“Well, the only thing I can tell you is this,” said Smerdyakov, as though thinking better of it; “I am here as an old friend and neighbor, and it would be odd if I didn’t come. On the other hand, Ivan Fyodorovitch sent me first thing this morning to your brother’s lodging in Lake Street, without a letter, but with a message to Dmitri Fyodorovitch to go to dine with him at the restaurant here, in the market-place. I went, but didn’t find Dmitri Fyodorovitch at home, though it was eight o’clock. ‘He’s been here, but he is quite gone,’ those were the very words of his landlady. It’s as though there was an understanding between them. Perhaps at this moment he is in the restaurant with Ivan Fyodorovitch, for Ivan Fyodorovitch has not been home to dinner and Fyodor Pavlovitch dined alone an hour ago, and is gone to lie down. But I beg you most particularly not to speak of me and of what I have told you, for he’d kill me for nothing at all.” “Brother Ivan invited Dmitri to the restaurant to-day?” repeated Alyosha quickly. “That’s so.” “The Metropolis tavern in the market-place?” “The very same.” “That’s quite likely,” cried Alyosha, much excited. “Thank you, Smerdyakov; that’s important. I’ll go there at once.” “Don’t betray me,” Smerdyakov called after him. “Oh, no, I’ll go to the tavern as though by chance. Don’t be anxious.” “But wait a minute, I’ll open the gate to you,” cried Marya Kondratyevna. “No; it’s a short cut, I’ll get over the fence again.” What he had heard threw Alyosha into great agitation. He ran to the tavern. It was impossible for him to go into the tavern in his monastic dress, but he could inquire at the entrance for his brothers and call them down. But just as he reached the tavern, a window was flung open, and his brother Ivan called down to him from it. “Alyosha, can’t you come up here to me? I shall be awfully grateful.” “To be sure I can, only I don’t quite know whether in this dress—” “But I am in a room apart. Come up the steps; I’ll run down to meet you.” A minute later Alyosha was sitting beside his brother. Ivan was alone dining. Chapter III. The Brothers Make Friends Ivan was not, however, in a separate room, but only in a place shut off by a screen, so that it was unseen by other people in the room. It was the first room from the entrance with a buffet along the wall. Waiters were continually darting to and fro in it. The only customer in the room was an old retired military man drinking tea in a corner. But there was the usual bustle going on in the other rooms of the tavern; there were shouts for the waiters, the sound of popping corks, the click of billiard balls, the drone of the organ. Alyosha knew that Ivan did not usually visit this tavern and disliked taverns in general. So he must have come here, he reflected, simply to meet Dmitri by arrangement. Yet Dmitri was not there.