10 The Brothers Karamazov
so wouldn’t go to Tchermashnya even, but would stay.’
‘He talks very coherently,’ thought Ivan, ‘though he does
mumble; what’s the derangement of his faculties that Her-
zenstube talked of?’
‘You are cunning with me, damn you!’ he exclaimed, get-
ting angry.
‘But I thought at the time that you quite guessed,’
Smerdyakov parried with the simplest air.
‘If I’d guessed, I should have stayed,’ cried Ivan.
‘Why, I thought that it was because you guessed, that you
went away in such a hurry, only to get out of trouble, only to
run away and save yourself in your fright.’
‘You think that everyone is as great a coward as your-
self?’
‘Forgive me, I thought you were like me.’
‘Of course, I ought to have guessed,’ Ivan said in agita-
tion; ‘and I did guess there was some mischief brewing on
your part... only you are lying, you are lying again,’ he cried,
suddenly recollecting. ‘Do you remember how you went
up to the carriage and said to me, ‘It’s always worth while
speaking to a clever man’? So you were glad I went away,
since you praised me?’
Smerdyakov sighed again and again. A trace of colour
came into his face.
‘If I was pleased,’ he articulated rather breathlessly, ‘it
was simply because you agreed not to go to Moscow, but
to Tchermashnya. For it was nearer, anyway. Only when I
said these words to you, it was not by way of praise, but of
reproach. You didn’t understand it.’