III. The Schoolboy

But Kolya was no longer listening. At last he could leave. Going out the gate, he looked around, twitched his little shoulders, and, saying “Frost!”, set off straight down the street and then right along a lane toward the market square. One house short of the square, he stopped at a gate, took a little whistle out of his pocket, and whistled with all his might, as if giving a prearranged signal. He did not have to wait more than a minute; a rosy-cheeked boy of about eleven suddenly darted out of the wicket gate toward him, he too dressed in a warm, neat, even smart little coat. This was the boy Smurov, who was in the preparatory class (whereas Kolya Krasotkin was already two classes higher), the son of a well-to-do official, and whose parents, it seems, did not allow him to associate with Krasotkin, as a most notorious desperate mischief-maker, so that Smurov had evidently slipped out on the sly just now. This Smurov, if the reader has not forgotten, was one of that group of boys who two months before had been throwing stones across the ditch at Ilyusha, and the one who had told Alyosha Karamazov about Ilyusha then.

“I have been waiting for you a whole hour already, Krasotkin,” Smurov said with a determined air, and the boys strode off toward the square.

“I’m late,” answered Krasotkin. “There are circumstances. Won’t they whip you for being with me?”

“Oh, come now, as if I am ever whipped! And is Perezvon with you?”

“Perezvon too!”

“You are taking him there too?”

“Him there too.”

“Ah, if only it were Zhuchka!”

“Zhuchka is impossible. Zhuchka does not exist. Zhuchka has vanished into the darkness of the unknown.”

“Ah, but could we not do this,” Smurov suddenly stopped short, “Ilyusha says, after all, that Zhuchka was shaggy too, and just as gray, smoky gray, as Perezvon—could we not say that this is the very same Zhuchka; perhaps he will believe it?”

“Schoolboy, abhor a lie, that’s one; even for a good cause, that’s two. And the main thing, I hope you haven’t announced anything there about my coming.”

“God forbid, I do understand that. But one will not comfort him with Perezvon,” Smurov sighed. “You know what: the father, the captain, the wisp of bast, told us he’d bring him a puppy today, a real mastiff, with a black nose; he thinks he’ll comfort Ilyusha with it, only I doubt it, don’t you?”

“And how is he himself, Ilyusha?”

“Ah, bad, bad! I think he has consumption. He’s quite clearheaded, only he breathes and breathes like this, he doesn’t breathe right. The other day he asked to be walked around a little; they put his little boots on him, he started to walk, and he just falls down. ‘Ah,’ he says, ‘I told you, Papa, my little boots are bad, the old ones, they were awkward to walk in even before.’ He thought it was because of the boots that he was falling down, but it’s simply from weakness. He won’t live a week. Herzenstube comes to see him. They’re rich again now, they have a lot of money.”

“Rogues.”

“Who are rogues?”

“Doctors, and the whole medical rabble, speaking generally, and of course in particular too. I reject medicine. A useless institution. However, I am investigating all that. But what is all this sentimentality you have going on there? I believe you’re all there, the whole class?”

“Not the whole class, just ten or so of our boys go there, always, every day. It’s nothing.”

“What surprises me in all this is the role of Alexei Karamazov: his brother is to be tried tomorrow or the day after for such a crime, and he has so much time for being sentimental with boys!”

“There’s no sentimentality in it at all. Here you are going now yourself to make up with Ilyusha.”

“To make up? A ridiculous expression. However, I allow no one to analyze my actions.”

“And how glad Ilyusha will be to see you! He has no idea you’re coming. Why, why didn’t you want to go for so long?” Smurov suddenly exclaimed with ardor.

“My dear boy, that is my business, not yours. I am going on my own, because such is my will, while all of you were dragged there by Alexei Karamazov, so there is a difference. And how do you know, maybe I’m not going to make up at all? A stupid expression.”

“It wasn’t Karamazov at all, not him at all. Our boys simply started going there by themselves, at first with Karamazov, of course. And there was nothing of that sort, no foolishness. First one, then another. His father was terribly glad to see us. You know, he’ll simply lose his mind if Ilyusha dies. He sees that Ilyusha is going to die. And how glad he is that we’ve made up with Ilyusha. Ilyusha asked about you, he didn’t add anything else. He asks and falls silent. And his father will lose his mind or hang himself. He behaved like a madman even before, you know. You know, he’s a noble man, and back then there was a mistake. It’s all the fault of that parricide, who beat him up that time.”

“All the same, Karamazov is a riddle to me. I could have made his acquaintance long ago, but in certain cases I like to be proud. Besides, I have formed a certain opinion of him which still has to be verified and cleared up.”

Kolya fell gravely silent; so did Smurov. Smurov, of course, worshipped Kolya Krasotkin and did not dare even to think of putting himself on a level with him. But now he was terribly interested, because Kolya had explained that he was going “on his own,” and so there must certainly be some riddle in Kolya suddenly taking it into his head to go now, and precisely today. They were walking across the market square, where this time many visitors’ carts were standing and much poultry had been brought in. The townswomen were selling bagels, thread, and so on under their awnings. Such Sunday gatherings are naively called fairs in our little town, and there are many such fairs in the year. Perezvon ran along in the merriest frame of mind, continually swerving off to the right and to the left to sniff at something somewhere. When he met other little dogs, he sniffed them over with extraordinary eagerness, by all the rules of dogs.

“I like to observe realism, Smurov,” Kolya suddenly began. “Have you noticed how dogs meet and sniff each other? There is some general law of nature among them in that.”

“Yes, a funny one somehow.”

“That is, not funny; you have that wrong. There is nothing funny in nature, whatever it may look like to man with his prejudices. If dogs were able to reason and to criticize, they would surely find just as much that was funny to them, if not much more, in the social relations among people, their masters—if not much more; I repeat that because I am firmly convinced that there is much more foolishness among us. That is Rakitin’s idea, a remarkable idea. I am a socialist, Smurov.”

“And what is a socialist?” asked Smurov.

“It’s when everyone is equal, everyone has property in common, there are no marriages, and religion and all the laws are as anyone likes, well, and all the rest of it. You haven’t grown up to that yet, it’s too early for you. It’s cold, though.”

“Yes. Twelve degrees. Father looked at the thermometer a while ago.”

“And have you noticed, Smurov, that in the middle of winter, if it’s fifteen or even eighteen degrees, it doesn’t seem as cold as, for instance, now, at the beginning of winter, when a frost suddenly strikes unexpectedly, as now, at twelve degrees, and especially when there’s little snow? That means people aren’t used to it yet. With people everything is habit, in everything, even in state and political relations. Habit is the main motive force. What a funny peasant, though.”

Kolya pointed at a tall peasant in a sheepskin coat, with a good-natured physiognomy, who was standing by his cart slapping his mittened palms together from the cold. His long, fair beard was all covered with hoarfrost.

“The peasant’s beard has frozen!” Kolya shouted loudly and provokingly as he passed him.

“Plenty have frozen,” the peasant said in reply, calmly and sententiously.

“Don’t provoke him,” Smurov remarked.

“It’s all right, he won’t get angry, he’s a good one. Goodbye, Matvei.”

“Goodbye.”

“So are you really Matvei?”

“Matvei. And you didn’t know?”

“I didn’t know; I said it at random.”

“Well, look at that. A schoolboy, I suppose?”

“A schoolboy.”

“And what, do they whip you?”

“Not exactly, but sort of.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It does at that!”

“Eh, what a life!” the peasant sighed from the bottom of his heart.

“Goodbye, Matvei.”

“Goodbye. You’re a nice lad, that’s what.”

The boys went on.

“That’s a good peasant,” Kolya said to Smurov. “I like to talk with the common people, and I’m always glad to do them justice.”

“Why did you lie to him that they flog us at school?” asked Smurov.

“Well, I had to console him, didn’t I?”

“With what?”

“You see, Smurov, I don’t like it when people ask again if they don’t understand at the first word. Some things simply can’t be explained. In the peasant’s idea a schoolboy is whipped and ought to be whipped: what sort of schoolboy is he, the peasant thinks, if he isn’t whipped? And suddenly I tell him that we aren’t whipped—why, that would upset him. However, you don’t understand that. One has to know how to talk to the common people.”

“Only please don’t provoke anybody, or there’ll be another to-do, like that time with the goose.”

“Are you afraid?”

“Don’t laugh, Kolya, by God, I am afraid. Father will be terribly angry. I’m strictly forbidden to go about with you.”

“Don’t worry, nothing will happen this time. Hello, Natasha,” he shouted to one of the market women under an awning.

“What sort of Natasha am I to you, I’m Marya,” the market woman, a woman still far from old, answered shrilly.

“It’s good that you’re Marya. Goodbye.”

“Ah, you little imp, hardly up off the ground, and already at it!”

“No time, no time for you, you’ll tell me next Sunday,” Kolya waved his hands as though it were she who was pestering him and not he her.

“And what am I supposed to tell you on Sunday? You pestered me yourself, it wasn’t me pestering you, you rascal,” Marya started shouting. “You want a whipping, that’s what, you’re a well-known offender, that’s what!”

Laughter broke out among the other market women selling at their stalls beside Marya, when suddenly, out of nowhere, from under the arcade of the town shops darted an irritated man, something like a merchant’s shop assistant, and not one of our tradesmen but from out of town, in a long-skirted blue caftan, in a peaked cap, still young, with dark-brown curls and a long, pale, slightly pockmarked face. He was in some sort of stupid agitation and at once began shaking his fist at Kolya.

“I know you,” he was exclaiming irritably, “I know you!”

Kolya looked at him intently. He somehow could not recall when he could have had any sort of skirmish with this man. But he had had so many skirmishes in the streets that it was impossible to recall them all.

“Do you?” he asked him ironically.

“I know you! I know you!” the townsman kept it up like a fool.

“So much the better for you. Well, I have no time, goodbye!”

“What are you up to your mischief for?” the townsman shouted. “You up to your mischief again? I know you! You up to your mischief again?”

“That, brother, is no business of yours now, whether I get up to mischief,” Kolya pronounced, stopping and continuing to look him over.

“How is it no business of mine?”

“Just so, it’s none of yours.”

“Whose is it, then? Whose? Well, whose?”

“That, brother, is now Trifon Nikitich’s business, not yours.”

“What Trifon Nikitich is that?” the fellow stared at Kolya with idiotic surprise, though still as worked up as before. Kolya measured him gravely with his eyes.

“Did you go to the Ascension?” he suddenly asked him sternly and insistently.

“What Ascension? What for? No, I didn’t go,” the fellow was a little taken aback.

“Do you know Sabaneyev?” Kolya went on, still more insistently and still more sternly.

“What Sabaneyev? No, I don’t know him.”

“Well, the devil take you after that!” Kolya suddenly snapped, and, turning sharply to the right, strode quickly off on his way, as though scorning even to talk with such a blockhead, who did not even know Sabaneyev.

“Hey, you, stop! What Sabaneyev?” the fellow came to his senses, all worked up again. “What was that he said?” he suddenly turned to the market women, looking at them stupidly.

The women burst out laughing.

“A tricky one, that boy,” said one.

“What, what Sabaneyev did he mean?” the fellow kept frantically repeating, waving his right hand.

“Why, it must be the Sabaneyev that worked for the Kuzmichevs, that’s who, must be,” one woman suddenly guessed.

The fellow stared at her wildly.

“Kuz-mi-chev?” another woman repeated. “But how is he a Trifon? That one’s Kuzma, not Trifon, and the boy called him Trifon Nikitych, so it’s not him.”

“See here, it’s not Trifon and not Sabaneyev, it’s Chizhov,” a third woman suddenly chimed in, who had been silent till now and listening seriously. “Alexei Ivanych is his name. Chizhov, Alexei Ivanovich.”

“That’s just it, it’s Chizhov,” a fourth woman insistently confirmed.

The flabbergasted fellow looked now at one, now at another.

“But why did he ask, what did he ask it for, good people?” he exclaimed, now almost in despair. “‘Do you know Sabaneyev?’ And the devil knows what kind of Sabaneyev he is!”

“You muddle-headed fellow, they’re telling you—not Sabaneyev but Chizhov, Alexei Ivanovich Chizhov, that’s who!” one market woman shouted at him impressively.

“What Chizhov? Well, what Chizhov? Tell me, if you know.”

“Why, the tall one, the snotty one, he sat in the market last summer.”

“And what the devil do I want with your Chizhov, good people, eh?”

“And how should I know what the devil you want with Chizhov?”

“And who knows what you want him for,” another took it up. “You ought to know yourself what you want him for, if you’re making such a racket. It was you he was talking to, not us, you stupid man. Or don’t you really know?”

“Know who?”

“Chizhov.”

“The devil take him, Chizhov, and you with him! I’ll give him a thrashing, that’s what! He was laughing at me!”

“You’ll thrash Chizhov, will you? More likely he’ll thrash you! You’re a fool, that’s what!”

“Not Chizhov, not Chizhov, you wicked, spiteful woman, I’ll thrash the boy, that’s what! Give him here, give him here to me, he was laughing at me!”

The women roared with laughter. But Kolya was already striding far away with a victorious expression on his face. Smurov walked beside him, looking back at the shouting group in the distance. He too was in very high spirits, though he was still afraid of getting into some to-do along with Kolya.

“What Sabaneyev did you ask him about?” he asked Kolya, anticipating the answer.

“How should I know what Sabaneyev? Now they’ll be shouting till evening. I like to stir up fools in all strata of society. And there stands another blockhead, that peasant there. Note that they say: ‘There is nothing stupider than a stupid Frenchman,’ but a Russian physiognomy gives itself away too. Well, isn’t it written on that one’s face that he’s a fool, that peasant there, eh?”

“Leave him alone, Kolya, let’s go past.”

“Not for anything will I leave him alone, I’m off and running now. Hey! Hello, peasant!”

A sturdy peasant who was slowly passing by and who must already have had a drink or two, with a round, simple face and a beard going gray, raised his head and looked at the lad.

“Well, hello, if you’re not joking,” he said unhurriedly in reply.

“And if I am joking?” Kolya laughed.

“If you’re joking, then joke, God be with you. It’s all right, that’s allowed. A joke is always allowed.”

“Sorry, brother, I was joking.”

“Well, God forgive you. And do you forgive?”

“I forgive you awful much. Go along.”

“Well, look at you, why, you may be a clever peasant at that.”

“Cleverer than you,” the peasant answered unexpectedly and as gravely as before.

“Hardly,” Kolya was somewhat taken aback.

“It’s true what I say.”

“Well, maybe it is so.”

“That’s it, brother.”

“Goodbye, peasant.”

“Goodbye.”

“There are all kinds of peasants,” Kolya remarked to Smurov after some silence. “How was I to know I’d run into a clever one? I’m always ready to recognize intelligence in the people.”

Far off, the cathedral clock struck half past eleven. The boys quickened their pace, and covered the rest of the way, still rather long, to the dwelling of Staff Captain Snegiryov quickly and almost without talking any more. Twenty paces short of the house Kolya halted and ordered Smurov to go ahead and call Karamazov out to him here.

“We have to sniff each other out first,” he remarked to Smurov.

“But why call him out?” Smurov started to object. “Go in anyway, they’ll be terribly glad to see you. Or what, are you going to get acquainted out here in the frost?”

“I know very well why I need him out here in the frost,” Kolya snapped despotically (which he terribly loved doing with these “little ones”), and Smurov ran to carry out the order.