perhaps of something else, too--that's what I promised not to tell the authorities.'
Though Smerdyakov spoke without haste and obviously controlling himself, yet there was something in his voice, determined and emphatic, resentful and insolently defiant. He stared impudently at Ivan. A mist passed before Ivan's eyes for the first moment.
'How? What? Are you out of your mind?'
'I'm perfectly in possession of all my faculties.'
'Do you suppose I knew of the murder?' Ivan cried at last, and he brought his fist violently on the table. 'What do you mean by something else, too? Speak, scoundrel!'
Smerdyakov was silent and still scanned Ivan with the same insolent stare.
'Speak, you stinking rogue, what is that ‘something else, too'?'
'The ‘something else’ I meant was that you probably, too, were very desirous of your parent's death.'
Ivan jumped up and struck him with all his might on the shoulder, so that he fell back against the wall. In an instant his face was bathed in tears. Saying, 'It's a shame, sir, to strike a sick man,' he dried his eyes with a very dirty blue check handkerchief and sank into quiet weeping. A minute passed.
'That's enough! Leave off,' Ivan said peremptorily, sitting down again. 'Don't put me out of all patience.'
Smerdyakov took the rag from his eyes. Every line of his puckered face reflected the insult he had just received.
'So you thought then, you scoundrel, that together with Dmitri I meant to kill my father?'
'I didn't know what thoughts were in your mind then,' said Smerdyakov resentfully; 'and so I stopped you then at the gate to sound you on that very point.'
'To sound what, what?'
'Why, that very circumstance, whether you wanted your father to be murdered or not.'
What infuriated Ivan more than anything was the aggressive, insolent tone to which Smerdyakov persistently adhered.
'It was you murdered him?' he cried suddenly.
Smerdyakov smiled contemptuously.
'You know of yourself, for a fact, that it wasn't I murdered him. And I should have thought that there was no need for a sensible man to speak of it again.'
'But why, why had you such a suspicion about me at the time?'
'As you know already, it was simply from fear. For I was in such a position, shaking with fear, that I suspected everyone. I resolved to sound you, too, for I thought if you wanted the same as your brother, then the business was as good as settled and I should be crushed like a fly, too.'
'Look here, you didn't say that a fortnight ago.'
'I meant the same when I talked to you in the hospital, only I thought you'd understand without wasting words, and that being such a sensible man you wouldn't care to talk of it openly.'
'What next! Come answer, answer, I insist: what was it... what could I have done to put such a degrading suspicion into your mean soul?'
'As for the murder, you couldn't have done that and didn't want to, but as for wanting someone else to do it, that was just what you did want.'
'And how coolly, how coolly he speakst But why should I have wanted it; what grounds had I for wanting it?'
'What grounds had you? What about the inheritance?' said Smerdyakov sarcastically, and, as it were, vindictively. 'Why, after your parent's death there was at least forty thousand to come to each of you, and very likely more, but if Fyodor Pavlovitch got married then to that lady, Agrafena Alexandrovna, she would have had all his capital made over to her directly after the wedding, for she's plenty of sense, so that your parent would not have left you two roubles between the three of you. And were they far from a wedding, either? Not a hair's-breadth: that lady had only to lift her little finger and he would have run after her to church, with his tongue out.'
Ivan restrained himself with painful effort.
'Very good,' he commented at last. 'You see, I haven't jumped up, I haven't knocked you down, I haven't killed you. Speak on. So, according to you, I had fixed on Dmitri to do it; I was reckoning on him?'
'How could you help reckoning on him? If he killed him, then he would lose all the rights of a nobleman, his rank and property, and would go off to exile; so his share of the inheritance would come to you and your brother Alexey Fyodorovitch in equal parts; so you'd each have not forty, but sixty thousand each. There's not a doubt you did reckon on Dmitri Fyodorovitch.'
'What I put up with from you! Listen, scoundrel, if I had reckoned on anyone then, it would have been on you, not on Dmitri, and I swear I did expect some wickedness from you... at the time.... I remember my impression!
'I thought, too, for a minute, at the time, that you were reckoning on me as well,' said Smerdyakov, with a sarcastic grin. 'So that it was just by that more than anything you showed me what was in your mind. For if you had a foreboding about me and yet went away, you as good as said to me, ‘You can murder my parent, I won't hinder you!'’
'You scoundrel! So that's how you understood it!'
'It was all that going to Tchermashnya. Why! You were meaning to go to Moscow and refused all your father's entreaties to go to Tchermashnya --and simply at a foolish word from me you consented at once! What reason had you to consent to Tchermashnya? Since you went to Tchermashnya with no reason, simply at my word, it shows that you must have expected something from me.'
No, I swear I didn't!' shouted Ivan, grinding his teeth.
'You didn't? Then you ought, as your father's son, to have had me taken to the lock-up and thrashed at once for my words then... or at least, to have given me a punch in the face on the spot, but you were not a bit angry, if you please, and at once in a friendly way acted on my foolish word and went away, which was utterly absurd, for you ought to have stayed to save your parent's life. How could I help drawing my conclusions?'
Ivan sat scowling, both his fists convulsively pressed on his knees.
'Yes, I am sorry I didn't punch you in the face,' he said with a bitter smile. 'I couldn't have taken you to the lock-up just then. Who would have believed me and what charge could I bring against you? But the punch in the face... oh, I'm sorry I didn't think of it. Though blows are forbidden, I should have pounded your ugly face to a jelly.'
Smerdyakov looked at him almost with relish.
'In the ordinary occasions of life,' he said in the same complacent and sententious tone in which he had taunted Grigory and argued with him about religion at Fyodor Pavlovitch's table, 'in the ordinary occasions of life, blows on the face are forbidden nowadays by law, and people have given them up, but in exceptional occasions of life people still fly to blows, not only among us but all over the world, be it even the fullest republic of France, just as in the time of Adam and Eve, and they never will leave off, but you, even in an exceptional case, did not dare.'
'What are you learning French words for?' Ivan nodded towards the exercise-book lying on the table.
'Why shouldn't I learn them so as to improve my education, supposing that I may myself chance to go some day to those happy parts of Europe?'
'Listen, monster.' Ivan's eyes flashed and he trembled all over. 'I am not afraid of your accusations; you can say what you like about me, and if I don't beat you to death, it's simply because I suspect you of that crime and I'll drag you to justice. I'll unmask you.'
'To my thinking, you'd better keep quiet, for what can you accuse me of, considering my absolute innocence? And who would believe you? Only if you begin, I shall tell everything, too, for I must defend myself.'
'Do you think I am afraid of you now?'
'If the court doesn't believe all I've said to you just now, the public will, and you will be ashamed.'
'That's as much as to say, ‘It's always worth while speaking to a sensible man,’ eh?' snarled Ivan.
'You hit the mark, indeed. And you'd better be sensible.'
Ivan got up, shaking all over with indignation, put on his coat, and without replying further to Smerdyakov, without even looking at him, walked quickly out of the cottage. The cool evening air refreshed him. There was a bright moon in the sky. A nightmare of ideas and sensations filled his soul. 'Shall I go at once and give information against Smerdyakov? But what information can I give? He is not guilty, anyway. On the contrary, he'll accuse me.
