end of it! That's all very charming; but if you want to swindle why do you want a moral sanction for doing it? But that's our modern Russian all over. He can't bring himself to swindle without a moral sanction. He is so in love with truth-'
The visitor talked, obviously carried away by his own eloquence, speaking louder and louder and looking ironically at his host. But he did not succeed in finishing; Ivan suddenly snatched a glass from the table and flung it at the orator.
'Ah, mais c'est bete enfin,'* cried the latter, jumping up from the sofa and shaking the drops of tea off himself. 'He remembers Luther's inkstand! He takes me for a dream and throws glasses at a dream! It's like a woman! I suspected you were only pretending to stop up your ears.'
But after all, that's stupid.
A loud, persistent knocking was suddenly heard at the window. Ivan jumped up from the sofa.
'Do you hear? You'd better open,' cried the visitor; 'it's your brother Alyosha with the most interesting and surprising news, I'll be bound!'
'Be silent, deceiver, I knew it was Alyosha, I felt he was coming, and of course he has not come for nothing; of course he brings ‘news,'' Ivan exclaimed frantically.
'Open, open to him. There's a snowstorm and he is your brother. Monsieur sait-il le temps qu'il fait? C'est a ne pas mettre un chien dehors.'*
Does the gentleman know the weather he's making? It's not weather for a dog.
The knocking continued. Ivan wanted to rush to the window, but something seemed to fetter his arms and legs. He strained every effort to break his chains, but in vain. The knocking at the window grew louder and louder. At last the chains were broken and Ivan leapt up from the sofa. He looked round him wildly. Both candles had almost burnt out, the glass he had just thrown at his visitor stood before him on the table, and there was no one on the sofa opposite. The knocking on the window frame went on persistently, but it was by no means so loud as it had seemed in his dream; on the contrary, it was quite subdued.
'It was not a dream! No, I swear it was not a dream, it all happened just now!' cried Ivan. He rushed to the window and opened the movable pane.
'Alyosha, I told you not to come,' he cried fiercely to his brother. 'In two words, what do you want? In two words, do you hear?'
'An hour ago Smerdyakov hanged himself,' Alyosha answered from the yard.
'Come round to the steps, I'll open at once,' said Ivan, going to open the door to Alyosha.
Chapter 10
'It Was He Who Said That'
ALYOSHA coming in told Ivan that a little over an hour ago Marya Kondratyevna had run to his rooms and informed him Smerdyakov had taken his own life. 'I went in to clear away the samovar and he was hanging on a nail in the wall.' On Alyosha's inquiring whether she had informed the police, she answered that she had told no one, 'but I flew straight to you, I've run all the way.' She seemed perfectly crazy, Alyosha reported, and was shaking like a leaf. When Alyosha ran with her to the cottage, he found Smerdyakov still hanging. On the table lay a note: 'I destroy my life of my own will and desire, so as to throw no blame on anyone.' Alyosha left the note on the table and went straight to the police captain and told him all about it. 'And from him I've come straight to you,' said Alyosha, in conclusion, looking intently into Ivan's face. He had not taken his eyes off him while he told his story, as though struck by something in his expression.
'Brother,' he cried suddenly, 'you must be terribly ill. You look and don't seem to understand what I tell you.'
'It's a good thing you came,' said Ivan, as though brooding, and not hearing Alyosha's exclamation. 'I knew he had hanged himself.'
'From whom?'
'I don't know. But I knew. Did I know? Yes, he told me. He told me so just now.'
Ivan stood in the middle of the room, and still spoke in the same brooding tone, looking at the ground.
'Who is he?' asked Alyosha, involuntarily looking round.
'He's slipped away.'
Ivan raised his head and smiled softly.
'He was afraid of you, of a dove like you. You are a ‘pure cherub.’ Dmitri calls you a cherub. Cherub!... the thunderous rapture of the seraphim. What are seraphim? Perhaps a whole constellation. But perhaps that constellation is only a chemical molecule. There's a constellation of the Lion and the Sun. Don't you know it?'
'Brother, sit down,' said Alyosha in alarm. 'For goodness’ sake, sit down on the sofa! You are delirious; put your head on the pillow, that's right. Would you like a wet towel on your head? Perhaps it will do you good.'
'Give me the towel: it's here on the chair. I just threw it down there.'
'It's not here. Don't worry yourself. I know where it is--here,' said Alyosha, finding a clean towel, folded up and unused, by Ivan's dressing-table in the other corner of the room. Ivan looked strangely at the towel: recollection seemed to come back to him for an instant.
'Stay'--he got up from the sofa--'an hour ago I took that new towel from there and wetted it. I wrapped it round my head and threw it down here... How is it it's dry? There was no other.'
'You put that towel on your head?' asked Alyosha.
'Yes, and walked up and down the room an hour ago... Why have the candles burnt down so? What's the time?'
'Nearly twelve'
'No, no, no!' Ivan cried suddenly. 'It was not a dream. He was here; he was sitting here, on that sofa. When you knocked at the window, I threw a glass at him... this one. Wait a minute. I was asleep last time, but this dream was not a dream. It has happened before. I have dreams now, Alyosha... yet they are not dreams, but reality. I walk about, talk and see... though I am asleep. But he was sitting here, on that sofa there.... He is frightfully stupid, Alyosha, frightfully stupid.' Ivan laughed suddenly and began pacing about the room.
'Who is stupid? Of whom are you talking, brother?' Alyosha asked anxiously again.
'The devil! He's taken to visiting me. He's been here twice, almost three times. He taunted me with being angry at his being a simple devil and not Satan, with scorched wings, in thunder and lightning. But he is not Satan: that's a lie. He is an impostor. He is simply a devil--a paltry, trivial devil. He goes to the baths. If you undressed him, you'd be sure to find he had a tail, long and smooth like a Danish dog's, a yard long, dun colour.... Alyosha, you are cold. You've been in the snow. Would you like some tea? What? Is it cold? Shall I tell her to bring some? C'est a ne pas mettre un chien dehors...'
Alyosha ran to the washing-stand, wetted the towel, persuaded Ivan to sit down again, and put the wet towel round his head. He sat down beside him.
'What were you telling me just now about Lise?' Ivan began again. (He was becoming very talkative.) 'I like Lise. I said something nasty about her. It was a lie. I like her... I am afraid for Katya to-morrow. I am more afraid of her than of anything. On account of the future. She will cast me off to-morrow and trample me under foot. She thinks that I am ruining Mitya from jealousy on her account! Yes, she thinks that! But it's not so. To-morrow the cross, but not the gallows. No, I shan't hang myself. Do you know, I can never commit suicide, Alyosha. Is it because I am base? I am not a coward. Is it from love of life? How did I know that Smerdyakov had hanged himself? Yes, it was he told me so.'
'And you are quite convinced that there has been someone here?' asked Alyosha.
'Yes, on that sofa in the corner. You would have driven him away. You did drive him away: he disappeared when you arrived. I love your face, Alyosha. Did you know that I loved your face? And he is myself, Alyosha. All that's base in me, all that's mean and contemptible. Yes, I am a romantic. He guessed it... though it's a libel. He is frightfully stupid; but it's to his advantage. He has cunning, animal cunning--he knew how to infuriate me. He kept taunting me with believing in him, and that was how he made me listen to him. He fooled me like a boy. He told me a great deal that was true about myself, though. I should never have owned it to myself. Do you know, Alyosha,' Ivan added in an intensely earnest and confidential tone, 'I should be awfully glad to think that it was he and not I.'
'He has worn you out,' said Alyosha, looking compassionately at his brother.
'He's been teasing me. And you know he does it so cleverly, so cleverly. ‘Conscience! What is conscience? I make it up for myself. Why am I tormented by it? From habit. From the universal habit of mankind for the seven
