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

not see them, he first took out his handkerchief, and as

it turned out to be very dirty, took up the big yellow book that

Ivan had noticed at first lying on the table, and put it over the

notes. The book was The Sayings of the Holy Father Isaac the Syrian.

Ivan read it mechanically.

 

“I won’t have any lemonade,” he said. “Talk of me later. Sit

down and tell me how you did it. Tell me all about it.”

 

“You’d better take off your greatcoat, or you’ll be too hot.”

Ivan, as though he’d only just thought of it, took off his coat,

and, without getting up from his chair, threw it on the bench.

 

“Speak, please, speak.”

 

He seemed calmer. He waited, feeling sure that Smerdyakov would

tell him all about it.

 

“How it was done?” sighed Smerdyakov. “It was done in a most

natural way, following your very words.”

 

“Of my words later,” Ivan broke in again, apparently with complete

self-possession, firmly uttering his words, and not shouting as

before. “Only tell me in detail how you did it. Everything, as it

happened. Don’t forget anything. The details, above everything, the

details, I beg you.”

 

“You’d gone away, then I fell into the cellar.”

 

“In a fit or in a sham one?”

 

“A sham one, naturally. I shammed it all. I went quietly down

the steps to the very bottom and lay down quietly, and as I lay down I

gave a scream, and struggled, till they carried me out.”

 

“Stay! And were you shamming all along, afterwards, and in the

hospital?”

 

“No, not at all. Next day, in the morning, before they took me

to the hospital, I had a real attack and a more violent one than

I’ve had for years. For two days I was quite unconscious.”

 

“All right, all right. Go on.”

 

“They laid me on the bed. I knew I’d be the other side of the

partition, for whenever I was ill, Marfa Ignatyevna used to put me

there, near them. She’s always been very kind to me, from my birth up.

At night I moaned, but quietly. I kept expecting Dmitri Fyodorovitch

to come.”

 

“Expecting him? To come to you?”

 

“Not to me. I expected him to come into the house, for I’d no

doubt that he’d come that night, for being without me and getting no

news, he’d be sure to come and climb over the fence, as he used to,

and do something.”

 

“And if he hadn’t come?”

 

“Then nothing would have happened. I should never have brought

myself to it without him.”

 

“All right, all right. speak more intelligibly, don’t hurry; above

all, don’t leave anything out!”

 

“I expected him to kill Fyodor Pavlovitch. I thought that was

certain, for I had prepared him for it… during the last few days….

He knew about the knocks, that was the chief thing. With his

suspiciousness and the fury which had been growing in him all those

days, he was bound to get into the house by means of those taps.

That was inevitable, so I was expecting him.”

 

“Stay,” Ivan interrupted; “if he had killed him, he would have

taken the money and carried it away; you must have considered that.

What would you have got by it afterwards? I don’t see.”

0 “But he would never have found the money. That was only what I

told him, that the money was under the mattress. But that wasn’t true.

It had been lying in a box. And afterwards I suggested to Fyodor

Pavlovitch, as I was the only person he trusted, to hide the

envelope with the notes in the corner behind the ikons, for no one

would have guessed that place, especially if they came in a hurry.

So that’s where the envelope lay, in the corner behind the ikons. It

would have been absurd to keep it under the mattress; the box, anyway,

could be locked. But all believe it was under the mattress. A stupid

thing to believe. So if Dmitri Fyodorovitch had committed the

murder, finding nothing, he would either have run away in a hurry,

afraid of every sound, as always happens with murderers, or he would

have been arrested. So I could always have clambered up to the ikons

and have taken away the money next moming or even that night, and it

would have all been put down to Dmitri Fyodorovitch. I could reckon

upon that.”

 

“But what if he did not kill him, but only knocked him down?”

 

“If he did not kill him, of course, I would not have ventured to

take the money, and nothing would have happened. But I calculated that

he would beat him senseless, and I should have time to take it then,

and then I’d make out to Fyodor Pavlovitch that it was no one but

Dmitri Fyodorovitch who had taken the money after beating him.”

 

“Stop… I am getting mixed. Then it was Dmitri after all who

killed him; you only took the money?”

 

“No, he didn’t kill him. Well, I might as well have told you now

that he was the murderer…. But I don’t want to lie to you now

because… because if you really haven’t understood till now, as I see

for myself, and are not pretending, so as to throw your guilt on me to

my very face, you are still responsible for it all, since you knew

of the murder and charged me to do it, and went away knowing all about

it. And so I want to prove to your face this evening that you are

the only real murderer in the whole affair, and I am not the real

murderer, though I did kill him. You are the rightful murderer.”

 

“Why, why, am I a murderer? Oh, God!” Ivan cried, unable to

restrain himself at last, and forgetting that he had put off

discussing himself till the end of the conversation. “You still mean

that Tchermashnya? Stay, tell me, why did you want my consent, if

you really took Tchermashnya for consent? How will you explain that

now?”

 

“Assured of your consent, I should have known that you wouldn’t

have made an outcry over those three thousand being lost, even if

I’d been suspected, instead of Dmitri Fyodorovitch, or as his

accomplice; on the contrary, you would have protected me from

others…. And when you got your inheritance you would have rewarded

me when you were able, all the rest of your life. For you’d have

received your inheritance through me, seeing that if he had married

Agrafena Alexandrovna, you wouldn’t have had a farthing.”

 

“Ah! Then you intended to worry me all my life afterwards,”

snarled Ivan. “And what if I hadn’t gone away then, but had informed

against you?”

 

“What could you have informed? That I persuaded you to go to

Tcherinashnya? That’s all nonsense. Besides, after our conversation

you would either have gone away or have stayed. If you had stayed,

nothing would have happened. I should have known that you didn’t

want it done, and should have attempted nothing. As you went away,

it meant you assured me that you wouldn’t dare to inform against me at

the trial, and that you’d overlook my having the three thousand.

And, indeed, you couldn’t have prosecuted me afterwards, because

then I should have told it all in the court; that is, not that I had

stolen the money or killed him-I shouldn’t have said that-but that

you’d put me up to the theft and the murder, though I didn’t consent

to it. That’s why I needed your consent, so that you couldn’t have

cornered me afterwards, for what proof could you have had? I could

always have cornered you, revealing your eagerness for your father’s

death, and I tell you the public would have believed it all, and you

would have been ashamed for the rest of your life.”

 

“Was I then so eager, was I?” Ivan snarled again.

 

“To be sure you were, and by your consent you silently

sanctioned my doing it.” Smerdyakov looked resolutely at Ivan. He

was very weak and spoke slowly and wearily, but some hidden inner

force urged him on. He evidently had some design. Ivan felt that.

 

“Go on,” he said. “Tell me what happened that night.”

 

“What more is there to tell! I lay there and I thought I heard the

master shout. And before that Grigory Vassilyevitch had suddenly got

up and came out, and he suddenly gave a scream, and then all was

silence and darkness. I lay there waiting, my heart beating; I

couldn’t bear it. I got up at last, went out. I saw the window open on

the left into the garden, and I stepped to the left to listen

whether he was sitting there alive, and I heard the master moving

about, sighing, so I knew he was alive. ‘Ech!’ I thought. I went to

the window and shouted to the master, ‘It’s I.’ And he shouted to

me, ‘He’s been, he’s been; he’s run away.’ He meant Dmitri

Fyodorovitch had been. ‘He’s killed Grigory! “Where?’ I whispered.

‘There, in the corner,’ he pointed. He was whispering, too. ‘Wait a

bit,” I said. I went to the corner of the garden to look, and there

I came upon Grigory Vassilyevitch lying by the wall, covered with

blood, senseless. So it’s true that Dmitri Fyodorovitch has been here,

was the thought that came into my head, and I determined on the spot

to make an end of it, as Grigory Vassilyevitch, even if he were alive,

would see nothing of it, as he lay there senseless. The only risk

was that Marfa Ignatyevna might wake up. I felt that at the moment,

but the longing to get it done came over me, till I could scarcely

breathe. I went back to the window to the master and said, ‘She’s

here, she’s come; Agrafena Alexandrovna has come, wants to be let in.’

And he started like a baby. ‘Where is she?’ he fairly gasped, but

couldn’t believe it. ‘She’s standing there,’ said I. ‘Open.’ He looked

out of the window at me, half believing and half distrustful, but

afraid to open. ‘Why, he is afraid of me now,’ I thought. And it was

funny. I bethought me to knock on the window-frame those taps we’d

agreed upon as a signal that Grushenka had come, in his presence,

before his eyes. He didn’t seem to believe my word, but as soon as

he heard the taps, he ran at once to open the door. He opened it. I

would have gone in, but he stood in the way to prevent me passing.

‘Where is she? Where is she?’ He looked at me, all of a tremble.

‘Well,’ thought I, ‘if he’s so frightened of me as all that, it’s a

bad lookout!’ And my legs went weak with fright that he wouldn’t let

me in or would call out, or Marfa Ignatyevna would run up, or

something else might happen. I don’t remember now, but I must have

stood pale, facing him. I whispered to him, ‘Why, she’s there,

there, under the window; how is it you don’t see her?’ I said.

‘Bring her then, bring her.’ ‘She’s afraid,’ said I; ‘she was

frightened at the noise, she’s hidden in the bushes; go and call to

her yourself from the study.’ He ran to the window, put the candle

in the window. ‘Grushenka,’ he cried, ‘Grushenka, are you here?’

Though he cried that, he didn’t want to lean out of the window, he

didn’t want to move away from me, for he was panic-stricken; he was so

frightened he didn’t dare to turn his back on me. ‘Why, here she

is,’