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But his father had not listened, and had forgotten his own question at once. “Ivan’s gone out,” he said suddenly. “He is doing his utmost to carry off Mitya’s betrothed. That’s what he is staying here for,” he added maliciously, and, twisting his mouth, looked at Alyosha. “Surely he did not tell you so?” asked Alyosha. “Yes, he did, long ago. Would you believe it, he told me three weeks ago?
You don’t mean that meeting? About my ‘wisp of tow,’ then?” He moved closer so that his knees positively knocked against Alyosha. His lips were strangely compressed like a thread. “What wisp of tow?” muttered Alyosha.
Ivan let him lead him to his bed. Alyosha undressed him somehow and put him to bed. He sat watching over him for another two hours. The sick man slept soundly, without stirring, breathing softly and evenly. Alyosha took a pillow and lay down on the sofa, without undressing. As he fell asleep he prayed for Mitya and Ivan. He began to understand Ivan’s illness. “The anguish of a proud determination.
“Yes, she sent for me, and I am just going to her.” Alyosha got up resolutely. “Oh, my dear, dear Alexey Fyodorovitch, perhaps that’s what’s most important,” Madame Hohlakov cried, suddenly bursting into tears. “God knows I trust Lise to you with all my heart, and it’s no matter her sending for you on the sly, without telling her mother.
“He is up, taking his coffee,” Marfa answered somewhat dryly. Alyosha went in. The old man was sitting alone at the table wearing slippers and a little old overcoat. He was amusing himself by looking through some accounts, rather inattentively however. He was quite alone in the house, for Smerdyakov too had gone out marketing.
“Alyosha! Alyosha! What do you say to that! Ah, you casuist! He must have been with the Jesuits, somewhere, Ivan. Oh, you stinking Jesuit, who taught you? But you’re talking nonsense, you casuist, nonsense, nonsense, nonsense. Don’t cry, Grigory, we’ll reduce him to smoke and ashes in a moment.
“Why does he come here so often? Surely you are not such great friends?” asked Alyosha. He, too, nodded at the door through which Rakitin had disappeared. “Great friends with Rakitin? No, not as much as that. Is it likely—a pig like that? He considers I am ... a blackguard. They can’t understand a joke either, that’s the worst of such people.
“What of Dmitri and father? how will it end?” asked Alyosha anxiously. “You are always harping upon it! What have I to do with it? Am I my brother Dmitri’s keeper?” Ivan snapped irritably, but then he suddenly smiled bitterly. “Cain’s answer about his murdered brother, wasn’t it? Perhaps that’s what you’re thinking at this moment?
“The open-heartedness consists in my not being ashamed of myself with you. What’s more, I don’t want to feel ashamed with you, just with you. Alyosha, why is it I don’t respect you? I am very fond of you, but I don’t respect you. If I respected you, I shouldn’t talk to you without shame, should I?” “No.” “But do you believe that I am not ashamed with you?” “No, I don’t believe it.”
“But you must look at it like this,” said Alyosha, smiling. “Grown-up people go to the theater and there the adventures of all sorts of heroes are represented—sometimes there are robbers and battles, too—and isn’t that just the same thing, in a different form, of course? And young people’s games of soldiers or robbers in their playtime are also art in its first stage.
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