about him and said, ‘Why not go and kill the master?’ And how did he know what had happened, since he had been lying unconscious till that moment? > But there’s a limit to these flights of
“ ‘Quite so,’ some astute people will tell me, ‘but what if they were in agreement? What if they murdered him together and shared the money—what then?’
A weighty question, truly! And the facts to confirm it are astounding. One commits the murder and takes all the trouble while his accomplice lies on one side shamming a fit, apparently to arouse suspicion in everyone, alarm in his master and alarm in Grigory. It would be interesting to know what motives could have induced the two accomplices to form such an insane plan.
“But perhaps it was not a case of active complicity on Smerdyakov’s part, but only of passive acquiescence; perhaps Smerdyakov was intimidated and agreed not to prevent the murder, and foreseeing