And again he motioned at the notes. He was just going to get up and call at the door to Marya Kondratyevna to make some lemonade and bring it them, but, looking for something to cover up the notes that she might not see them, he first took out his handkerchief, and as it turned out to be very dirty, took up the big yellow book that Ivan had noticed at first lying on the table, and put it over the notes. The book was The Sayings of the Holy Father Isaac the Syrian . Ivan read it mechanically.
“I won’t have any lemonade,” he said. “Talk of me later. Sit down and tell me how you did it. Tell me all about it.”
“You’d better take off your greatcoat, or you’ll be too hot.” Ivan, as though he’d only just thought of it, took off his coat, and, without getting up from his chair, threw it on the bench.
“Speak, please, speak.”
He seemed calmer. He waited, feeling sure that Smerdyakov would tell him all about it.
“How it was done?” sighed Smerdyakov. “It was done in a most natural way, following your very words.”
“Of my words later,” Ivan broke in again, apparently with complete self-possession, firmly uttering his words, and not shouting as before. “Only tell me in detail how you did it. Everything, as it happened. Don’t forget anything. The details, above everything, the details, I beg you.”
“You’d gone away, then I fell into the cellar.”
“In a fit or in a sham one?”
“A sham one, naturally. I shammed it all. I went quietly down the steps to the very bottom and lay down quietly, and as I lay down I gave a scream, and struggled, till they carried me out.”