“If I’d guessed, I should have stayed,” cried Ivan.
“Why, I thought that it was because you guessed, that you went away in such a hurry, only to get out of trouble, only to run away and save yourself in your fright.”
“You think that every one is as great a coward as yourself?”
“Forgive me, I thought you were like me.”
“Of course, I ought to have guessed,” Ivan said in agitation; “and I did guess there was some mischief brewing on your part ... only you are lying, you are lying again,” he cried, suddenly recollecting. “Do you remember how you went up to the carriage and said to me, ‘It’s always worth while speaking to a clever man’? So you were glad I went away, since you praised me?”
Smerdyakov sighed again and again. A trace of color came into his face.
“If I was pleased,” he articulated rather breathlessly, “it was simply because you agreed not to go to Moscow, but to Tchermashnya. For it was nearer, anyway. Only when I said these words to you, it was not by way of praise, but of reproach. You didn’t understand it.”
“What reproach?”
“Why, that foreseeing such a calamity you deserted your own father, and would not protect us, for I might have been taken up any time for stealing that three thousand.”
“Damn you!” Ivan swore again. “Stay, did you tell the prosecutor and the investigating lawyer about those knocks?”