10 The Brothers Karamazoving, and not hearing Alyosha’s exclamation. ‘I knew he had
hanged himself.’
‘From whom?’
‘I don’t know. But I knew. Did I know? Yes, he told me.
He told me so just now.’
Ivan stood in the middle of the room, and still spoke in
the same brooding tone, looking at the ground.
‘Who is he?’ asked Alyosha, involuntarily looking
round.
‘He’s slipped away.’
Ivan raised his head and smiled softly.
‘He was afraid of you, of a dove like you. You are a ‘pure
cherub.’ Dmitri calls you a cherub. Cherub!... the thunder-
ous rapture of the seraphim. What are seraphim? Perhaps a
whole constellation. But perhaps that constellation is only a
chemical molecule. There’s a constellation of the Lion and
the Sun. Don’t you know it?’
‘Brother, sit down,’ said Alyosha in alarm. ‘For goodness’
sake, sit down on the sofa! You are delirious; put your head
on the pillow, that’s right. Would you like a wet towel on
your head? Perhaps it will do you good.’
‘Give me the towel: it’s here on the chair. I just threw it
down there.’
‘It’s not here. Don’t worry yourself. I know where it is
— here,’ said Alyosha, finding a clean towel, folded up and
unused, by Ivan’s dressing-table in the other corner of
the room. Ivan looked strangely at the towel: recollection
seemed to come back to him for an instant.
‘Stay’ — he got up from the sofa — ‘an hour ago I took