In the passage, Marya Kondratyevna, who ran out to open the door with a candle in her hand, whispered that Smerdyakov was very ill, “It’s not that he’s laid up, but he seems not himself, and he even told us to take the tea away; he wouldn’t have any.”
“Why, does he make a row?” asked Ivan coarsely.
“Oh, dear, no, quite the contrary, he’s very quiet. Only please don’t talk to him too long,” Marya Kondratyevna begged him. Ivan opened the door and stepped into the room.
It was overheated as before, but there were changes in the room. One of the benches at the side had been removed, and in its place had been put a large old mahogany leather sofa, on which a bed had been made up, with fairly clean white pillows. Smerdyakov was sitting on the sofa, wearing the same dressing-gown. The table had been brought out in front of the sofa, so that there was hardly room to move. On the table lay a thick book in yellow cover, but Smerdyakov was not reading it. He seemed to be sitting doing nothing. He met Ivan with a slow silent gaze, and was apparently not at all surprised at his coming. There was a great change in his face; he was much thinner and sallower. His eyes were sunken and there were blue marks under them.
“Why, you really are ill?” Ivan stopped short. “I won’t keep you long, I won’t even take off my coat. Where can one sit down?”
He went to the other end of the table, moved up a chair and sat down on it.
“Why do you look at me without speaking? I’ve only come with one question, and I swear I won’t go without an answer. Has the young lady, Katerina Ivanovna, been with you?”