time the memory was so acutely painful that he stopped dead in the middle of the street. “Yes, that’s just what I was expecting to happen—it’s the truth! I wanted him to be killed, yes—killed, just that . . . Did I really want it, though, did I? I must kill Smerdyakov now. If I don’t dare to kill Smerdyakov, there’s no point in staying alive.”