The Brothers Karamazov (112 page)

Instead of going home, Ivan went straight to Katerina’s, frightening her by his appearance, for he looked like a madman. He repeated to her his entire conversation with Smerdyakov, every word of it, and was unable to relax despite all her efforts to calm him. He kept pacing the room and abruptly barking out rather strange things. At last he sat down at the table, leaned his elbows on it, rested his head on his hands, and delivered himself of the following peculiar pronouncement:

“If it was Smerdyakov rather than Dmitry who killed him, then, of course, I am an accomplice, because I incited him to do it. I must make sure, though, whether I really did incite him. But if he was the murderer and not Dmitry, then I am a murderer too.”

Hearing this, Katerina got up without a word, went over to her desk, unlocked a box, took a piece of paper out of it, and placed it before Ivan. This was the document which Ivan had mentioned to Alyosha as “mathematical proof” that Dmitry was the killer. It was a letter that Dmitry had written to Katerina in a drunken state on the evening when he had talked to Alyosha, who was returning to the monastery, on the same day that Grushenka had insulted Katerina at tea.

After he had left Alyosha that night, Mitya had rushed off to Grushenka’s. We don’t know whether he found her at home or not, but he went straight from there to the Capital City Inn, where he got thoroughly drunk. In his drunken state he ordered them to bring him paper, pen, and ink, and produced a document that was to prove fatal to him. Actually, it was a mad, wordy, frantic, and incoherent letter, in fact, what one might call a “drunken letter.” It sounded like the explanations of a man coming home drunk and, with tremendous excitement, telling his wife or other members of his family that he has just this minute been insulted by some scoundrel while he himself has behaved very nobly, that he will teach the scoundrel a lesson yet—he goes on and on about it, rambling incoherently, banging on the table, shedding drunken tears . . . The piece of paper they gave him in the inn was a sheet of cheap notepaper, none too clean, on the back of which somebody had calculated what was probably his bill. Obviously the small sheet was not large enough for Mitya’s drunken prolixity, so he not only filled in all the margins but also scribbled the last lines across the top of what he had already written. The letter ran as follows:

*

FATEFUL KATYA,

I’ll get money tomorrow and pay you back the three thousand and then it will be farewell, you woman of great wrath, but at the same time it will be farewell, my love! Tomorrow, I’ll try to raise the money from everyone I can think of, but if I can’t get it from them, I give you my word I’ll go to see my father, smash his head in, and take the money from under his pillow, provided only that Ivan has left by then. I’ll go to Siberia for it if I must, but I’ll pay you back that money. And you yourself, good-by! I am prostrating myself before you because I know I have acted like a despicable wretch toward you. Forgive me. No, better not forgive me, because that would be easier for both you and me. Better Siberia than your love, Katya, for I love another woman, and I know that you got to know her only too well today, so I don’t expect you can ever forgive us. I’ll kill the man who’s robbed me! And I’ll go east, away from all of you, and I don’t want to know anybody at all. Not her either, because you’re not the only one who causes me to suffer, she does too. So farewell then!

*

P.S. I curse you, but I adore you! I can hear it in my breast. There’s still one string there and it goes on jingling. I’d rather break my heart in two! I’ll kill myself, but before I do, I’ll kill that dog. And so, although I may have behaved like a pig toward you, still I’m no thief. So wait for the three thousand. The dog has a pink ribbon under his mattress. I’m no thief; indeed; it is a thief that I’ll kill. Don’t you look at me with such scorn, Katya: Dmitry Karamazov is not a thief—he’s a murderer. He has murdered his father and killed himself so that he can hold up his head and not have to put up with your scorn and pride. And he does not love you.

P.P.S. I kiss your feet! Farewell!

P.P.P.S. Katya, you’d better pray to God that somebody lets me have the money, for then I won’t have to cover myself with blood, but if no one does, there will be blood all over me. Ah, kill me!

Your slave and enemy,

Dmitry Karamazov

After reading this letter, Ivan was completely convinced. So it was Dmitry and not Smerdyakov. And if it wasn’t Smerdyakov, it wasn’t Ivan either. This letter now became for him a sort of mathematical demonstration of his innocence. He had no doubts left about Dmitry’s guilt. And, by the way, it never entered Ivan’s mind that Dmitry and Smerdyakov could have had a mutual understanding; besides, that didn’t seem to fit in with the known facts. Ivan felt completely reassured.

The following morning he had nothing but contempt for Smerdyakov and his sneers, and a few days later it struck him as rather surprising that he should have been so painfully hurt by Smerdyakov’s suspicions. He decided to ignore him, to forget him altogether. And so a month went by without Ivan’s even inquiring about Smerdyakov, although he vaguely heard people say that the man was very sick and that he was not in full possession of his mental faculties. “He will end up insane,” Dr. Varvinsky said of him, and Ivan took note of that.

During the last week of that month, Ivan did not feel very well himself and he even consulted the doctor whom Katerina had summoned from Moscow for the trial. It was just at this time that his relations with Katerina became extremely difficult. They were like two enemies desperately in love with each other. The short-lived but violent sparks of Katerina’s former passion for Mitya drove Ivan frantic. It is strange that, until that last time at Katerina’s, when Alyosha had come after seeing Dmitry in prison, Ivan had never once, during the whole month, heard Katerina express any doubt about Mitya’s guilt, not even during those flare-ups of her old love that he so hated. It is also interesting that, while Ivan hated Dmitry more and more every day, he knew that it was not because of these “flare-ups” that he hated him, but 
because it was he who had killed their father!
 He was fully conscious of this. Nevertheless, ten days or so before the trial, he went to see Dmitry and offered to arrange his escape by an obviously carefully and thoroughly prepared plan. Aside from his main motive, he was also prompted by an unhealed scar on his pride caused by Smerdyakov’s remark that it was to Ivan’s advantage to see Mitya convicted because his own share of the inheritance would then increase from forty to sixty thousand rubles. So he decided to sacrifice thirty thousand rubles of his personal share to pay for Dmitry’s escape. As he was coming back from his visit to the prison, Ivan felt sad and depressed, because he had suddenly become suspicious of himself—perhaps he was willing to give away that thirty thousand rubles, not to heal the scar on his conscience but for a quite different reason. “Isn’t it really because, deep down, I feel I am just as much a murderer as he is?” Ivan wondered. A vague but stinging sensation lashed his heart. But the worst of it was that what made him suffer most during that month was his pride, but we shall return to that later.

When, after his talk with Alyosha, Ivan reached the house where he lived and, about to ring the bell at the gate, pulled his hand back and decided to go and see Smerdyakov instead, he was yielding to a sudden angry impulse.

The words Katerina had spoken in Alyosha’s presence rang in his ears—that it was he, Ivan, and he alone who had convinced her that Mitya was the murderer. Thinking of it now, Ivan felt stunned: he had never tried to convince her that Mitya was the murderer; on the contrary, he had shared with her his suspicion that he himself was guilty of his father’s death when he had returned from his visit to Smerdyakov. It was then that, in order to prove to him Dmitry’s guilt, 
she herself
 had made him read that indicting “document.” And on top of that, she had suddenly announced that she too had been to see Smerdyakov! When had she gone? Ivan had never heard of it. Didn’t this show that she wasn’t so very convinced of Mitya’s guilt after all? And what could Smerdyakov have possibly told her? Yes, what had he actually told her? A great anger filled Ivan and he could not imagine how, only a half hour ago, he could have let her say those things without pouncing on her at once.

And so he pulled his hand back from the bell and rushed off to Smerdyakov’s. “This time,” he thought on his way, “I’ll kill him perhaps.”

Chapter 8: The Third And Last Meeting With Smerdyakov

BEFORE IVAN had gone half way to Smerdyakov’s house, the dry, nipping wind that had been blowing since morning became stronger and a fine, powdery snow started coming down heavily. It didn’t stick on the ground; the wind kept whirling the snowflakes around and soon there was a real blizzard. There were practically no street lights in the part of town where Smerdyakov lived now and Ivan walked on in the dark, finding his way by instinct, without even noticing the blizzard. His head ached, there was a painful throbbing in his temples, and he felt his hands twitching convulsively. A little way before he reached Maria Kondratiev’s house, Ivan met a short peasant wearing a warm but patched coat, who was zigzagging drunkenly, grumbling and swearing. The man kept starting a song, interrupting himself, swearing, and starting again in a hoarse, drunken voice:

*

Vanya, Vanya went to town,

I won’t wait till he comes back . . .

*

But every time he reached this second line, he again interrupted his singing, swore at someone, and started the song over from the beginning. Ivan felt a terrible hatred for the man before he was really aware of his existence, then suddenly became conscious of him. He felt a violent impulse to hit the little peasant. And just at that second they came abreast of each other and the man, swaying from side to side, butted right into Ivan. Ivan pushed him violently and the peasant went flying and landed like a log on the frozen ground. He uttered one single plaintive “Oh-oh,” and fell silent. Ivan took a step toward the prostrate body. The peasant lay there motionless, obviously unconscious. “He’ll freeze to death,” Ivan thought and walked on to Smerdyakov’s.

Maria Kondratiev, who let him in, whispered that Paul Fyodorovich (that is, Smerdyakov) was very sick, although he was not in bed, but “he’s acting strange-like” and had even told her to take away the tea she’d brought him, which he had not touched.

“Is he violent?” Ivan asked bluntly.

“Oh no, not at all. He’s very quiet . . . Only I still think you shouldn’t stay too long with him, please, sir,” Maria Kondratiev said pleadingly.

Ivan opened the door and walked into Smerdyakov’s room.

It was just as overheated as it had been on Ivan’s previous visit, but there were certain changes in the room. One of the plain wooden benches by the wall had been replaced by a large leather and mahogany sofa, on which a bed with fairly clean white pillows and sheets was made up. Smerdyakov, still wearing the same dressing gown, was sitting on the bed. The table had been moved next to the sofa so that the room looked very cluttered now. A thick book in a yellow cover lay on the table, but Smerdyakov was not reading it and, in fact, seemed to have been just sitting there doing nothing. He met Ivan with a long, silent gaze and did not seem particularly surprised at his visit. He had changed considerably since the last time: he looked very pale and drawn; his skin was yellow; his eyes were sunken and the lids bluish.

“You must be really sick,” Ivan said, stopping. “I won’t keep you long; in fact, I won’t bother to take my coat off.”

He went to the opposite side of the table, pulled up a chair, and sat down.

“Why are you staring at me like that, saying nothing?” Ivan said. “I want to ask you only one question, but I swear I won’t leave here until you’ve answered it. Tell me, has Miss Katerina Verkhovtsev been here to see you?”

For a while, Smerdyakov continued to look at Ivan without saying anything; then he shrugged and looked away.

“What’s the matter with you?” Ivan cried.

“Nothing.”

“What do you mean—nothing?”

“All right, she was here. But what’s it to you? Leave me alone.”

“No, I won’t leave you alone. I want to know when she came.”

“I hardly even remember her coming,” Smerdyakov said, grinning scornfully, but then he turned toward Ivan again and started to stare at him with a strange, insane hatred in his eyes, just as he had looked at him during his previous visit.

“You look pretty sick yourself. Your face is real pinched,” he said.

“Don’t you worry about my health, just answer my questions.”

“You know, the whites of your eyes have turned yellow now. You must be worrying a lot, no?” he said with a contemptuous snort and then, all of a sudden, began to laugh.

“Listen, as I said, I won’t leave here until you’ve answered me,” Ivan cried in a terrible rage.

“But why are you pestering me? Why must you come and torment me?” Smerdyakov said in a long-suffering tone.

“Ah hell, I don’t give a damn about you, one way or the other. All I want is for you to answer me and, as soon as you’ve done so, I’ll go.”

“I have nothing to tell you,” Smerdyakov said, lowering his eyes.

“I assure you, I’ll make you answer me!”

“What is it that’s worrying you so much?” Smerdyakov said, staring at Ivan again, this time not just with scorn but also with a strange and visible disgust. “Can it be that the trial is to start tomorrow? I assure you, nothing will happen to you. You needn’t be afraid. Try to understand that finally! So go home, go to bed, and fear nothing.”

“I don’t even know what you’re talking about. What is there for me to fear tomorrow?” Ivan said in surprise and suddenly felt a real wave of fear creep up his spine. Smerdyakov’s eyes were watching him.

“You don’t understand, do you?” he said in a reproachful tone. “And I don’t understand why an intelligent man should want to go on playing such a comedy!”