“You don’t mean to say you really did not know?” he faltered mistrustfully, looking with a forced smile into his eyes. Ivan still gazed at him, and seemed unable to speak.
Ach, Vanka’s gone to Petersburg;
I won’t wait till he comes back,
suddenly echoed in his head.
“Do you know, I am afraid that you are a dream, a phantom sitting before me,” he muttered.
“There’s no phantom here, but only us two and one other. No doubt he is here, that third, between us.”
“Who is he? Who is here? What third person?” Ivan cried in alarm, looking about him, his eyes hastily searching in every corner.
“That third is God Himself—Providence. He is the third beside us now. Only don’t look for Him, you won’t find Him.”
“It’s a lie that you killed him!” Ivan cried madly. “You are mad, or teasing me again!”
Smerdyakov, as before, watched him curiously, with no sign of fear. He could still scarcely get over his incredulity; he still fancied that Ivan knew everything and was trying to “throw it all on him to his face.”
“Wait a minute,” he said at last in a weak voice, and suddenly bringing up his left leg from under the table, he began turning up his trouser leg. He was wearing long white stockings and slippers. Slowly he took off his garter and fumbled to the bottom of his stocking. Ivan gazed at him, and suddenly shuddered in a paroxysm of terror.