Page 377 - the-brothers-karamazov

‘With death?’ Alyosha exclaimed in surprise.
‘Do you suppose he’d think much of that, with his temper,
which you had a chance of observing yourself yesterday?
He says if I let Agrafena Alexandrovna in and she passes
the night there, I’ll be the first to suffer for it. I am terribly
afraid of him, and if I were not even more afraid of doing
so, I ought to let the police know. God only knows what he
might not do!’
‘His honour said to him the other day, ‘I’ll pound you in
a mortar!’’ added Marya Kondratyevna.
‘Oh, if it’s pounding in a mortar, it may be only talk,’ ob-
served Alyosha. ‘If I could meet him, I might speak to him
about that too.’
‘Well, the only thing I can tell you is this,’ said Smerdya-
kov, as though thinking better of it; ‘I am here as an old
friend and neighbour, and it would be odd if I didn’t come.
On the other hand, Ivan Fyodorovitch sent me first thing
this morning to your brother’s lodging in Lake Street, with-
out a letter, but with a message to Dmitri Fyodorovitch to
go to dine with him at the restaurant here, in the market-
place. I went, but didn’t find Dmitri Fyodorovitch at home,
though it was eight o’clock. ‘He’s been here, but he is quite
gone,’ those were the very words of his landlady. It’s as
though there was an understanding between them. Perhaps
at this moment he is in the restaurant with Ivan Fyodoro-
vitch, for Ivan Fyodorovitch has not been home to dinner
and Fyodor Pavlovitch dined alone an hour ago, and is gone
to lie down. But I beg you most particularly not to speak of
me and of what I have told you, for he’d kill me for noth-

The Brothers Karamazov