Also known as his fall in the cellar, Smerdyakov is in a fit, an epileptic fit of extreme severity, epileptic attack.
Smerdyakov's illness reaches Dmitri as a report from the servants near Fyodor Pavlovitch's house. He has fallen in the cellar in an epileptic fit, the doctor has been called, and the household is thrown out of its usual order. For Dmitri, the news is immediately practical and alarming because Smerdyakov can no longer act as his watcher or messenger.
IX-V. The Third Ordeal
The officials tell Dmitri that Smerdyakov has been found unconscious in repeated severe fits and may not survive the night. The illness appears to place him outside the direct action of the murder night.
XI-VI. The First Interview With Smerdyakov
Ivan questions whether the cellar fall could have been staged, but the doctors call the attack unmistakably genuine. Smerdyakov explains the fit as brought on by fear and by his own apprehension that it was coming.
XI-VIII. The Third And Last Interview With Smerdyakov
In Smerdyakov's confession, he tells Ivan that the cellar fit was feigned, while the violent attack afterward was real. The illness becomes both his cover and a bodily collapse that follows the crime.
XII-VIII. A Treatise On Smerdyakov
The prosecutor defends the illness as natural and treats the charge of shamming as implausible. His account makes Smerdyakov's fit a cornerstone of the argument against Dmitri.
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