"Do you hear? You'd better open," cried the visitor; "it's your brother Alyosha with the most interesting and surprising news, I'll be bound!"
"Be silent, deceiver, I knew it was Alyosha, I felt he was coming, and of course he has not come for nothing; of course he brings 'news,'" Ivan exclaimed frantically.
"Open, open to him.
There's a snowstorm and he is your brother.
Monsieur sait-il le temps qu'il fait?
C'est a ne pas mettre un chien dehors."* * Does the gentleman know the weather he's making? It's not weather for a dog.
The knocking continued.
Ivan wanted to rush to the window, but something seemed to fetter his arms and legs.
He strained every effort to break his chains, but in vain.
The knocking at the window grew louder and louder.
At last the chains were broken and Ivan leapt up from the sofa.
He looked round him wildly.
Both candles had almost burnt out, the glass he had just thrown at his visitor stood before him on the table, and there was no one on the sofa opposite.
The knocking on the window frame went on persistently, but it was by no means so loud as it had seemed in his dream; on the contrary, it was quite subdued.
"It was not a dream!
No, I swear it was not a dream, it all happened just now!" cried Ivan. He rushed to the window and opened the movable pane.
"Alyosha, I told you not to come," he cried fiercely to his brother. "In two words, what do you want?
In two words, do you hear?"
"An hour ago Smerdyakov hanged himself," Alyosha answered from the yard.
"Come round to the steps, I'll open at once," said Ivan, going to open the door to Alyosha.
Chapter 10.
"It Was He Who Said That"
ALYOSHA coming in told Ivan that a little over an hour ago Marya Kondratyevna had run to his rooms and informed him Smerdyakov had taken his own life.
"I went in to clear away the samovar and he was hanging on a nail in the wall."
On Alyosha's inquiring whether she had informed the police, she answered that she had told no one, "but I flew straight to you, I've run all the way."
She seemed perfectly crazy, Alyosha reported, and was shaking like a leaf.
When Alyosha ran with her to the cottage, he found Smerdyakov still hanging.
On the table lay a note:
"I destroy my life of my own will and desire, so as to throw no blame on anyone."
Alyosha left the note on the table and went straight to the police captain and told him all about it. "And from him I've come straight to you," said Alyosha, in conclusion, looking intently into Ivan's face.
He had not taken his eyes off him while he told his story, as though struck by something in his expression.
"Brother," he cried suddenly, "you must be terribly ill.
You look and don't seem to understand what I tell you."
"It's a good thing you came," said Ivan, as though brooding, and not hearing Alyosha's exclamation. "I knew he had hanged himself."
"From whom?"
"I don't know.
But I knew.
Did I know?
Yes, he told me.
He told me so just now."
Ivan stood in the middle of the room, and still spoke in the same brooding tone, looking at the ground.
"Who is he?" asked Alyosha, involuntarily looking round.
"He's slipped away."
Ivan raised his head and smiled softly.
"He was afraid of you, of a dove like you.
You are a 'pure cherub.'
Dmitri calls you a cherub.
Cherub!... the thunderous rapture of the seraphim.
What are seraphim?
Perhaps a whole constellation.