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to the general opinion of the town, he refused to entertain
a suspicion against Mitya, and spoke openly of Smerdyakov
as the murderer. Later on, after seeing the police captain
and the prosecutor, and hearing the details of the charge
and the arrest, he was still more surprised at Alyosha, and
ascribed his opinion only to his exaggerated brotherly feel-
ing and sympathy with Mitya, of whom Alyosha, as Ivan
knew, was very fond.
By the way, let us say a word or two of Ivan’s feeling to
his brother Dmitri. He positively disliked him; at most, felt
sometimes a compassion for him, and even that was mixed
with great contempt, almost repugnance. Mitya’s whole
personality, even his appearance, was extremely unat-
tractive to him. Ivan looked with indignation on Katerina
Ivanovna’s love for his brother. Yet he went to see Mitya
on the first day of his arrival, and that interview, far from
shaking Ivan’s belief in his guilt, positively strengthened
it. He found his brother agitated, nervously excited. Mitya
had been talkative, but very absent-minded and incoherent.
He used violent language, accused Smerdyakov, and was
fearfully muddled. He talked principally about the three
thousand roubles, which he said had been ‘stolen’ from him
by his father.
‘The money was mine, it was my money,’ Mitya kept re-
peating. ‘Even if I had stolen it, I should have had the right.’
He hardly contested the evidence against him, and if he
tried to turn a fact to his advantage, it was in an absurd
and incoherent way. He hardly seemed to wish to defend
himself to Ivan or anyone else. Quite the contrary, he was