10 0 The Brothers KaramazovIvan’s horror struck him.
‘You don’t mean to say you really did not know?’ he fal-
tered mistrustfully, looking with a forced smile into his eyes.
Ivan still gazed at him, and seemed unable to speak.
Ach, Vanka’s gone to Petersburg;
I won’t wait till he comes back,
suddenly echoed in his head.
‘Do you know, I am afraid that you are a dream, a phan-
tom sitting before me,’ he muttered.
‘There’s no phantom here, but only us two and one other.
No doubt he is here, that third, between us.’
‘Who is he? Who is here? What third person?’ Ivan cried
in alarm, looking about him, his eyes hastily searching in
every corner.
‘That third is God Himself — Providence. He is the third
beside us now. Only don’t look for Him, you won’t find
him.’
‘It’s a lie that you killed him!’ Ivan cried madly. ‘You are
mad, or teasing me again!’
Smerdyakov, as before, watched him curiously, with no
sign of fear. He could still scarcely get over his incredulity;
he still fancied that Ivan knew everything and was trying to
‘throw it all on him to his face.’
‘Wait a minute,’ he said at last in a weak voice, and sud-
denly bringing up his left leg from under the table, he began
turning up his trouser leg. He was wearing long white stock-
ings and slippers. Slowly he took off his garter and fumbled
to the bottom of his stocking. Ivan gazed at him, and sud-
denly shuddered in a paroxysm of terror.