feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_78_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 11.chapter 10
feat_summary_id: book 11, chapter 10
feat_summary: {"name": "Book 11, Chapter 10", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-11-chapter-10", "summary": "Alyosha explains to his brother that Maria Kondratievna had rushed over an hour ago to tell him that Smerdyakov had hanged himself. Alyosha had hurried back to her cottage to discover Smerdyakov still hanging, and a brief suicide note left on the table. Alyosha then went straight to the police commissioner to tell him the news, before arriving at Ivan's. Alyosha remarks that Ivan looks ill, and Ivan mysteriously states that he already knew that Smerdyakov had hanged himself. Ivan seems to think it's very significant that the wet towel he had wrapped around his head in the previous chapter is lying folded and unused next to his dressing table. Ivan then raves to Alyosha that \"he\" was here. They had even talked about Smerdyakov's suicide and Ivan's plan to confess his dealings with Smerdyakov at the trial the next day. The devil had scoffed at Ivan's plan as being born of pride, a need for praise for his noble defense of Dmitri. Ivan continues to rave about how everyone - Katerina, Lise, even Alyosha - despises him. Over the next two hours he becomes more and more delirious and falls asleep on the couch. Alyosha lies next to him and prays.", "analysis": ""}
text: Chapter X. "It Was He Who Said That"
  
  
  Alyosha coming in told Ivan that a little over an hour ago Marya
  Kondratyevna had run to his rooms and informed him Smerdyakov had taken
  his own life. "I went in to clear away the samovar and he was hanging on a
  nail in the wall." On Alyosha's inquiring whether she had informed the
  police, she answered that she had told no one, "but I flew straight to
  you, I've run all the way." She seemed perfectly crazy, Alyosha reported,
  and was shaking like a leaf. When Alyosha ran with her to the cottage, he
  found Smerdyakov still hanging. On the table lay a note: "I destroy my
  life of my own will and desire, so as to throw no blame on any one."
  Alyosha left the note on the table and went straight to the police captain
  and told him all about it. "And from him I've come straight to you," said
  Alyosha, in conclusion, looking intently into Ivan's face. He had not
  taken his eyes off him while he told his story, as though struck by
  something in his expression.
  
  "Brother," he cried suddenly, "you must be terribly ill. You look and
  don't seem to understand what I tell you."
  
  "It's a good thing you came," said Ivan, as though brooding, and not
  hearing Alyosha's exclamation. "I knew he had hanged himself."
  
  "From whom?"
  
  "I don't know. But I knew. Did I know? Yes, he told me. He told me so just
  now."
  
  Ivan stood in the middle of the room, and still spoke in the same brooding
  tone, looking at the ground.
  
  "Who is _he_?" asked Alyosha, involuntarily looking round.
  
  "He's slipped away."
  
  Ivan raised his head and smiled softly.
  
  "He was afraid of you, of a dove like you. You are a 'pure cherub.' Dmitri
  calls you a cherub. Cherub!... the thunderous rapture of the seraphim.
  What are seraphim? Perhaps a whole constellation. But perhaps that
  constellation is only a chemical molecule. There's a constellation of the
  Lion and the Sun. Don't you know it?"
  
  "Brother, sit down," said Alyosha in alarm. "For goodness' sake, sit down
  on the sofa! You are delirious; put your head on the pillow, that's right.
  Would you like a wet towel on your head? Perhaps it will do you good."
  
  "Give me the towel: it's here on the chair. I just threw it down there."
  
  "It's not here. Don't worry yourself. I know where it is--here," said
  Alyosha, finding a clean towel, folded up and unused, by Ivan's dressing-
  table in the other corner of the room. Ivan looked strangely at the towel:
  recollection seemed to come back to him for an instant.
  
  "Stay"--he got up from the sofa--"an hour ago I took that new towel from
  there and wetted it. I wrapped it round my head and threw it down here ...
  How is it it's dry? There was no other."
  
  "You put that towel on your head?" asked Alyosha.
  
  "Yes, and walked up and down the room an hour ago ... Why have the candles
  burnt down so? What's the time?"
  
  "Nearly twelve."
  
  "No, no, no!" Ivan cried suddenly. "It was not a dream. He was here; he
  was sitting here, on that sofa. When you knocked at the window, I threw a
  glass at him ... this one. Wait a minute. I was asleep last time, but this
  dream was not a dream. It has happened before. I have dreams now, Alyosha
  ... yet they are not dreams, but reality. I walk about, talk and see ...
  though I am asleep. But he was sitting here, on that sofa there.... He is
  frightfully stupid, Alyosha, frightfully stupid." Ivan laughed suddenly
  and began pacing about the room.
  
  "Who is stupid? Of whom are you talking, brother?" Alyosha asked anxiously
  again.
  
  "The devil! He's taken to visiting me. He's been here twice, almost three
  times. He taunted me with being angry at his being a simple devil and not
  Satan, with scorched wings, in thunder and lightning. But he is not Satan:
  that's a lie. He is an impostor. He is simply a devil--a paltry, trivial
  devil. He goes to the baths. If you undressed him, you'd be sure to find
  he had a tail, long and smooth like a Danish dog's, a yard long, dun
  color.... Alyosha, you are cold. You've been in the snow. Would you like
  some tea? What? Is it cold? Shall I tell her to bring some? _C'est a ne
  pas mettre un chien dehors._..."
  
  Alyosha ran to the washing-stand, wetted the towel, persuaded Ivan to sit
  down again, and put the wet towel round his head. He sat down beside him.
  
  "What were you telling me just now about Lise?" Ivan began again. (He was
  becoming very talkative.) "I like Lise. I said something nasty about her.
  It was a lie. I like her ... I am afraid for Katya to-morrow. I am more
  afraid of her than of anything. On account of the future. She will cast me
  off to-morrow and trample me under foot. She thinks that I am ruining
  Mitya from jealousy on her account! Yes, she thinks that! But it's not so.
  To-morrow the cross, but not the gallows. No, I shan't hang myself. Do you
  know, I can never commit suicide, Alyosha. Is it because I am base? I am
  not a coward. Is it from love of life? How did I know that Smerdyakov had
  hanged himself? Yes, it was _he_ told me so."
  
  "And you are quite convinced that there has been some one here?" asked
  Alyosha.
  
  "Yes, on that sofa in the corner. You would have driven him away. You did
  drive him away: he disappeared when you arrived. I love your face,
  Alyosha. Did you know that I loved your face? And _he_ is myself, Alyosha.
  All that's base in me, all that's mean and contemptible. Yes, I am a
  romantic. He guessed it ... though it's a libel. He is frightfully stupid;
  but it's to his advantage. He has cunning, animal cunning--he knew how to
  infuriate me. He kept taunting me with believing in him, and that was how
  he made me listen to him. He fooled me like a boy. He told me a great deal
  that was true about myself, though. I should never have owned it to
  myself. Do you know, Alyosha," Ivan added in an intensely earnest and
  confidential tone, "I should be awfully glad to think that it was _he_ and
  not I."
  
  "He has worn you out," said Alyosha, looking compassionately at his
  brother.
  
  "He's been teasing me. And you know he does it so cleverly, so cleverly.
  'Conscience! What is conscience? I make it up for myself. Why am I
  tormented by it? From habit. From the universal habit of mankind for the
  seven thousand years. So let us give it up, and we shall be gods.' It was
  he said that, it was he said that!"
  
  "And not you, not you?" Alyosha could not help crying, looking frankly at
  his brother. "Never mind him, anyway; have done with him and forget him.
  And let him take with him all that you curse now, and never come back!"
  
  "Yes, but he is spiteful. He laughed at me. He was impudent, Alyosha,"
  Ivan said, with a shudder of offense. "But he was unfair to me, unfair to
  me about lots of things. He told lies about me to my face. 'Oh, you are
  going to perform an act of heroic virtue: to confess you murdered your
  father, that the valet murdered him at your instigation.' "
  
  "Brother," Alyosha interposed, "restrain yourself. It was not you murdered
  him. It's not true!"
  
  "That's what he says, he, and he knows it. 'You are going to perform an
  act of heroic virtue, and you don't believe in virtue; that's what
  tortures you and makes you angry, that's why you are so vindictive.' He
  said that to me about me and he knows what he says."
  
  "It's you say that, not he," exclaimed Alyosha mournfully, "and you say it
  because you are ill and delirious, tormenting yourself."
  
  "No, he knows what he says. 'You are going from pride,' he says. 'You'll
  stand up and say it was I killed him, and why do you writhe with horror?
  You are lying! I despise your opinion, I despise your horror!' He said
  that about me. 'And do you know you are longing for their praise--"he is a
  criminal, a murderer, but what a generous soul; he wanted to save his
  brother and he confessed." ' That's a lie, Alyosha!" Ivan cried suddenly,
  with flashing eyes. "I don't want the low rabble to praise me, I swear I
  don't! That's a lie! That's why I threw the glass at him and it broke
  against his ugly face."
  
  "Brother, calm yourself, stop!" Alyosha entreated him.
  
  "Yes, he knows how to torment one. He's cruel," Ivan went on, unheeding.
  "I had an inkling from the first what he came for. 'Granting that you go
  through pride, still you had a hope that Smerdyakov might be convicted and
  sent to Siberia, and Mitya would be acquitted, while you would only be
  punished with moral condemnation' ('Do you hear?' he laughed then)--'and
  some people will praise you. But now Smerdyakov's dead, he has hanged
  himself, and who'll believe you alone? But yet you are going, you are
  going, you'll go all the same, you've decided to go. What are you going
  for now?' That's awful, Alyosha. I can't endure such questions. Who dare
  ask me such questions?"
  
  "Brother," interposed Alyosha--his heart sank with terror, but he still
  seemed to hope to bring Ivan to reason--"how could he have told you of
  Smerdyakov's death before I came, when no one knew of it and there was no
  time for any one to know of it?"
  
  "He told me," said Ivan firmly, refusing to admit a doubt. "It was all he
  did talk about, if you come to that. 'And it would be all right if you
  believed in virtue,' he said. 'No matter if they disbelieve you, you are
  going for the sake of principle. But you are a little pig like Fyodor
  Pavlovitch, and what do you want with virtue? Why do you want to go
  meddling if your sacrifice is of no use to any one? Because you don't know
  yourself why you go! Oh, you'd give a great deal to know yourself why you
  go! And can you have made up your mind? You've not made up your mind.
  You'll sit all night deliberating whether to go or not. But you will go;
  you know you'll go. You know that whichever way you decide, the decision
  does not depend on you. You'll go because you won't dare not to go. Why
  won't you dare? You must guess that for yourself. That's a riddle for
  you!' He got up and went away. You came and he went. He called me a
  coward, Alyosha! _Le mot de l'enigme_ is that I am a coward. 'It is not
  for such eagles to soar above the earth.' It was he added that--he! And
  Smerdyakov said the same. He must be killed! Katya despises me. I've seen
  that for a month past. Even Lise will begin to despise me! 'You are going
  in order to be praised.' That's a brutal lie! And you despise me too,
  Alyosha. Now I am going to hate you again! And I hate the monster, too! I
  hate the monster! I don't want to save the monster. Let him rot in
  Siberia! He's begun singing a hymn! Oh, to-morrow I'll go, stand before
  them, and spit in their faces!"
  
  He jumped up in a frenzy, flung off the towel, and fell to pacing up and
  down the room again. Alyosha recalled what he had just said. "I seem to be
  sleeping awake.... I walk, I speak, I see, but I am asleep." It seemed to
  be just like that now. Alyosha did not leave him. The thought passed
  through his mind to run for a doctor, but he was afraid to leave his
  brother alone: there was no one to whom he could leave him. By degrees
  Ivan lost consciousness completely at last. He still went on talking,
  talking incessantly, but quite incoherently, and even articulated his
  words with difficulty. Suddenly he staggered violently; but Alyosha was in
  time to support him. 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. An earnest
  conscience!" God, in Whom he disbelieved, and His truth were gaining
  mastery over his heart, which still refused to submit. "Yes," the thought
  floated through Alyosha's head as it lay on the pillow, "yes, if
  Smerdyakov is dead, no one will believe Ivan's evidence; but he will go
  and give it." Alyosha smiled softly. "God will conquer!" he thought. "He
  will either rise up in the light of truth, or ... he'll perish in hate,
  revenging on himself and on every one his having served the cause he does
  not believe in," Alyosha added bitterly, and again he prayed for Ivan.
  
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Book 11, Chapter 10
target: Alyosha explains to his brother that Maria Kondratievna had rushed over an hour ago to tell him that Smerdyakov had hanged himself. Alyosha had hurried back to her cottage to discover Smerdyakov still hanging, and a brief suicide note left on the table. Alyosha then went straight to the police commissioner to tell him the news, before arriving at Ivan's. Alyosha remarks that Ivan looks ill, and Ivan mysteriously states that he already knew that Smerdyakov had hanged himself. Ivan seems to think it's very significant that the wet towel he had wrapped around his head in the previous chapter is lying folded and unused next to his dressing table. Ivan then raves to Alyosha that "he" was here. They had even talked about Smerdyakov's suicide and Ivan's plan to confess his dealings with Smerdyakov at the trial the next day. The devil had scoffed at Ivan's plan as being born of pride, a need for praise for his noble defense of Dmitri. Ivan continues to rave about how everyone - Katerina, Lise, even Alyosha - despises him. Over the next two hours he becomes more and more delirious and falls asleep on the couch. Alyosha lies next to him and prays.