The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky [children's books read aloud TXT] 📗

Chapter 6

The First Interview with Smerdyakov

 

THIS was the third time that Ivan had been to see Smerdyakov since

his return from Moscow. The first time he had seen him and talked to

him was on the first day of his arrival, then he had visited him

once more, a fortnight later. But his visits had ended with that

second one, so that it was now over a month since he had seen him. And

he had scarcely heard anything of him.

 

Ivan had only returned five days after his father’s death, so that

he was not present at the funeral, which took place the day before

he came back. The cause of his delay was that Alyosha, not knowing his

Moscow address, had to apply to Katerina Ivanovna to telegraph to him,

and she, not knowing his address either, telegraphed to her sister and

aunt, reckoning on Ivan’s going to see them as soon as he arrived in

Moscow. But he did not go to them till four days after his arrival.

When he got the telegram, he had, of course, set off post-haste to our

town. The first to meet him was Alyosha, and Ivan was greatly

surprised to find that, in opposition to the general opinion of the

town, he refused to entertain a suspicion against Mitya, and spoke

openly of Smerdyakov as the murderer. Later on, after seeing the

police captain and the prosecutor, and hearing the details of the

charge and the arrest, he was still more surprised at Alyosha, and

ascribed his opinion only to his exaggerated brotherly feeling and

sympathy with Mitya, of whom Alyosha, as Ivan knew, was very fond.

 

By the way, let us say a word or two of Ivan’s feeling to his

brother Dmitri. He positively disliked him; at most, felt sometimes

a compassion for him, and even that was mixed with great contempt,

almost repugnance. Mitya’s whole personality, even his appearance, was

extremely unattractive to him. Ivan looked with indignation on

Katerina Ivanovna’s love for his brother. Yet he went to see Mitya

on the first day of his arrival, and that interview, far from

shaking Ivan’s belief in his guilt, positively strengthened it. He

found his brother agitated, nervously excited. Mitya had been

talkative, but very absent-minded and incoherent. He used violent

language, accused Smerdyakov, and was fearfully muddled. He talked

principally about the three thousand roubles, which he said had been

“stolen” from him by his father.

 

“The money was mine, it was my money,” Mitya kept repeating. “Even

if I had stolen it, I should have had the right.”

 

He hardly contested the evidence against him, and if he tried to

turn a fact to his advantage, it was in an absurd and incoherent

way. He hardly seemed to wish to defend himself to Ivan or anyone

else. Quite the contrary, he was angry and proudly scornful of the

charges against him; he was continually firing up and abusing

everyone. He only laughed contemptuously at Grigory’s evidence about

the open door, and declared that it was “the devil that opened it.”

But he could not bring forward any coherent explanation of the fact.

He even succeeded in insulting Ivan during their first interview,

telling him sharply that it was not for people who declared that

“everything was lawful,” to suspect and question him. Altogether he

was anything but friendly with Ivan on that occasion. Immediately

after that interview with Mitya, Ivan went for the first time to see

Smerdyakov.

 

In the railway train on his way from Moscow, he kept thinking of

Smerdyakov and of his last conversation with him on the evening before

he went away. Many things seemed to him puzzling and suspicious.

when he gave his evidence to the investigating lawyer Ivan said

nothing, for the time, of that conversation. He put that off till he

had seen Smerdyakov, who was at that time in the hospital.

 

Doctor Herzenstube and Varvinsky, the doctor he met in the

hospital, confidently asserted in reply to Ivan’s persistent

questions, that Smerdyakov’s epileptic attack was unmistakably

genuine, and were surprised indeed at Ivan asking whether he might not

have been shamming on the day of the catastrophe. They gave him to

understand that the attack was an exceptional one, the fits persisting

and recurring several times, so that the patient’s life was positively

in danger, and it was only now, after they had applied remedies,

that they could assert with confidence that the patient would survive.

“Though it might well be,” added Doctor Herzenstube, “that his

reason would be impaired for a considerable period, if not

permanently.” On Ivan’s asking impatiently whether that meant that

he was now mad, they told him that this was not yet the case, in the

full sense of the word, but that certain abnormalities were

perceptible. Ivan decided to find out for himself what those

abnormalities were.

 

At the hospital he was at once allowed to see the patient.

Smerdyakov was lying on a truckle-bed in a separate ward. There was

only one other bed in the room, and in it lay a tradesman of the town,

swollen with dropsy, who was obviously almost dying; he could be no

hindrance to their conversation. Smerdyakov grinned uncertainly on

seeing Ivan, and for the first instant seemed nervous. So at least

Ivan fancied. But that was only momentary. For the rest of the time he

was struck, on the contrary, by Smerdyakov’s composure. From the first

glance Ivan had no doubt that he was very ill. He was very weak; he

spoke slowly, seeming to move his tongue with difficulty; he was

much thinner and sallower.Throughout the interview, which lasted

twenty minutes, he kept complaining of headache and of pain in all his

limbs. His thin emasculate face seemed to have become so tiny; his

hair was ruffled, and his crest of curls in front stood up in a thin

tuft. But in the left eye, which was screwed up and seemed to be

insinuating something, Smerdyakov showed himself unchanged. “It’s

always worth while speaking to a clever man.” Ivan was reminded of

that at once. He sat down on the stool at his feet. Smerdyakov, with

painful effort, shifted his position in bed, but he was not the

first to speak. He remained dumb, and did not even look much

interested.

 

“Can you. talk to me?” asked Ivan. “I won’t tire you much.”

 

“Certainly I can,” mumbled Smerdyakov, in a faint voice. “Has your

honour been back long?” he added patronisingly, as though

encouraging a nervous visitor.

 

“I only arrived to-day…. To see the mess you are in here.”

 

Smerdyakov sighed.

 

“Why do you sigh? You knew of it all along,” Ivan blurted out.

 

Smerdyakov was stolidly silent for a while.

 

“How could I help knowing? It was clear beforehand. But how

could I tell it would turn out like that?”

 

“What would turn out? Don’t prevaricate! You’ve foretold you’d

have a fit; on the way down to the cellar, you know. You mentioned the

very spot.”

 

“Have you said so at the examination yet?” Smerdyakov queried with

composure.

 

Ivan felt suddenly angry.

 

“No, I haven’t yet, but I certainly shall. You must explain a

great deal to me, my man; and let me tell you, I am not going to let

you play with me!”

 

“Why should I play with you, when I put my whole trust in you,

as in God Almighty?” said Smerdyakov, with the same composure, only

for a moment closing his eyes.

 

“In the first place,” began Ivan, “I know that epileptic fits

can’t be told beforehand. I’ve inquired; don’t try and take me in. You

can’t foretell the day and the hour. How was it you told me the day

and the hour beforehand, and about the cellar, too? How could you tell

that you would fall down the cellar stairs in a fit, if you didn’t

sham a fit on purpose?”

 

“I had to go to the cellar anyway, several times a day, indeed,”

Smerdyakov drawled deliberately. “I fell from the garret just in the

same way a year ago. It’s quite true you can’t tell the day and hour

of a fit beforehand, but you can always have a presentiment of it.”

 

“But you did foretell the day and the hour!”

 

“In regard to my epilepsy, sir, you had much better inquire of the

doctors here. You can ask them whether it was a real fit or a sham;

it’s no use my saying any more about it.”

 

“And the cellar? How could you know beforehand of the cellar?”

 

“You don’t seem able to get over that cellar! As I was going

down to the cellar, I was in terrible dread and doubt. What frightened

me most was losing you and being left without defence in all the

world. So I went down into the cellar thinking, ‘Here, it’ll come on

directly, it’ll strike me down directly, shall I fall?’ And it was

through this fear that I suddenly felt the spasm that always

comes… and so I went flying. All that and all my previous

conversation with you at the gate the evening before, when I told

you how frightened I was and spoke of the cellar, I told all that to

Doctor Herzenstube and Nikolay Parfenovitch, the investigating lawyer,

and it’s all been written down in the protocol. And the doctor here,

Mr. Varvinsky, maintained to all of them that it was just the

thought of it brought it on, the apprehension that I might fall. It

was just then that the fit seized me. And so they’ve written it

down, that it’s just how it must have happened, simply from my fear.”

 

As he finished, Smerdyakov. drew a deep breath, as though

exhausted.

 

“Then you have said all that in your evidence?” said Ivan,

somewhat taken aback. He had meant to frighten him with the threat

of repeating their conversation, and it appeared that Smerdyakov had

already reported it all himself.

 

“What have I to be afraid of? Let them write down the whole

truth,” Smerdyakov pronounced firmly.

 

“And have you told them every word of our conversation at the

gate?”

 

“No, not to say every word.”

 

“And did you tell them that you can sham fits, as you boasted

then?”

 

“No, I didn’t tell them that either.”

 

“Tell me now, why did you send me then to Tchermashnya?”

 

“I was afraid you’d go away to Moscow; Tchermashnya is nearer,

anyway.”

 

“You are lying; you suggested my going away yourself; you told

me to get out of the way of trouble.”

 

“That was simply out of affection and my sincere devotion to

you, foreseeing trouble in the house, to spare you. Only I wanted to

spare myself even more. That’s why I told you to get out of harm’s

way, that you might understand that there would be trouble in the

house, and would remain at home to protect your father.”

 

“You might have said it more directly, you blockhead!” Ivan

suddenly fired up.

 

“How could I have said it more directly then? It was simply my

fear that made me speak, and you might have been angry, too. I might

well have been apprehensive that Dmitri Fyodorovitch would make a

scene