feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/sparknotes/The Brothers Karamazov/section_7_part_2.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 5.chapter 7
feat_summary_id: book 5, chapter 7
feat_summary: {"name": "book 5, Chapter 7", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210305110438/https://www.sparknotes.com/lit/brothersk/section8/", "summary": "\"It's Always Interesting to Talk with an Intelligent Man\"  Ivan suspects that Smerdyakov has told Dmitri about Grushenka's secret signs specifically to place Fyodor Pavlovich in danger. But Ivan is determined to leave for Moscow as planned the following morning, even though Smerdyakov asks him to go to a city that is not so far away. The next morning, Fyodor Pavlovich too asks Ivan not to leave for Moscow. Instead, he wants Ivan to go to a nearby village to sell a plot of wood on Fyodor Pavlovich's behalf. Ivan reluctantly agrees. After he leaves, Smerdyakov falls down a staircase and has the epileptic seizure he has feared. He is confined to his bed, leaving Fyodor Pavlovich alone. The old man waits gleefully for Grushenka, whom he is certain will come to him tonight.", "analysis": "These chapters foreshadow Smerdyakov's eventual murder of Fyodor Pavlovich. Although Smerdyakov appears to be worried about Fyodor Pavlovich, his concern only serves to mask his deeper malice, and everything he does in this chapter lays the groundwork for killing his father the next night. He tells Ivan that Dmitri knows Grushenka's secret knock purportedly because he is worried about Fyodor Pavlovich, but really because he wants suspicion to be cast on Dmitri so that Dmitri will be blamed when Fyodor Pavlovich's body is found. He warns Ivan about his fear of an impending epileptic seizure ostensibly as proof of his fear for Fyodor Pavlovich, but really because he wants to prepare his own alibi for the night of the murder. After all, if he is a bedridden epileptic incapacitated in the aftermath of a seizure, he is hardly capable of a murder. But as we see in Chapter 7, Smerdyakov is capable of faking a seizure so convincingly that everyone around him is fooled. These chapters are thus full of foreshadowing, as every detail--from Grigory's habit of taking a narcotic medicine to Ivan's impending departure for Moscow--sets the scene for, and builds tension toward, Fyodor Pavlovich's death. The complex combination of disgust and attraction that characterizes Ivan's relationship with Smerdyakov manifests both Ivan's hatred of human nature and his dissatisfaction with his own philosophy. When Ivan discusses philosophy with Smerdyakov, the conflicting forces in his character become clear. Ivan is excited at Smerdyakov's interest, disgusted with Smerdyakov's manner, and unhappy with himself for providing a hostile figure like Smerdyakov with an amoral philosophy that might justify anything Smerdyakov wants to do. Smerdyakov's ingratiating behavior toward Ivan results from his realization that Ivan loathes Fyodor Pavlovich. He believes that Ivan is, on an unconscious level, using him to kill Fyodor Pavlovich. He thinks Ivan is preparing him by giving him a new moral outlook in which, because God does not play a role, there is no good or evil, and taking a life is not morally different from saving one. Ivan's influence on Smerdyakov presents the philosophical difficulty in determining guilt for a crime. Ivan's repeated insistence that people are not responsible for one another suggests that he is morally and psychologically free of guilt for Smerdyakov's actions, no matter how much influence he may have exerted. On the one hand, if Ivan really believes everything he says about the absence of good and evil and the meaninglessness of responsibility, then he should have no cause to feel guilty about Fyodor Pavlovich's death. On the other hand, if he does not really believe in his own argument, then the complicity he exhibits here will force him to confront the fact that he is partially to blame for the murder of his hated father. Dostoevsky does not show us the outcome of this philosophical question in these chapters, but Zosima has insisted that all people are responsible for the sins of all other people, and Ivan has insisted just the opposite"}
text: Chapter VII. "It's Always Worth While Speaking To A Clever Man"
  
  
  And in the same nervous frenzy, too, he spoke. Meeting Fyodor Pavlovitch
  in the drawing-room directly he went in, he shouted to him, waving his
  hands, "I am going upstairs to my room, not in to you. Good-by!" and
  passed by, trying not even to look at his father. Very possibly the old
  man was too hateful to him at that moment; but such an unceremonious
  display of hostility was a surprise even to Fyodor Pavlovitch. And the old
  man evidently wanted to tell him something at once and had come to meet
  him in the drawing-room on purpose. Receiving this amiable greeting, he
  stood still in silence and with an ironical air watched his son going
  upstairs, till he passed out of sight.
  
  "What's the matter with him?" he promptly asked Smerdyakov, who had
  followed Ivan.
  
  "Angry about something. Who can tell?" the valet muttered evasively.
  
  "Confound him! Let him be angry then. Bring in the samovar, and get along
  with you. Look sharp! No news?"
  
  Then followed a series of questions such as Smerdyakov had just complained
  of to Ivan, all relating to his expected visitor, and these questions we
  will omit. Half an hour later the house was locked, and the crazy old man
  was wandering along through the rooms in excited expectation of hearing
  every minute the five knocks agreed upon. Now and then he peered out into
  the darkness, seeing nothing.
  
  It was very late, but Ivan was still awake and reflecting. He sat up late
  that night, till two o'clock. But we will not give an account of his
  thoughts, and this is not the place to look into that soul--its turn will
  come. And even if one tried, it would be very hard to give an account of
  them, for there were no thoughts in his brain, but something very vague,
  and, above all, intense excitement. He felt himself that he had lost his
  bearings. He was fretted, too, by all sorts of strange and almost
  surprising desires; for instance, after midnight he suddenly had an
  intense irresistible inclination to go down, open the door, go to the
  lodge and beat Smerdyakov. But if he had been asked why, he could not have
  given any exact reason, except perhaps that he loathed the valet as one
  who had insulted him more gravely than any one in the world. On the other
  hand, he was more than once that night overcome by a sort of inexplicable
  humiliating terror, which he felt positively paralyzed his physical
  powers. His head ached and he was giddy. A feeling of hatred was rankling
  in his heart, as though he meant to avenge himself on some one. He even
  hated Alyosha, recalling the conversation he had just had with him. At
  moments he hated himself intensely. Of Katerina Ivanovna he almost forgot
  to think, and wondered greatly at this afterwards, especially as he
  remembered perfectly that when he had protested so valiantly to Katerina
  Ivanovna that he would go away next day to Moscow, something had whispered
  in his heart, "That's nonsense, you are not going, and it won't be so easy
  to tear yourself away as you are boasting now."
  
  Remembering that night long afterwards, Ivan recalled with peculiar
  repulsion how he had suddenly got up from the sofa and had stealthily, as
  though he were afraid of being watched, opened the door, gone out on the
  staircase and listened to Fyodor Pavlovitch stirring down below, had
  listened a long while--some five minutes--with a sort of strange curiosity,
  holding his breath while his heart throbbed. And why he had done all this,
  why he was listening, he could not have said. That "action" all his life
  afterwards he called "infamous," and at the bottom of his heart, he
  thought of it as the basest action of his life. For Fyodor Pavlovitch
  himself he felt no hatred at that moment, but was simply intensely curious
  to know how he was walking down there below and what he must be doing now.
  He wondered and imagined how he must be peeping out of the dark windows
  and stopping in the middle of the room, listening, listening--for some one
  to knock. Ivan went out on to the stairs twice to listen like this.
  
  About two o'clock when everything was quiet, and even Fyodor Pavlovitch
  had gone to bed, Ivan had got into bed, firmly resolved to fall asleep at
  once, as he felt fearfully exhausted. And he did fall asleep at once, and
  slept soundly without dreams, but waked early, at seven o'clock, when it
  was broad daylight. Opening his eyes, he was surprised to feel himself
  extraordinarily vigorous. He jumped up at once and dressed quickly; then
  dragged out his trunk and began packing immediately. His linen had come
  back from the laundress the previous morning. Ivan positively smiled at
  the thought that everything was helping his sudden departure. And his
  departure certainly was sudden. Though Ivan had said the day before (to
  Katerina Ivanovna, Alyosha, and Smerdyakov) that he was leaving next day,
  yet he remembered that he had no thought of departure when he went to bed,
  or, at least, had not dreamed that his first act in the morning would be
  to pack his trunk. At last his trunk and bag were ready. It was about nine
  o'clock when Marfa Ignatyevna came in with her usual inquiry, "Where will
  your honor take your tea, in your own room or downstairs?" He looked
  almost cheerful, but there was about him, about his words and gestures,
  something hurried and scattered. Greeting his father affably, and even
  inquiring specially after his health, though he did not wait to hear his
  answer to the end, he announced that he was starting off in an hour to
  return to Moscow for good, and begged him to send for the horses. His
  father heard this announcement with no sign of surprise, and forgot in an
  unmannerly way to show regret at losing him. Instead of doing so, he flew
  into a great flutter at the recollection of some important business of his
  own.
  
  "What a fellow you are! Not to tell me yesterday! Never mind; we'll manage
  it all the same. Do me a great service, my dear boy. Go to Tchermashnya on
  the way. It's only to turn to the left from the station at Volovya, only
  another twelve versts and you come to Tchermashnya."
  
  "I'm sorry, I can't. It's eighty versts to the railway and the train
  starts for Moscow at seven o'clock to-night. I can only just catch it."
  
  "You'll catch it to-morrow or the day after, but to-day turn off to
  Tchermashnya. It won't put you out much to humor your father! If I hadn't
  had something to keep me here, I would have run over myself long ago, for
  I've some business there in a hurry. But here I ... it's not the time for
  me to go now.... You see, I've two pieces of copse land there. The
  Maslovs, an old merchant and his son, will give eight thousand for the
  timber. But last year I just missed a purchaser who would have given
  twelve. There's no getting any one about here to buy it. The Maslovs have
  it all their own way. One has to take what they'll give, for no one here
  dare bid against them. The priest at Ilyinskoe wrote to me last Thursday
  that a merchant called Gorstkin, a man I know, had turned up. What makes
  him valuable is that he is not from these parts, so he is not afraid of
  the Maslovs. He says he will give me eleven thousand for the copse. Do you
  hear? But he'll only be here, the priest writes, for a week altogether, so
  you must go at once and make a bargain with him."
  
  "Well, you write to the priest; he'll make the bargain."
  
  "He can't do it. He has no eye for business. He is a perfect treasure, I'd
  give him twenty thousand to take care of for me without a receipt; but he
  has no eye for business, he is a perfect child, a crow could deceive him.
  And yet he is a learned man, would you believe it? This Gorstkin looks
  like a peasant, he wears a blue kaftan, but he is a regular rogue. That's
  the common complaint. He is a liar. Sometimes he tells such lies that you
  wonder why he is doing it. He told me the year before last that his wife
  was dead and that he had married another, and would you believe it, there
  was not a word of truth in it? His wife has never died at all, she is
  alive to this day and gives him a beating twice a week. So what you have
  to find out is whether he is lying or speaking the truth, when he says he
  wants to buy it and would give eleven thousand."
  
  "I shall be no use in such a business. I have no eye either."
  
  "Stay, wait a bit! You will be of use, for I will tell you the signs by
  which you can judge about Gorstkin. I've done business with him a long
  time. You see, you must watch his beard; he has a nasty, thin, red beard.
  If his beard shakes when he talks and he gets cross, it's all right, he is
  saying what he means, he wants to do business. But if he strokes his beard
  with his left hand and grins--he is trying to cheat you. Don't watch his
  eyes, you won't find out anything from his eyes, he is a deep one, a
  rogue--but watch his beard! I'll give you a note and you show it to him.
  He's called Gorstkin, though his real name is Lyagavy(4); but don't call
  him so, he will be offended. If you come to an understanding with him, and
  see it's all right, write here at once. You need only write: 'He's not
  lying.' Stand out for eleven thousand; one thousand you can knock off, but
  not more. Just think! there's a difference between eight thousand and
  eleven thousand. It's as good as picking up three thousand; it's not so
  easy to find a purchaser, and I'm in desperate need of money. Only let me
  know it's serious, and I'll run over and fix it up. I'll snatch the time
  somehow. But what's the good of my galloping over, if it's all a notion of
  the priest's? Come, will you go?"
  
  "Oh, I can't spare the time. You must excuse me."
  
  "Come, you might oblige your father. I shan't forget it. You've no heart,
  any of you--that's what it is? What's a day or two to you? Where are you
  going now--to Venice? Your Venice will keep another two days. I would have
  sent Alyosha, but what use is Alyosha in a thing like that? I send you
  just because you are a clever fellow. Do you suppose I don't see that? You
  know nothing about timber, but you've got an eye. All that is wanted is to
  see whether the man is in earnest. I tell you, watch his beard--if his
  beard shakes you know he is in earnest."
  
  "You force me to go to that damned Tchermashnya yourself, then?" cried
  Ivan, with a malignant smile.
  
  Fyodor Pavlovitch did not catch, or would not catch, the malignancy, but
  he caught the smile.
  
  "Then you'll go, you'll go? I'll scribble the note for you at once."
  
  "I don't know whether I shall go. I don't know. I'll decide on the way."
  
  "Nonsense! Decide at once. My dear fellow, decide! If you settle the
  matter, write me a line; give it to the priest and he'll send it on to me
  at once. And I won't delay you more than that. You can go to Venice. The
  priest will give you horses back to Volovya station."
  
  The old man was quite delighted. He wrote the note, and sent for the
  horses. A light lunch was brought in, with brandy. When Fyodor Pavlovitch
  was pleased, he usually became expansive, but to-day he seemed to restrain
  himself. Of Dmitri, for instance, he did not say a word. He was quite
  unmoved by the parting, and seemed, in fact, at a loss for something to
  say. Ivan noticed this particularly. "He must be bored with me," he
  thought. Only when accompanying his son out on to the steps, the old man
  began to fuss about. He would have kissed him, but Ivan made haste to hold
  out his hand, obviously avoiding the kiss. His father saw it at once, and
  instantly pulled himself up.
  
  "Well, good luck to you, good luck to you!" he repeated from the steps.
  "You'll come again some time or other? Mind you do come. I shall always be
  glad to see you. Well, Christ be with you!"
  
  Ivan got into the carriage.
  
  "Good-by, Ivan! Don't be too hard on me!" the father called for the last
  time.
  
  The whole household came out to take leave--Smerdyakov, Marfa and Grigory.
  Ivan gave them ten roubles each. When he had seated himself in the
  carriage, Smerdyakov jumped up to arrange the rug.
  
  "You see ... I am going to Tchermashnya," broke suddenly from Ivan. Again,
  as the day before, the words seemed to drop of themselves, and he laughed,
  too, a peculiar, nervous laugh. He remembered it long after.
  
  "It's a true saying then, that 'it's always worth while speaking to a
  clever man,' " answered Smerdyakov firmly, looking significantly at Ivan.
  
  The carriage rolled away. Nothing was clear in Ivan's soul, but he looked
  eagerly around him at the fields, at the hills, at the trees, at a flock
  of geese flying high overhead in the bright sky. And all of a sudden he
  felt very happy. He tried to talk to the driver, and he felt intensely
  interested in an answer the peasant made him; but a minute later he
  realized that he was not catching anything, and that he had not really
  even taken in the peasant's answer. He was silent, and it was pleasant
  even so. The air was fresh, pure and cool, the sky bright. The images of
  Alyosha and Katerina Ivanovna floated into his mind. But he softly smiled,
  blew softly on the friendly phantoms, and they flew away. "There's plenty
  of time for them," he thought. They reached the station quickly, changed
  horses, and galloped to Volovya. "Why is it worth while speaking to a
  clever man? What did he mean by that?" The thought seemed suddenly to
  clutch at his breathing. "And why did I tell him I was going to
  Tchermashnya?" They reached Volovya station. Ivan got out of the carriage,
  and the drivers stood round him bargaining over the journey of twelve
  versts to Tchermashnya. He told them to harness the horses. He went into
  the station house, looked round, glanced at the overseer's wife, and
  suddenly went back to the entrance.
  
  "I won't go to Tchermashnya. Am I too late to reach the railway by seven,
  brothers?"
  
  "We shall just do it. Shall we get the carriage out?"
  
  "At once. Will any one of you be going to the town to-morrow?"
  
  "To be sure. Mitri here will."
  
  "Can you do me a service, Mitri? Go to my father's, to Fyodor Pavlovitch
  Karamazov, and tell him I haven't gone to Tchermashnya. Can you?"
  
  "Of course I can. I've known Fyodor Pavlovitch a long time."
  
  "And here's something for you, for I dare say he won't give you anything,"
  said Ivan, laughing gayly.
  
  "You may depend on it he won't." Mitya laughed too. "Thank you, sir. I'll
  be sure to do it."
  
  At seven o'clock Ivan got into the train and set off to Moscow "Away with
  the past. I've done with the old world for ever, and may I have no news,
  no echo, from it. To a new life, new places and no looking back!" But
  instead of delight his soul was filled with such gloom, and his heart
  ached with such anguish, as he had never known in his life before. He was
  thinking all the night. The train flew on, and only at daybreak, when he
  was approaching Moscow, he suddenly roused himself from his meditation.
  
  "I am a scoundrel," he whispered to himself.
  
  Fyodor Pavlovitch remained well satisfied at having seen his son off. For
  two hours afterwards he felt almost happy, and sat drinking brandy. But
  suddenly something happened which was very annoying and unpleasant for
  every one in the house, and completely upset Fyodor Pavlovitch's
  equanimity at once. Smerdyakov went to the cellar for something and fell
  down from the top of the steps. Fortunately, Marfa Ignatyevna was in the
  yard and heard him in time. She did not see the fall, but heard his
  scream--the strange, peculiar scream, long familiar to her--the scream of
  the epileptic falling in a fit. They could not tell whether the fit had
  come on him at the moment he was descending the steps, so that he must
  have fallen unconscious, or whether it was the fall and the shock that had
  caused the fit in Smerdyakov, who was known to be liable to them. They
  found him at the bottom of the cellar steps, writhing in convulsions and
  foaming at the mouth. It was thought at first that he must have broken
  something--an arm or a leg--and hurt himself, but "God had preserved him,"
  as Marfa Ignatyevna expressed it--nothing of the kind had happened. But it
  was difficult to get him out of the cellar. They asked the neighbors to
  help and managed it somehow. Fyodor Pavlovitch himself was present at the
  whole ceremony. He helped, evidently alarmed and upset. The sick man did
  not regain consciousness; the convulsions ceased for a time, but then
  began again, and every one concluded that the same thing would happen, as
  had happened a year before, when he accidentally fell from the garret.
  They remembered that ice had been put on his head then. There was still
  ice in the cellar, and Marfa Ignatyevna had some brought up. In the
  evening, Fyodor Pavlovitch sent for Doctor Herzenstube, who arrived at
  once. He was a most estimable old man, and the most careful and
  conscientious doctor in the province. After careful examination, he
  concluded that the fit was a very violent one and might have serious
  consequences; that meanwhile he, Herzenstube, did not fully understand it,
  but that by to-morrow morning, if the present remedies were unavailing, he
  would venture to try something else. The invalid was taken to the lodge,
  to a room next to Grigory's and Marfa Ignatyevna's.
  
  Then Fyodor Pavlovitch had one misfortune after another to put up with
  that day. Marfa Ignatyevna cooked the dinner, and the soup, compared with
  Smerdyakov's, was "no better than dish-water," and the fowl was so dried
  up that it was impossible to masticate it. To her master's bitter, though
  deserved, reproaches, Marfa Ignatyevna replied that the fowl was a very
  old one to begin with, and that she had never been trained as a cook. In
  the evening there was another trouble in store for Fyodor Pavlovitch; he
  was informed that Grigory, who had not been well for the last three days,
  was completely laid up by his lumbago. Fyodor Pavlovitch finished his tea
  as early as possible and locked himself up alone in the house. He was in
  terrible excitement and suspense. That evening he reckoned on Grushenka's
  coming almost as a certainty. He had received from Smerdyakov that morning
  an assurance "that she had promised to come without fail." The
  incorrigible old man's heart throbbed with excitement; he paced up and
  down his empty rooms listening. He had to be on the alert. Dmitri might be
  on the watch for her somewhere, and when she knocked on the window
  (Smerdyakov had informed him two days before that he had told her where
  and how to knock) the door must be opened at once. She must not be a
  second in the passage, for fear--which God forbid!--that she should be
  frightened and run away. Fyodor Pavlovitch had much to think of, but never
  had his heart been steeped in such voluptuous hopes. This time he could
  say almost certainly that she would come!
  
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: book 5, Chapter 7
target: "It's Always Interesting to Talk with an Intelligent Man"  Ivan suspects that Smerdyakov has told Dmitri about Grushenka's secret signs specifically to place Fyodor Pavlovich in danger. But Ivan is determined to leave for Moscow as planned the following morning, even though Smerdyakov asks him to go to a city that is not so far away. The next morning, Fyodor Pavlovich too asks Ivan not to leave for Moscow. Instead, he wants Ivan to go to a nearby village to sell a plot of wood on Fyodor Pavlovich's behalf. Ivan reluctantly agrees. After he leaves, Smerdyakov falls down a staircase and has the epileptic seizure he has feared. He is confined to his bed, leaving Fyodor Pavlovich alone. The old man waits gleefully for Grushenka, whom he is certain will come to him tonight.
feat_summary_analysis: These chapters foreshadow Smerdyakov's eventual murder of Fyodor Pavlovich. Although Smerdyakov appears to be worried about Fyodor Pavlovich, his concern only serves to mask his deeper malice, and everything he does in this chapter lays the groundwork for killing his father the next night. He tells Ivan that Dmitri knows Grushenka's secret knock purportedly because he is worried about Fyodor Pavlovich, but really because he wants suspicion to be cast on Dmitri so that Dmitri will be blamed when Fyodor Pavlovich's body is found. He warns Ivan about his fear of an impending epileptic seizure ostensibly as proof of his fear for Fyodor Pavlovich, but really because he wants to prepare his own alibi for the night of the murder. After all, if he is a bedridden epileptic incapacitated in the aftermath of a seizure, he is hardly capable of a murder. But as we see in Chapter 7, Smerdyakov is capable of faking a seizure so convincingly that everyone around him is fooled. These chapters are thus full of foreshadowing, as every detail--from Grigory's habit of taking a narcotic medicine to Ivan's impending departure for Moscow--sets the scene for, and builds tension toward, Fyodor Pavlovich's death. The complex combination of disgust and attraction that characterizes Ivan's relationship with Smerdyakov manifests both Ivan's hatred of human nature and his dissatisfaction with his own philosophy. When Ivan discusses philosophy with Smerdyakov, the conflicting forces in his character become clear. Ivan is excited at Smerdyakov's interest, disgusted with Smerdyakov's manner, and unhappy with himself for providing a hostile figure like Smerdyakov with an amoral philosophy that might justify anything Smerdyakov wants to do. Smerdyakov's ingratiating behavior toward Ivan results from his realization that Ivan loathes Fyodor Pavlovich. He believes that Ivan is, on an unconscious level, using him to kill Fyodor Pavlovich. He thinks Ivan is preparing him by giving him a new moral outlook in which, because God does not play a role, there is no good or evil, and taking a life is not morally different from saving one. Ivan's influence on Smerdyakov presents the philosophical difficulty in determining guilt for a crime. Ivan's repeated insistence that people are not responsible for one another suggests that he is morally and psychologically free of guilt for Smerdyakov's actions, no matter how much influence he may have exerted. On the one hand, if Ivan really believes everything he says about the absence of good and evil and the meaninglessness of responsibility, then he should have no cause to feel guilty about Fyodor Pavlovich's death. On the other hand, if he does not really believe in his own argument, then the complicity he exhibits here will force him to confront the fact that he is partially to blame for the murder of his hated father. Dostoevsky does not show us the outcome of this philosophical question in these chapters, but Zosima has insisted that all people are responsible for the sins of all other people, and Ivan has insisted just the opposite