“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.