"Brother, calm yourself, stop!" Alyosha entreated him.
"Yes, he knows how to torment one. He's cruel," Ivan went on, unheeding. "I had an inkling from the first what he came for.
'Granting that you go through pride, still you had a hope that Smerdyakov might be convicted and sent to Siberia, and Mitya would be acquitted, while you would only be punished, with moral condemnation' ('Do you hear?' he laughed then)- 'and some people will praise you.
But now Smerdyakov's dead, he has hanged himself, and who'll believe you alone?
But yet you are going, you are going, you'll go all the same, you've decided to go.
What are you going for now?'
That's awful, Alyosha. I can't endure such questions.
Who dare ask me such questions?"
"Brother," interposed Alyosha- his heart sank with terror, but he still seemed to hope to bring Ivan to reason- "how could he have told you of Smerdyakov's death before I came, when no one knew of it and there was no time for anyone to know of it?"
"He told me," said Ivan firmly, refusing to admit a doubt. "It was all he did talk about, if you come to that.
'And it would be all right if you believed in virtue,' he said. 'No matter if they disbelieve you, you are going for the sake of principle.
But you are a little pig like Fyodor Pavlovitch, and what do you want with virtue?
Why do you want to go meddling if your sacrifice is of no use to anyone?
Because you don't know yourself why you go!
Oh, you'd give a great deal to know yourself why you go!
And can you have made up your mind?
You've not made up your mind.
You'll sit all night deliberating whether to go or not.
But you will go; you know you'll go. You know that whichever way you decide, the decision does not depend on you.
You'll go because you won't dare not to go.
Why won't you dare? You must guess that for yourself. That's a riddle for you!'
He got up and went away.
You came and he went.
He called me a coward, Alyosha!
Le mot de l'enigme is that I am a coward.
'It is not for such eagles to soar above the earth.'It was he added that- he!
And Smerdyakov said the same.
He must be killed!
Katya despises me. I've seen that for a month past. Even Lise will begin to despise me!
'You are going in order to be praised.' That's a brutal lie!
And you despise me too, Alyosha.
Now I am going to hate you again!
And I hate the monster, too! I hate the monster!
I don't want to save the monster. Let him rot in Siberia!
He's begun singing a hymn!
Oh, to-morrow I'll go, stand before them, and spit in their faces!"
He jumped up in a frenzy, flung off the towel, and fell to pacing up and down the room again.
Alyosha recalled what he had just said.
"I seem to be sleeping awake... I walk, I speak, I see, but I am asleep."
It seemed to be just like that now.
Alyosha did not leave him.
The thought passed through his mind to run for a doctor, but he was afraid to leave his brother alone: there was no one to whom he could leave him.
By degrees Ivan lost consciousness completely at last.
He still went on talking, talking incessantly, but quite incoherently, and even articulated his words with difficulty. Suddenly he staggered violently; but Alyosha was in time to support him.
Ivan let him lead him to his bed. Alyosha undressed him somehow and put him to bed.
He sat watching over him for another two hours.
The sick man slept soundly, without stirring, breathing softly and evenly.
Alyosha took a pillow and lay down on the sofa, without undressing.
As he fell asleep he prayed for Mitya and Ivan.
He began to understand Ivan's illness.