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cornered me afterwards, for what proof could you have had?
I could always have cornered you, revealing your eagerness
for your father’s death, and I tell you the public would have
believed it all, and you would have been ashamed for the
rest of your life.’
‘Was I then so eager, was I?’ Ivan snarled again.
‘To be sure you were, and by your consent you silently
sanctioned my doing it.’ Smerdyakov looked resolutely at
Ivan. He was very weak and spoke slowly and wearily, but
some hidden inner force urged him on. He evidently had
some design. Ivan felt that.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Tell me what happened that night.’
‘What more is there to tell! I lay there and I thought I
heard the master shout. And before that Grigory Vassily-
evitch had suddenly got up and came out, and he suddenly
gave a scream, and then all was silence and darkness. I lay
there waiting, my heart beating; I couldn’t bear it. I got up
at last, went out. I saw the window open on the left into
the garden, and I stepped to the left to listen whether he
was sitting there alive, and I heard the master moving
about, sighing, so I knew he was alive. ‘Ech!’ I thought. I
went to the window and shouted to the master, ‘It’s I.’ And
he shouted to me, ‘He’s been, he’s been; he’s run away.’ He
meant Dmitri Fyodorovitch had been. ‘He’s killed Grigory!
‘Where?’ I whispered. ‘There, in the corner,’ he pointed. He
was whispering, too. ‘Wait a bit,’ I said. I went to the corner
of the garden to look, and there I came upon Grigory Vassi-
lyevitch lying by the wall, covered with blood, senseless. So
it’s true that Dmitri Fyodorovitch has been here, was the

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