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Reading books fiction Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself.



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The genre of fiction is interesting to read not only by the process of cognition and the desire to empathize with the fate of the hero, this genre is interesting for the ability to rethink one's own life. Of course the reader may accept the author's point of view or disagree with them, but the reader should understand that the author has done a great job and deserves respect. Take a closer look at genre fiction in all its manifestations in our elibrary.



Read books online » Fiction » The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) 📖

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to go out.

 

“Stay a moment
. Show me those notes again.”

 

Ivan took out the notes and showed them to him. Smerdyakov

looked at them for ten seconds.

 

“Well, you can go,” he said, with a wave of his hand. “Ivan

Fyodorovitch!” he called after him again.

 

“What do you want?” Ivan turned without stopping.

 

“Goodbye!”

 

“Till to-morrow!” Ivan cried again, and he walked out of the

cottage.

 

The snowstorm was still raging. He walked the first few steps

boldly, but suddenly began staggering. “It’s something physical,” he

thought with a grin. Something like joy was springing up in his heart.

He was conscious of unbounded resolution; he would make an end of

the wavering that had so tortured him of late. His determination was

taken, “and now it will not be changed,” he thought with relief. At

that moment he stumbled against something and almost fell down.

Stopping short, he made out at his feet the peasant he had knocked

down, still lying senseless and motionless. The snow had almost

covered his face. Ivan seized him and lifted him in his arms. Seeing a

light in the little house to the right he went up, knocked at the

shutters, and asked the man to whom the house belonged to help him

carry the peasant to the police station, promising him three

roubles. The man got ready and came out. I won’t describe in detail

how Ivan succeeded in his object, bringing the peasant to the

police-station and arranging for a doctor to see him at once,

providing with a liberal hand for the expenses. I will only say that

this business took a whole hour, but Ivan was well content with it.

His mind wandered and worked incessantly.

 

“If I had not taken my decision so firmly for to-morrow,” he

reflected with satisfaction, “I should not have stayed a whole hour to

look after the peasant, but should have passed by, without caring

about his being frozen. I am quite capable of watching myself, by

the way,” he thought at the same instant, with still greater

satisfaction, “although they have decided that I am going out of my

mind!”

 

Just as he reached his own house he stopped short, asking

himself suddenly hadn’t he better go at once to the prosecutor and

tell him everything. He decided the question by turning back to the

house. “Everything together to-morrow!” he whispered to himself,

and, strange to say, almost all his gladness and selfsatisfaction

passed in one instant.

 

As he entered his own room he felt something like a touch of ice

on his heart, like a recollection or, more exactly, a reminder, of

something agonising and revolting that was in that room now, at that

moment, and had been there before. He sank wearily on his sofa. The

old woman brought him a samovar; he made tea, but did not touch it. He

sat on the sofa and felt giddy. He felt that he was ill and

helpless. He was beginning to drop asleep, but got up uneasily and

walked across the room to shake off his drowsiness. At moments he

fancied he was delirious, but it was not illness that he thought of

most. Sitting down again, he began looking round, as though

searching for something. This happened several times. At last his eyes

were fastened intently on one point. Ivan smiled, but an angry flush

suffused his face. He sat a long time in his place, his head propped

on both arms, though he looked sideways at the same point, at the sofa

that stood against the opposite wall. There was evidently something,

some object, that irritated him there, worried him and tormented him.

Chapter 9

The Devil. Ivan’s Nightmare

 

I AM NOT a doctor, but yet I feel that the moment has come when

I must inevitably give the reader some account of the nature of Ivan’s

illness. Anticipating events I can say at least one thing: he was at

that moment on the very eve of an attack of brain fever. Though his

health had long been affected, it had offered a stubborn resistance to

the fever which in the end gained complete mastery over it. Though I

know nothing of medicine, I venture to hazard the suggestion that he

really had perhaps, by a terrible effort of will, succeeded in

delaying the attack for a time, hoping, of course, to check it

completely. He knew that he was unwell, but he loathed the thought

of being ill at that fatal time, at the approaching crisis in his

life, when he needed to have all his wits about him, to say what he

had to say boldly and resolutely and “to justify himself to himself.”

 

He had, however, consulted the new doctor, who had been brought

from Moscow by a fantastic notion of Katerina Ivanovna’s to which I

have referred already. After listening to him and examining him the

doctor came to the conclusion that he was actually suffering from some

disorder of the brain, and was not at all surprised by an admission

which Ivan had reluctantly made him. “Hallucinations are quite

likely in your condition,” the doctor opined, ‘though it would be

better to verify them
 you must take steps at once, without a

moment’s delay, or things will go badly with you.” But Ivan did not

follow this judicious advice and did not take to his bed to be nursed.

“I am walking about, so I am strong enough, if I drop, it’ll be

different then, anyone may nurse me who likes,” he decided, dismissing

the subject.

 

And so he was sitting almost conscious himself of his delirium

and, as I have said already, looking persistently at some object on

the sofa against the opposite wall. Someone appeared to be sitting

there, though goodness knows how he had come in, for he had not been

in the room when Ivan came into it, on his return from Smerdyakov.

This was a person or, more accurately speaking, a Russian gentleman of

a particular kind, no longer young, qui faisait la cinquantaine,* as

the French say, with rather long, still thick, dark hair, slightly

streaked with grey and a small pointed beard. He was wearing a

brownish reefer jacket, rather shabby, evidently made by a good tailor

though, and of a fashion at least three years old, that had been

discarded by smart and well-to-do people for the last two years. His

linen and his long scarf-like neck-tie were all such as are worn by

people who aim at being stylish, but on closer inspection his linen

was not overclean and his wide scarf was very threadbare. The

visitor’s check trousers were of excellent cut, but were too light

in colour and too tight for the present fashion. His soft fluffy white

hat was out of keeping with the season.

 

* Fiftyish.

 

In brief there was every appearance of gentility on straitened

means. It looked as though the gentleman belonged to that class of

idle landowners who used to flourish in the times of serfdom. He had

unmistakably been, at some time, in good and fashionable society,

had once had good connections, had possibly preserved them indeed,

but, after a gay youth, becoming gradually impoverished on the

abolition of serfdom, he had sunk into the position of a poor relation

of the best class, wandering from one good old friend to another and

received by them for his companionable and accommodating disposition

and as being, after all, a gentleman who could be asked to sit down

with anyone, though, of course, not in a place of honour. Such

gentlemen of accommodating temper and dependent position, who can tell

a story, take a hand at cards, and who have a distinct aversion for

any duties that may be forced upon them, are usually solitary

creatures, either bachelors or widowers. Sometimes they have children,

but if so, the children are always being brought up at a distance,

at some aunt’s, to whom these gentlemen never allude in good

society, seeming ashamed of the relationship. They gradually lose

sight of their children altogether, though at intervals they receive a

birthday or Christmas letter from them and sometimes even answer it.

 

The countenance of the unexpected visitor was not so much

good-natured, as accommodating and ready to assume any amiable

expression as occasion might arise. He had no watch, but he had a

tortoise-shell lorgnette on a black ribbon. On the middle finger of

his right hand was a massive gold ring with a cheap opal stone in it.

 

Ivan was angrily silent and would not begin the conversation.

The visitor waited and sat exactly like a poor relation who had come

down from his room to keep his host company at tea, and was discreetly

silent, seeing that his host was frowning and preoccupied. But he

was ready for any affable conversation as soon as his host should

begin it. All at once his face expressed a sudden solicitude.

 

“I say,” he began to Ivan, “excuse me, I only mention it to remind

you. You went to Smerdyakov’s to find out about Katerina Ivanovna, but

you came away without finding out anything about her, you probably

forgot-”

 

“Ah, yes.” broke from Ivan and his face grew gloomy with

uneasiness. “Yes, I’d forgotten
 but it doesn’t matter now, never

mind, till to-morrow,” he muttered to himself, “and you,” he added,

addressing his visitor, “I should have remembered that myself in a

minute, for that was just what was tormenting me! Why do you

interfere, as if I should believe that you prompted me, and that I

didn’t remember it of myself?”

 

“Don’t believe it then,” said the gentleman, smiling amicably,

“what’s the good of believing against your will? Besides, proofs are

no help to believing, especially material proofs. Thomas believed, not

because he saw Christ risen, but because he wanted to believe,

before he saw. Look at the spiritualists, for instance
. I am very

fond of them
 only fancy, they imagine that they are serving the

cause of religion, because the devils show them their horns from the

other world. That, they say, is a material proof, so to speak, of

the existence of another world. The other world and material proofs,

what next! And if you come to that, does proving there’s a devil prove

that there’s a God? I want to join an idealist society, I’ll lead

the opposition in it, I’ll say I am a realist, but not a

materialist, he he!”

 

“Listen,” Ivan suddenly got up from the table. “I seem to be

delirious
 I am delirious, in fact, talk any nonsense you like, I

don’t care! You won’t drive me to fury, as you did last time. But I

feel somehow ashamed
 I want to walk about the room
. I

sometimes don’t see you and don’t even hear your voice as I did last

time, but I always guess what you are prating, for it’s I, I myself

speaking, not you. Only I don’t know whether I was dreaming last

time or whether I really saw you. I’ll wet a towel and put it on my

head and perhaps you’ll vanish into air.”

 

Ivan went into the corner, took a towel, and did as he said, and

with a wet towel on his head began walking up and down the room.

 

“I am so glad you treat me so familiarly,” the visitor began.

 

“Fool,” laughed Ivan, “do you suppose I should stand on ceremony

with you? I am in good spirits now, though I’ve a pain in my

forehead
 and in the top of my head
 only please don’t talk

philosophy, as you did last time. If you can’t take yourself off, talk

of something amusing. Talk gossip, you are a poor relation, you

ought to talk

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