第265章

"I know I didn't.Are you raving?" said Ivan, with a pale, distorted smile.His eyes were riveted on Alyosha.They were standing again under a lamp-post.

"No, Ivan.You've told yourself several times that you are the murderer.""When did I say so? I was in Moscow....When have I said so?" Ivan faltered helplessly.

"You've said so to yourself many times, when you've been alone during these two dreadful months," Alyosha went on softly and distinctly as before.Yet he was speaking now, as it were, not of himself, not of his own will, but obeying some irresistible command.

"You have accused yourself and have confessed to yourself that you are the murderer and no one else.But you didn't do it: you are mistaken: you are not the murderer.Do you hear? It was not you! God has sent me to tell you so."They were both silent.The silence lasted a whole long minute.

They were both standing still, gazing into each other's eyes.They were both pale.Suddenly Ivan began trembling all over, and clutched Alyosha's shoulder.

"You've been in my room!" he whispered hoarsely."You've been there at night, when he came....Confess...have you seen him, have you seen him?""Whom do you mean- Mitya?" Alyosha asked, bewildered.

"Not him, damn the monster!" Ivan shouted, in a frenzy, "Do you know that he visits me? How did you find out? Speak!""Who is he? I don't know whom you are talking about," Alyosha faltered, beginning to be alarmed.

"Yes, you do know.or how could you- ? It's impossible that you don't know."Suddenly he seemed to check himself.He stood still and seemed to reflect.A strange grin contorted his lips.

"Brother," Alyosha began again, in a shaking voice, "I have said this to you, because you'll believe my word, I know that.I tell you once and for all, it's not you.You hear, once for all! God has put it into my heart to say this to you, even though it may make you hate me from this hour."But by now Ivan had apparently regained his self-control.

"Alexey Fyodorovitch," he said, with a cold smile, "I can't endure prophets and epileptics- messengers from God especially- and you know that only too well.I break off all relations with you from this moment and probably for ever.I beg you to leave me at this turning.It's the way to your lodgings, too.You'd better be particularly careful not to come to me to-day! Do you hear?"He turned and walked on with a firm step, not looking back.

"Brother," Alyosha called after him, "if anything happens to you to-day, turn to me before anyone!"But Ivan made no reply.Alyosha stood under the lamp-post at the cross roads, till Ivan had vanished into the darkness.Then he turned and walked slowly homewards.Both Alyosha and Ivan were living in lodgings; neither of them was willing to live in Fyodor Pavlovitch's empty house.Alyosha had a furnished room in the house of some working people.Ivan lived some distance from him.He had taken a roomy and fairly comfortable lodge attached to a fine house that belonged to a well-to-do lady, the widow of an official.But his only attendant was a deaf and rheumatic old crone who went to bed at six o'clock every evening and got up at six in the morning.Ivan had become remarkably indifferent to his comforts of late, and very fond of being alone.He did everything for himself in the one room he lived in, and rarely entered any of the other rooms in his abode.

He reached the gate of the house and had his hand on the bell, when he suddenly stopped.He felt that he was trembling all over with anger.Suddenly he let go of the bell, turned back with a curse, and walked with rapid steps in the opposite direction.He walked a mile and a half to a tiny, slanting, wooden house, almost a hut, where Marya Kondratyevna, the neighbour who used to come to Fyodor Pavlovitch's kitchen for soup and to whom Smerdyakov had once sung his songs and played on the guitar, was now lodging.She had sold their little house, and was now living here with her mother.

Smerdyakov, who was ill- almost dying-had been with them ever since Fyodor Pavlovitch's death.It was to him Ivan was going now, drawn by a sudden and irresistible prompting.

Chapter 6

The First Interview with SmerdyakovTHIS 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.