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‘You don’t know me yet, Alexey Fyodorovitch,’ she said
menacingly. ‘And I don’t know myself yet. Perhaps you’ll
want to trample me under foot after my examination to-
morrow.’
‘You will give your evidence honourably,’ said Alyosha;
‘that’s all that’s wanted.’
‘Women are often dishonourable,’ she snarled. ‘Only an
hour ago I was thinking I felt afraid to touch that monster...
as though he were a reptile... but no, he is still a human be-
ing to me! But did he do it? Is he the murderer?’ she cried,
all of a sudden, hysterically, turning quickly to Ivan. Alyo-
sha saw at once that she had asked Ivan that question before,
perhaps only a moment before he came in, and not for the
first time, but for the hundredth, and that they had ended
by quarrelling.
‘I’ve been to see Smerdyakov.... It was you, you who
persuaded me that he murdered his father. It’s only you I
believed’ she continued, still addressing Ivan. He gave her
a sort of strained smile. Alyosha started at her tone. He had
not suspected such familiar intimacy between them.
‘Well, that’s enough, anyway,’ Ivan cut short the conver-
sation. ‘I am going. I’ll come to-morrow.’ And turning at
once, he walked out of the room and went straight down-
stairs.
With an imperious gesture, Katerina Ivanovna seized
Alyosha by both hands.
‘Follow him! Overtake him! Don’t leave him alone for a
minute!’ she said, in a hurried whisper. ‘He’s mad! Don’t
you know that he’s mad? He is in a fever, nervous fever. The

100 The Brothers Karamazov