understand?” he drawled reproachfully. “It’s a strange thing a sensible man should care to play such a farce!”
Ivan looked at him speechless. The startling, incredibly supercilious tone of this man who had once been his valet, was extraordinary in itself. He had not taken such a tone even at their last interview.
“I tell you, you’ve nothing to be afraid of. I won’t say anything about you; there’s no proof against you. I say, how your hands are trembling! Why are your fingers moving like that? Go home, you did not murder him.”
Ivan started. He remembered Alyosha.
“I know it was not I,” he faltered.
“Do you?” Smerdyakov caught him up again.
Ivan jumped up and seized him by the shoulder.
“Tell me everything, you viper! Tell me everything!”
Smerdyakov was not in the least scared. He only riveted his eyes on Ivan with insane hatred.
“Well, it was