The Brothers Karamazov - Fyodor Dostoyevsky (reading an ebook TXT) 📗
- Author: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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she is; she’s in the bush, laughing at you, don’t you see her?’ He
suddenly believed it; he was all of a shake-he was awfully crazy
about her-and he leaned right out of the window. I snatched up that
iron paper-weight from his table; do you remember, weighing about
three pounds? I swung it and hit him on the top of the skull with
the corner of it. He didn’t even cry out. He only sank down
suddenly, and I hit him again and a third time. And the third time I
knew I’d broken his skull. He suddenly rolled on his back, face
upwards, covered with blood. I looked round. There was no blood on me,
not a spot. I wiped the paper-weight, put it back, went up to the
ikons, took the money out of the envelope, and flung the envelope on
the floor and the pink ribbon beside it. I went out into the garden
all of a tremble, straight to the apple-tree with a hollow in it-you know that hollow. I’d marked it long before and put a rag and a
piece of paper ready in it. I wrapped all the notes in the rag and
stuffed it deep down in the hole. And there it stayed for over a
fortnight. I took it out later, when I came out of the hospital. I
went back to my bed, lay down and thought, ‘If Grigory Vassilyevitch
has been killed outright it may be a bad job for me, but if he is
not killed and recovers, it will be first-rate, for then he’ll bear
witness that Dmitri Fyodorovitch has been here, and so he must have
killed him and taken the money.’ Then I began groaning with suspense
and impatience, so as to wake Marfa Ignatyevna as soon as possible. At
last she got up and she rushed to me, but when she saw Grigory
Vassilyevitch was not there, she ran out, and I heard her scream in
the garden. And that set it all going and set my mind at rest.”
He stopped. Ivan had listened all the time in dead silence without
stirring or taking his eyes off him. As he told his story Smerdyakov
glanced at him from time to time, but for the most part kept his
eyes averted. When he had finished he was evidently agitated and was
breathing hard. The perspiration stood out on his face. But it was
impossible to tell whether it was remorse he was feeling, or what.
“Stay,” cried Ivan pondering. “What about the door? If he only
opened the door to you, how could Grigory have seen it open before?
For Grigory saw it before you went.”
It was remarkable that Ivan spoke quite amicably, in a different
tone, not angry as before, so if anyone had opened the door at that
moment and peeped in at them, he would certainly have concluded that
they were talking peaceably about some ordinary, though interesting,
subject.
“As for that door and having seen it open, that’s only his fancy,”
said Smerdyakov, with a wry smile. “He is not a man, I assure you, but
an obstinate mule. He didn’t see it, but fancied he had seen it, and
there’s no shaking him. It’s just our luck he took that notion into
his head, for they can’t fail to convict Dmitri Fyodorovitch after
that.”
“Listen… ” said Ivan, beginning to seem bewildered again and
making an effort to grasp something. “Listen. There are a lot of
questions I want to ask you, but I forget them… I keep forgetting
and getting mixed up. Yes. Tell me this at least, why did you open the
envelope and leave it there on the floor? Why didn’t you simply
carry off the envelope?… When you were telling me, I thought you
spoke about it as though it were the right thing to do… but why, I
can’t understand…”
“I did that for a good reason. For if a man had known all about
it, as I did for instance, if he’d seen those notes before, and
perhaps had put them in that envelope himself, and had seen the
envelope sealed up and addressed, with his own eyes, if such a man had
done the murder, what should have made him tear open the envelope
afterwards, especially in such desperate haste, since he’d know for
certain the notes must be in the envelope? No, if the robber had
been someone like me, he’d simply have put the envelope straight in
his pocket and got away with it as fast as he could. But it’d be quite
different with Dmitri Fyodorovitch. He only knew about the envelope by
hearsay; he had never seen it, and if he’d found it, for instance,
under the mattress, he’d have torn it open as quickly as possible to
make sure the notes were in it. And he’d have thrown the envelope
down, without having time to think that it would be evidence against
him. Because he was not an habitual thief and had never directly
stolen anything before, for he is a gentleman born, and if he did
bring himself to steal, it would not be regular stealing, but simply
taking what was his own, for he’d told the whole town he meant to
before, and had even bragged aloud before everyone that he’d go and
take his property from Fyodor Pavlovitch. I didn’t say that openly
to the prosecutor when I was being examined, but quite the contrary, I
brought him to it by a hint, as though I didn’t see it myself, and
as though he’d thought of it himself and I hadn’t prompted him; so
that Mr. Prosecutor’s mouth positively watered at my suggestion.”
“But can you possibly have thought of all that on the spot?” cried
Ivan, overcome with astonishment. He looked at Smerdyakov again with
alarm.
“Mercy on us! Could anyone think of it all in such a desperate
hurry? It was all thought out beforehand.”
“Well… well, it was the devil helped you!” Ivan cried again.
“No, you are not a fool, you are far cleverer than I thought…”
He got up, obviously intending to walk across the room. He was
in terrible distress. But as the table blocked his way, and there
was hardly room to pass between the table and the wall, he only turned
round where he stood and sat down again. Perhaps the impossibility
of moving irritated him, as he suddenly cried out almost as
furiously as before.
“Listen, you miserable, contemptible creature! Don’t you
understand that if I haven’t killed you, it’s simply because I am
keeping you to answer to-morrow at the trial. God sees,” Ivan raised
his hand, “perhaps I, too, was guilty; perhaps I really had a secret
desire for my father’s… death, but I swear I was not as guilty as
you think, and perhaps I didn’t urge you on at all. No, no, I didn’t
urge you on! But no matter, I will give evidence against myself
to-morrow at the trial. I’m determined to! I shall tell everything,
everything. But we’ll make our appearance together. And whatever you
may say against me at the trial, whatever evidence you give, I’ll face
it; I am not afraid of you. I’ll confirm it all myself! But you must
confess, too! You must, you must; we’ll go together. That’s how it
shall be!”
Ivan said this solemnly and resolutely and from his flashing
eyes alone it could be seen that it would be so.
“You are ill, I see; you are quite ill. Your eyes are yellow,”
Smerdyakov commented, without the least irony, with apparent
sympathy in fact.
“We’ll go together,” Ivan repeated. “And if you won’t go, no
matter, I’ll go alone.”
Smerdyakov paused as though pondering.
“There’ll be nothing of the sort, and you won’t go,” he
concluded at last positively.
“You don’t understand me,” Ivan exclaimed reproachfully.
“You’ll be too much ashamed, if you confess it all. And, what’s
more, it will be no use at all, for I shall say straight out that I
never said anything of the sort to you, and that you are either ill
(and it looks like it, too), or that you’re so sorry for your
brother that you are sacrificing yourself to save him and have
invented it all against me, for you’ve always thought no more of me
than if I’d been a fly. And who will believe you, and what single
proof have you got?”
“Listen, you showed me those notes just now to convince me.”
Smerdyakov lifted the book off the notes and laid it on one side.
“Take that money away with you,” Smerdyakov sighed.
“Of course, I shall take it. But why do you give it to me, if
you committed the murder for the sake of it?” Ivan looked at him
with great surprise.
“I don’t want it,” Smerdyakov articulated in a shaking voice, with
a gesture of refusal. “I did have an idea of beginning a new life with
that money in Moscow or, better still, abroad. I did dream of it,
chiefly because ‘all things are lawful.’ That was quite right what you
taught me, for you talked a lot to me about that. For if there’s no
everlasting God, there’s no such thing as virtue, and there’s no
need of it. You were right there. So that’s how I looked at it.”
“Did you come to that of yourself?” asked Ivan, with a wry smile.
“With your guidance.”
“And now, I suppose, you believe in God, since you are giving back
the money?”
“No, I don’t believe,” whispered Smerdyakov.
“Then why are you giving it back?”
“Leave off… that’s enough!” Smerdyakov waved his hand again.
“You used to say yourself that everything was lawful, so now why are
you so upset, too? You even want to go and give evidence against
yourself…. Only there’ll be nothing of the sort! You won’t go to
give evidence,” Smerdyakov decided with conviction.
“You’ll see,” said Ivan.
“It isn’t possible. You are very clever. You are fond of money,
I know that. You like to be respected, too, for you’re very proud; you
are far too fond of female charms, too, and you mind most of all about
living in undisturbed comfort, without having to depend on anyone-that’s what you care most about. You won’t want to spoil your life for
ever by taking such a disgrace on yourself. You are like Fyodor
Pavlovitch, you are more like him than any of his children; you’ve the
same soul as he had.”
“You are not a fool,” said Ivan, seeming struck. The blood
rushed to his face. “You are serious now!” he observed, looking
suddenly at Smerdyakov with a different expression.
“It was your pride made you think I was a fool. Take the money.”
Ivan took the three rolls of notes and put them in his pocket
without wrapping them in anything.
“I shall show them at the court to-morrow,” he said.
“Nobody will believe you, as you’ve plenty of money of your own;
you may simply have taken it out of your cash-box and brought it to
the court.”
Ivan rose from his seat.
“I repeat,” he said, “the only reason I haven’t killed you is that
I need you for to-morrow, remember that, don’t forget it!”
“Well, kill me. Kill me now,” Smerdyakov said, all at once looking
strangely at Ivan. “You won’t dare do that even!” he added, with a
bitter smile. “You won’t dare to do anything, you, who used to be so
bold!”
“Till to-morrow,” cried Ivan, and moved
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