Page 1054 - the-brothers-karamazov

kov would tell him all about it.
‘How it was done?’ sighed Smerdyakov. ‘It was done in a
most natural way, following your very words.’
‘Of my words later,’ Ivan broke in again, apparently with
complete self-possession, firmly uttering his words, and not
shouting as before. ‘Only tell me in detail how you did it.
Everything, as it happened. Don’t forget anything. The de-
tails, above everything, the details, I beg you.’
‘You’d gone away, then I fell into the cellar.’
‘In a fit or in a sham one?’
‘A sham one, naturally. I shammed it all. I went quiet-
ly down the steps to the very bottom and lay down quietly,
and as I lay down I gave a scream, and struggled, till they
carried me out.’
‘Stay! And were you shamming all along, afterwards, and
in the hospital?’
‘No, not at all. Next day, in the morning, before they took
me to the hospital, I had a real attack and a more violent
one than I’ve had for years. For two days I was quite un-
conscious.’
‘All right, all right. Go on.’
‘They laid me on the bed. I knew I’d be the other side of
the partition, for whenever I was ill, Marfa Ignatyevna used
to put me there, near them. She’s always been very kind to
me, from my birth up. At night I moaned, but quietly. I kept
expecting Dmitri Fyodorovitch to come.’
‘Expecting him? To come to you?’
‘Not to me. I expected him to come into the house, for I’d
no doubt that he’d come that night, for being without me

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