“Who is he?” Alyosha asked, automatically looking around.

“He slipped away.”

Ivan raised his head and smiled gently:

“He got frightened of you, of you, a dove. You’re a ‘pure cherub.’ Dmitri calls you a cherub. A cherub ... The thundering shout of the seraphim’s rapture! What is a seraph? Maybe a whole constellation. And maybe that whole constellation is just some chemical molecule ... Is there a constellation of the Lion and Sun, do you know?”

“Sit down, brother!” Alyosha said in alarm. “For God’s sake, sit down on the sofa. You’re raving, lean on the pillow, there. Want a wet towel for your head? Wouldn’t it make you feel better?”

“Give me that towel on the chair, I just threw it there.”

“It’s not there. Don’t worry, I know where it is—here,” said Alyosha, finding the clean, still folded and unused towel in the other corner of the room, near Ivan’s dressing table. Ivan looked strangely at the towel; his memory seemed to come back to him all at once.

“Wait,” he rose a little from the sofa, “just before, an hour ago, I took this towel from there and wetted it. I put it to my head, and then threw it down here ... how can it be dry? I don’t have another.”

“You put the towel to your head?” Alyosha asked.

“Yes, and I paced the room, an hour ago ... Why are the candles so burned down? What time is it?”

“Nearly twelve.” “No, no, no!” Ivan suddenly cried out, “it was not a dream! He was here, sitting here, on that sofa. As you were knocking on the window, I threw a glass at him ... this one ... Wait, I was asleep before, but this dream isn’t a dream. It’s happened before. I sometimes have dreams now, Alyosha ... yet they’re not dreams, but reality: I walk, talk, and see ... yet I’m asleep. But he was sitting here, he came, he was there on that sofa ... He’s terribly stupid, Alyosha, terribly stupid,” Ivan suddenly laughed and began pacing the room.

“Who is stupid? Who are you talking about, brother?” Alyosha asked again, sorrowfully.

“The devil! He’s taken to visiting me. He’s been here twice, even almost three times. He taunted me, saying I’m angry that he’s simply a devil and not Satan, with scorched wings, with thunder and lightning. But he’s not Satan, he’s lying. He’s an impostor. He’s simply a devil, a rotten little devil. He goes to the public baths. Undress him and you’re sure to find a tail, long and smooth as a Great Dane’s, a good three feet long, brown ... Alyosha, you’re chilly, you were out in the snow, do you want some tea? What? It’s cold? Shall I tell them to make some hot? C’est à ne pas mettre un chien dehors ...”

Alyosha ran quickly to the sink, wetted the towel, persuaded Ivan to sit down again, and put the wet towel around his head. He sat down beside him.

“What were you saying earlier about Liza?” Ivan began again. (He was becoming very talkative.) “I like Liza. I said something nasty to you about her. I was lying, I like her ... I’m afraid for Katya tomorrow, afraid most of all. For the future. She’ll drop me tomorrow and trample me under her feet. She thinks I’m destroying Mitya out of jealousy over her! Yes, that’s what she thinks! But no, it won’t be! Tomorrow the cross, but not the gallows. No, I won’t hang myself. Do you know, I’d never be able to take my own life, Alyosha! Is it out of baseness, or what? I’m not a coward. Out of thirst for life! How did I know Smerdyakov had hanged himself? But it was he who told me...”

“And you’re firmly convinced that someone was sitting here?” Alyosha asked.

“On that sofa in the corner. You’d have chased him away. And you did chase him away: he disappeared as soon as you came. I love your face, Alyosha. Did you know that I love your face? And he—is me, Alyosha, me myself. All that’s low, all that’s mean and contemptible in me! Yes, I’m a ‘romantic,’ he noticed it ... though it’s a slander. He’s terribly stupid, but he makes use of it. He’s cunning, cunning as an animal, he knew how to infuriate me. He kept taunting me with believing in him and got me to listen to him that way. He hoodwinked me, like a boy. By the way, he told me a great deal that’s true about myself. I would never have said it to myself. You know, Alyosha, you know,” Ivan added, terribly seriously, and as if confidentially, “I would much prefer that he were really he and not I!”

“He has worn you out,” Alyosha said, looking at his brother with compassion.

“He taunted me! And cleverly, you know, very cleverly: ‘Conscience! What is conscience? I make it up myself. Why do I suffer then? Out of habit. Out of universal human habit over seven thousand years. So let us get out of the habit, and we shall be gods! ‘ He said that, he said that!”

“And not you, not you!” Alyosha cried irrepressibly, looking brightly at his brother. “So never mind him, drop him, and forget about him! Let him take with him all that you curse now and never come back!”

“Yes, but he’s evil! He laughed at me. He was impudent, Alyosha,” Ivan said with a shudder of offense. “He slandered me, slandered me greatly. He lied about me to my face. ‘Oh, you are going to perform a virtuous deed, you will announce that you killed your father, that the lackey killed your father at your suggestion ... !’”

“Brother,” Alyosha interrupted, “restrain yourself: you did not kill him. It’s not true!”

“He says it, he, and he knows it: ‘You are going to perform a virtuous deed, but you don’t even believe in virtue—that’s what makes you angry and torments you, that’s why you’re so vindictive.’ He said it to me about myself, and he knows what he’s saying ...”

“You are saying it, not him!” Alyosha exclaimed ruefully, “and you’re saying it because you’re sick, delirious, tormenting yourself!”

“No, he knows what he’s saying. You’re going out of pride, he says, you’ll stand up and say: ‘I killed him, and you, why are you all shrinking in horror, you’re lying! I despise your opinion, I despise your horror! ‘ He said that about me, and suddenly he said: And, you know, you want them to praise you: he’s a criminal, a murderer, but what magnanimous feelings he has, he wanted to save his brother and so he confessed!’ Now that is a lie, Alyosha!” Ivan suddenly cried, flashing his eyes. “I don’t want the stinking rabble to praise me. He lied about that, Alyosha, he lied, I swear to you! I threw a glass at him for that, and it smashed on his ugly snout.”

“Brother, calm yourself, stop!” Alyosha pleaded.

“No, he knows how to torment, he’s cruel,” Ivan went on, not listening. “All along I had a presentiment of what he came for. ‘Suppose you were to go out of pride,’ he said, ‘but still there would also be the hope that Smerdyakov would be convicted and sent to hard labor, that Mitya would be cleared, and you would be condemned only morally’ (and then he laughed, do you hear! ), ‘and some would even praise you. But now Smerdyakov is dead, he’s hanged himself—so who’s going to believe just you alone there in court? But you’ll go, you’ll go, you’ll still go, you’ve made up your mind to go. But, in that case, what are you going for? ‘ I’m afraid, Alyosha, I can’t bear such questions! Who dares ask me such questions!”

“Brother,” Alyosha interrupted, sinking with fear, but still as if hoping to bring Ivan to reason, “how could he have talked of Smerdyakov’s death with you before I came, if no one even knew of it yet, and there was no time for anyone to find out?”

“He talked of it,” Ivan said firmly, not admitting any doubt. “He talked only of that, if you like. ‘And one could understand it,’ he said, ‘if you believed in virtue: let them not believe me, I’m going for the sake of principle. But you are a little pig, like Fyodor Pavlovich, and what is virtue to you? Why drag yourself there if your sacrifice serves no purpose? Because you yourself don’t know why you’re going! Oh, you’d give a lot to know why you’re going! And do you think you’ve really decided? No, you haven’t decided yet. You’ll sit all night trying to decide whether to go or not. But you will go all the same, and you know you will go, you know yourself that no matter how much you try to decide it, the decision no longer depends on you. You will go because you don’t dare not to. Why you don’t dare—you can guess for yourself, there’s a riddle for you!’ He got up and left. You came and he left. He called me a coward, Alyosha! Le mot de l’énigme is that I’m a coward!’^[329] ‘It’s not for such eagles to soar above the earth! ‘ He added that, he added that! And Smerdyakov said the same thing. He must be killed! Katya despises me, I’ve seen that already for a month, and Liza will also begin to despise me! ‘You’re going in order to be praised’—that’s a beastly lie! And you, too, despise me, Alyosha. Now I’ll start hating you again. I hate the monster, too, I hate the monster! I don’t want to save the monster, let him rot at hard labor! He’s singing a hymn! Oh, tomorrow I’ll go, stand before them, and spit in all their faces!”