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‘He’s mad!’ he cried, and rapidly jumping up, he drew
back, so that he knocked his back against the wall and stood
up against it, stiff and straight. He looked with insane terror
at Smerdyakov, who, entirely unaffected by his terror, con-
tinued fumbling in his stocking, as though he were making
an effort to get hold of something with his fingers and pull
it out. At last he got hold of it and began pulling it out. Ivan
saw that it was a piece of paper, or perhaps a roll of papers.
Smerdyakov pulled it out and laid it on the table.
‘Here,’ he said quietly.
‘What is it?’ asked Ivan, trembling.
‘Kindly look at it,’ Smerdyakov answered, still in the
same low tone.
Ivan stepped up to the table, took up the roll of paper and
began unfolding it, but suddenly drew back his fingers, as
though from contact with a loathsome reptile.
‘Your hands keep twitching,’ observed Smerdyakov, and
he deliberately unfolded the bundle himself. Under the
wrapper were three packets of hundred-rouble notes.
‘They are all here, all the three thousand roubles; you
need not count them. Take them,’ Smerdyakov suggested to
Ivan, nodding at the notes. Ivan sank back in his chair. He
was as white as a handkerchief.
‘You frightened me... with your stocking,’ he said, with a
strange grin.
‘Can you really not have known till now?’ Smerdyakov
asked once more.
‘No, I did not know. I kept thinking of Dmitri. Broth-
er, brother! Ach!’ He suddenly clutched his head in both