Page 464 - the-brothers-karamazov

‘Can you do me a service, Mitri? Go to my father’s, to Fy-
odor Pavlovitch Karamazov, and tell him I haven’t gone to
Tchermashnya. Can you?’
‘Of course I can. I’ve known Fyodor Pavlovitch a long
time.’
‘And here’s something for you, for I dare say he won’t give
you anything,’ said Ivan, laughing gaily.
‘You may depend on it he won’t.’ Mitri laughed too.
‘Thank you, sir. I’ll be sure to do it.’
At seven o’clock Ivan got into the train and set off to
Moscow. ‘Away with the past. I’ve done with the old world
for ever, and may I have no news, no echo, from it. To a new
life, new places, and no looking back!’ But instead of delight
his soul was filled with such gloom, and his heart ached
with such anguish, as he had never known in his life before.
He was thinking all the night. The train flew on, and only at
daybreak, when he was approaching Moscow, he suddenly
roused himself from his meditation.
‘I am a scoundrel,’ he whispered to himself.
Fyodor Pavlovitch remained well satisfied at having seen
his son off. For two hours afterwards he felt almost happy,
and sat drinking brandy. But suddenly something happened
which was very annoying and unpleasant for everyone in
the house, and completely upset Fyodor Pavlovitch’s equa-
nimity at once. Smerdyakov went to the cellar for something
and fell down from the top of the steps. Fortunately, Marfa
Ignatyevna was in the yard and heard him in time. She did
not see the fall, but heard his scream — the strange, peculiar
scream, long familiar to her — the scream of the epileptic