Page 446 - the-brothers-karamazov

but he pitched on me to be his servant. He has had only one
thing to say since: ‘I’ll kill you, you scoundrel, if you miss
her.’ I feel certain, sir, that I shall have a long fit to-morrow.’
‘What do you mean by ‘a long fit’?’
‘A long fit, lasting a long time — several hours, or per-
haps a day or two. Once it went on for three days. I fell from
the garret that time. The struggling ceased and then began
again, and for three days I couldn’t come back to my sens-
es. Fyodor Pavlovitch sent for Herzenstube, the doctor here,
and he put ice on my head and tried another remedy, too....
I might have died.’
‘But they say one can’t tell with epilepsy when a fit is
coming. What makes you say you will have one to-morrow?’
Ivan inquired, with a peculiar, irritable curiosity.
‘That’s just so. You can’t tell beforehand.’
‘Besides, you fell from the garret then.’
‘I climb up to the garret every day. I might fall from the
garret again to-morrow. And, if not, I might fall down the
cellar steps. I have to go into the cellar every day, too.’
Ivan took a long look at him.
‘You are talking nonsense, I see, and I don’t quite under-
stand you,’ he said softly, but with a sort of menace. ‘Do you
mean to pretend to be ill to-morrow for three days, eh?’
Smerdyakov, who was looking at the ground again, and
playing with the toe of his right foot, set the foot down,
moved the left one forward, and, grinning, articulated:
‘If I were able to play such a trick, that is, pretend to have
a fit — and it would not be difficult for a man accustomed to
them — I should have a perfect right to use such a means to