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The Brothers Karamazov
she is,’ said I. I went up to the window and leaned right out of it. ‘Here she is; she’s in the bush, laughing at you, don’t you see her?’ He suddenly believed it; he was all of a shake- he was awfully crazy about her- and he leaned right out of the window. I snatched up that iron paper-weight from his table; do you remem-ber, weighing about three pounds? I swung it and hit him on the top of the skull with the corner of it. He didn’t even cry out. He only sank down suddenly, and I hit him again and a third time. And the third time I knew I’d broken his skull. He suddenly rolled on his back, face upwards, covered with blood. I looked round. There was no blood on me, not a spot. I wiped the paper-weight, put it back, went up to the ikons, took the money out of the en-velope, and flung the envelope on the floor and the pink ribbon beside it. I went out into the garden all of a tremble, straight to the apple-tree with a hollow in it- you know that hollow. I’d marked it long before and put a rag and a piece of paper ready in it. I wrapped all the notes in the rag and stuffed it deep down in the hole. And there it stayed for over a fortnight. I took it out later, when I came out of the hospital. I went back to my bed, lay down and thought, ‘If Grigory Vassilyevitch has been killed outright it may be a bad job for me, but if he is not killed and recovers, it will be first-rate, for then he’ll bear witness that Dmitri Fyodorovitch has been here, and so he must have killed him and taken the money.’ Then I began groaning with suspense and impatience, so as to wake Marfa Ignatyevna as soon as possible. At last she got up and she rushed to me, but when she saw Grigory Vassilyevitch was not there, she ran out, and I heard her scream in the garden. And that set it all going and set my mind at rest.»
He stopped. Ivan had listened all the time in dead silence without stirring or taking his eyes off him. As he told his story Smerdyakov glanced at him from time to time, but for the

557 book page, Chapter 8 — The Third and Last Interview with Smerdyakov

most part kept his eyes averted. When he had finished he was evidently agitated and was breathing hard. The perspiration stood out on his face. But it was impossible to tell whether it was remorse he was feeling, or what.
«Stay,» cried Ivan pondering. «What about the door? If he only opened the door to you, how could Grigory have seen it open before? For Grigory saw it before you went.»
It was remarkable that Ivan spoke quite amicably, in a different tone, not angry as before, so if anyone had opened the door at that moment and peeped in at them, he would certainly have concluded that they were talking peaceably about some ordinary, though interesting, subject.
«As for that door and having seen it open, that’s only his fancy,» said Smerdyakov, with a wry smile. «He is not a man, I assure you, but an obstinate mule. He didn’t see it, but fancied he had seen it, and there’s no shaking him. It’s just our luck he took that notion into his head, for they can’t fail to convict Dmitri Fyodorovitch after that.»
«Listen… » said Ivan, beginning to seem bewildered again and making an effort to grasp something. «Listen. There are a lot of questions I want to ask you, but I forget them… I keep forgetting and getting mixed up. Yes. Tell me this at least, why did you open the envelope and leave it there on the floor? Why didn’t you simply carry off the envelope?… When you were telling me, I thought you spoke about it as though it were the right thing to do… but why, I can’t understand…»
«I did that for a good reason. For if a man had known all about it, as I did for instance, if he’d seen those notes before, and perhaps had put them in that envelope himself, and had seen the envelope sealed up and addressed, with his own eyes, if such a man had done the murder, what should have made him tear open the envelope afterwards, especially in such desperate haste, since he’d know for certain the notes must be in the envelope? No, if the robber had been someone like me, he’d simply have put the envelope straight in his pocket and got away with it as fast as he could. But it’d be quite different with Dmitri Fyodorovitch. He only knew about the envelope by hearsay; he had never seen it, and if he’d found it, for instance, under the mattress, he’d have torn it open as quickly as possible to make sure the notes were in it. And he’d have thrown the envelope down, without having time to think that it would be evidence against him. Because he was not an habitual thief and had never directly stolen anything before, for he is a gentleman born, and if he did bring himself to steal, it would not be regular stealing, but simply taking what was his own, for he’d told the whole town he meant to before, and had even bragged aloud before everyone that he’d go and take his property from Fyodor Pavlovitch. I didn’t say that openly to the prosecutor when I was being examined, but quite the contrary, I brought him to it by a hint, as though I didn’t see it myself, and as though he’d thought of it himself and I hadn’t prompted him; so that Mr. Prosecutor’s mouth positively watered at my suggestion.»

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«But can you possibly have thought of all that on the spot?» cried Ivan, overcome with astonishment. He looked at Smerdyakov again with alarm.
«Mercy on us! Could anyone think of it all in such a desperate hurry? It was all thought out beforehand.»
«Well… well, it was the devil helped you!» Ivan cried again. «No, you are not a fool, you are far cleverer than I thought…»
He got up, obviously intending to walk across the room. He was in terrible distress. But as the table blocked his way, and there was hardly room to pass between the table and the wall, he only turned round where he stood and sat down again. Perhaps the impossibility of moving irritated him, as he suddenly cried out almost as furiously as before.
«Listen, you miserable, contemptible creature! Don’t you understand that if I haven’t killed you, it’s simply because I am keeping you to answer to-morrow at the trial. God sees,» Ivan raised his hand, «perhaps I, too, was guilty; perhaps I really had a secret desire for my father’s… death, but I swear I was not as guilty as you think, and perhaps I didn’t urge you on at all. No, no, I didn’t urge you on! But no matter, I will give evidence against myself to-morrow at the trial. I’m determined to! I shall tell everything, everything. But we’ll make our appearance together. And whatever you may say against me at the trial, whatever evidence you give, I’ll face it; I am not afraid of you. I’ll confirm it all myself! But you must confess, too! You must, you must; we’ll go together. That’s how it shall be!»
Ivan said this solemnly and resolutely and from his flashing eyes alone it could be seen that it would be so.
«You are ill, I see; you are quite ill. Your eyes are yellow,» Smerdyakov commented, without the least irony, with apparent sympathy in fact.
«We’ll go together,» Ivan repeated. «And if you won’t go, no matter, I’ll go alone.» Smerdyakov paused as though pondering.
«There’ll be nothing of the sort, and you won’t go,» he concluded at last positively. «You don’t understand me,» Ivan exclaimed reproachfully.
«You’ll be too much ashamed, if you confess it all. And, what’s more, it will be no use at all, for I shall say straight out that I never said anything of the sort to you, and that you are either ill (and it looks like it, too), or that you’re so sorry for your brother that you are sacrificing yourself to save him and have invented it all against me, for you’ve always thought no more of me than if I’d been a fly. And who will believe you, and what single proof have you got?»
«Listen, you showed me those notes just now to convince me.» Smerdyakov lifted the book off the notes and laid it on one side. «Take that money away with you,» Smerdyakov sighed.
«Of course, I shall take it. But why do you give it to me, if you committed the murder for the sake of it?» Ivan looked at him with great surprise.

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«I don’t want it,» Smerdyakov articulated in a shaking voice, with a gesture of refusal. «I did have an idea of beginning a new life with that money in Moscow or, better still, abroad. I did dream of it, chiefly because ‘all things are lawful.’ That was quite right what you taught me, for you talked a lot to me about that. For if there’s no everlasting God, there’s no such thing as virtue, and there’s no need

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she is,' said I. I went up to the window and leaned right out of it. 'Here she is; she's in the bush, laughing at you, don't you see her?'