V. At Ilyusha’s Bedside

In the room already familiar to us, where the family of the retired staff captain Snegiryov, known to us, lived, it was at this minute both stuffy and crowded with the numerous public that had gathered. Several boys were sitting with Ilyusha this time, and though all of them were ready, like Smurov, to deny that it was Alyosha who had reconciled them with Ilyusha and brought them together, it was so. All his art in this case had consisted in bringing them together with Ilyusha one after another, without “calf’s tenderness,” but quite as if not on purpose and by chance. And this had brought Ilyusha enormous relief in his sufferings. Seeing the almost tender friendship and sympathy toward him of all these boys, his former enemies, he was very much touched. Only Krasotkin was missing, and this lay on his heart like a terrible weight. If there was anything bitterest of all in Ilyushechka’s bitter memories, it was precisely this whole episode with Krasotkin, who had been his only friend and defender, and at whom he had rushed with the penknife that time. So thought the clever little boy Smurov too (the first who had come to make up with Ilyusha). But Krasotkin himself, when Smurov had told him in a distant way that Alyosha wanted to come to see him “about a certain matter,” at once cut him short and blocked the approach, charging Smurov to inform “Karamazov” immediately that he knew himself how to act, that he asked no one’s advice, and that if he went to see the sick boy, he knew himself when to go, because he had “his own calculation.” This was some two weeks before this Sunday. That was why Alyosha had not gone to see him himself, as he had intended. However, although he waited, he did nevertheless send Smurov to Krasotkin once more, and then once more. But both these times Krasotkin answered with the most impatient and sharp refusal, sending word to Alyosha that if he came for him himself, then for that very reason he would never go to Ilyusha, and that they were to stop pestering him. Even up to this very last day Smurov himself did not know that Kolya had decided to set off to see Ilyusha this morning, and only the evening before, as he was parting from Smurov, Kolya had suddenly and sharply announced to him that he was to wait for him at home tomorrow morning, because he would go with him to the Snegiryovs’, but that he was not to dare, however, to tell anyone of his coming, since he wanted to arrive unexpectedly. Smurov obeyed. As for the dream that he would bring the lost Zhuchka, it had arisen in Smurov on the strength of some words Krasotkin had once let drop in passing, that “they’re all asses if they can’t find a dog, if only she is alive.” But when Smurov timidly, having waited for the right moment, hinted to Krasotkin at his guess about the dog, the latter suddenly got terribly angry: “What sort of ass am I, to go looking for other people’s dogs all over town, when I have my own Perezvon? And can one dream that a dog that has swallowed a pin could stay alive? Calf’s tenderness, nothing more!”

Meanwhile for some two weeks Ilyusha had hardly left his little bed in the corner by the icons. He had not gone to his classes since the very time when he had met Alyosha and bitten his finger. However, he had fallen ill from that very day, though for a month or so he had still been able somehow to walk now and then about the room and in the entryway, getting up from his little bed once in a while. At last he grew quite exhausted, so that he could not move without his father’s help. His father trembled over him; he had even stopped drinking altogether; he had almost gone out of his mind with fear that his boy would die, and often, especially after he had walked him about the room on his arm and put him back in his little bed—he would suddenly run out into the entryway, into a dark corner, and, leaning his forehead against the wall, would begin to sob with a sort of pealing, shaking weeping, stifling his voice so that his sobs could not be heard by Ilyushechka.

And coming back into the room, he would usually begin to amuse and comfort his dear boy with something, telling him fairy tales, funny anecdotes, or mimicking various funny people he had happened to meet, even imitating animals and the funny way they howl or cry. But Ilyusha very much disliked it when his father played the fool and made a buffoon of himself. Though the boy tried not to show that it was unpleasant to him, he realized with an aching heart that his father was humiliated in society, and always, unrelentingly, remembered the “wisp of bast” and that “terrible day.” Ninochka, Ilyushechka’s legless, quiet, and meek sister, also disliked it when her father played the fool (as for Varvara Nikolaevna, she had long since gone off to Petersburg to attend courses), but on the other hand the half-witted mamma was greatly amused and laughed with all her heart whenever her spouse began to mimic something or make some funny gestures. That was the only way she could be comforted; all the rest of the time she grumbled and complained continually that now everyone had forgotten her, that nobody respected her, that she was being wronged, and so on, and so on. But in the very last days she too seemed suddenly to have changed completely. She began often to look into the corner at Ilyusha and grew pensive. She became much more silent, grew quiet, and if she started to cry, she cried quietly, so that she would not be heard. The staff captain noticed this change in her with bitter bewilderment. At first the boys’ visits did not please her and only made her angry, but then the children’s merry shouts and stories began to amuse her too, and in the end she liked them so much that if those boys had stopped coming she would have grieved terribly. When the children told something or started to play, she laughed and clapped her hands. Some of them she would call over to her and kiss. She grew especially fond of the boy Smurov. As for the staff captain, the appearance in his lodging of the children who came to cheer up Ilyusha filled his soul from the very beginning with rapturous joy and even with the hope that Ilyusha would stop grieving now and perhaps would get well sooner because of it. Not for one minute, until the very last, did he doubt, in spite of all his fear for Ilyusha, that his boy would suddenly get well. He received the little guests with reverence, hovered around them, waited on them, was ready to give them rides on his back, and actually started giving them rides, but Ilyusha did not like these games, and they were given up. He began buying treats for them, little gingerbreads, nuts; he arranged tea, he spread sandwiches. It must be noted that all this time he never ran short of money. Those two hundred rubles from Katerina Ivanovna he had accepted just exactly as Alyosha had predicted. And then Katerina Ivanovna, having found out in more detail about their circumstances and about Ilyusha’s illness, visited their lodging herself, made the acquaintance of the whole family, and even managed to charm the half-witted wife of the staff captain. Since then her hand had never grown scant, while the staff captain himself, crushed with horror at the thought that his boy would die, had forgotten his former pride and humbly accepted alms. All this time Doctor Herzenstube, at Katerina Ivanovna’s invitation, had been coming regularly and punctually every other day to see the sick boy, but little good came of his visits, though he dosed him with medicines terribly. But on this day, that is, on this Sunday morning, they were expecting at the staff captain’s a certain new doctor, who had come from Moscow and was considered a celebrity in Moscow. Katerina Ivanovna had sent for him specially and invited him from Moscow for a great deal of money—not for Ilyushechka, but for a certain other purpose, of which more will be said below and in its proper place; but since he had come, she had asked him to visit Ilyushechka as well, of which the staff captain had been informed in advance. Of Kolya Krasotkin’s coming, however, he had no presentiment, though he had long wished that this boy, over whom his Ilyushechka was suffering so, would come at last. At the very moment when Krasotkin opened the door and appeared in the room, all of them, the staff captain and the boys, were crowded around the sick boy’s little bed, examining a tiny mastiff puppy that had just been brought, born only the day before, but ordered by the staff captain a week ago to amuse and comfort Ilyushechka, who was still grieving over the vanished and, of course, already perished Zhuchka. But Ilyusha, who had already heard three days before and known that he would be given a little dog, and not a plain one but a real mastiff (which, of course, was terribly important), though he showed out of a fine and delicate feeling that he was glad of the present, yet everyone, his father and the boys, saw clearly that the new little dog had perhaps only stirred still more strongly in his little heart the memory of the unhappy Zhuchka, whom he had tortured to death. The puppy lay and squirmed beside him, and he, smiling painfully, stroked it with his thin, pale, wasted little hand; one could even see that he liked the little dog, but… all the same there was no Zhuchka, all the same this was not Zhuchka, and now if only there could be Zhuchka and the puppy together, then there would be complete happiness!

“Krasotkin!” one of the boys, the first to catch sight of Kolya as he came in, suddenly shouted. There was visible excitement; the boys moved apart and stood on both sides of the little bed, so that suddenly the whole of Ilyushechka came into view. The staff captain rushed impetuously to meet Kolya.

“Welcome, welcome… dear guest!” he babbled to him. “Ilyushechka, Mr. Krasotkin has come to see you…”

But Krasotkin, hastily giving him his hand, instantly displayed his extraordinary knowledge of the proprieties of society as well. At once, and before anything else, he turned to the staff captain’s spouse, who was sitting in her armchair (and who just at that moment was terribly displeased and grumbling because the boys were blocking Ilyusha’s little bed and would not let her look at the new little dog), and with extraordinary politeness scraped his foot before her, and then, turning to Ninochka, made her too, as a lady, the same bow. This polite act made an unusually pleasant impression on the sick lady.

“There, you can see at once a well-brought-up young man,” she pronounced loudly, spreading her hands, “but as for our other guests: they come riding in one on top of another.”

“How’s that, Mama dear, one on top of another, how do you mean?” the staff captain babbled, affectionately but a little apprehensive about “Mama dear.”

“That’s how they ride in. One sits on another’s shoulders in the entryway, astride, and rides into a noble family like that, sitting astride. What sort of guest is that?”

“But who, who, Mama dear, rode in like that, who?”

“Why, this boy rode in on this boy today, and that one on that one…”

But Kolya was already standing by Ilyusha’s little bed. The sick boy turned visibly pale. He raised himself a little in his little bed and looked at Kolya intently, intently. Kolya had not seen his former little friend for some two months, and he suddenly stopped before him quite stunned: he could never have imagined that he would see such a thin and yellowed little face, such eyes burning in feverish heat and seemingly grown terribly large, such thin little hands. With sorrowful surprise he peered at how deeply and rapidly Ilyusha was breathing and how parched his lips were. He stepped up to him, gave him his hand, and, almost completely at a loss, said:

“Well, old man… how are you getting on?”

But his voice broke off, his free and easy manner failed him, his face somehow suddenly twitched, and something quivered near his lips. Ilyusha was smiling at him painfully, still unable to say a word. Kolya suddenly raised his hand and for some reason passed his palm over Ilyusha’s hair.

“Ne-ver mind!” he babbled to him quietly, either to encourage him or not knowing himself why he said it. For a little minute they were silent again.

“What’s that you’ve got, a new puppy?” Kolya suddenly asked in the most unfeeling voice.

“Ye-e-es!” Ilyusha answered in a long whisper, gasping.

“A black nose means he’s one of the fierce ones, a watchdog,” Kolya remarked gravely and firmly, as if the whole matter lay precisely in the puppy and its black nose. But the main thing was that he was still trying with all his might to overcome the feeling in himself so as not to cry like a “little one,” and still could not overcome it. “When he grows up, you’ll have to put him on a chain, I know that.”

“He’ll be huge!” exclaimed one boy in the crowd.

“Of course, a mastiff, huge, this big, the size of a calf,” several little voices were suddenly heard.

“The size of a calf, a real calf, sir,” the staff captain sprang forward. “I found one like that on purpose, the very, very fiercest, and his parents are huge too and the very fiercest, this tall from the floor… Sit down, sir, here on Ilyusha’s little bed, or else here on the bench. You are most welcome, dear guest, long-awaited guest… Did you deign to come with Alexei Fyodorovich, sir?”

Krasotkin sat down on the little bed, at Ilyusha’s feet. Though he had perhaps prepared on the way how to begin the conversation in a free and easy manner, now he had decidedly lost the thread.

“No… I came with Perezvon… I have a dog like that now, Perezvon. A Slavic name. He’s waiting out there… I’ll whistle, and he’ll fly in. I’ve got a dog too,” he suddenly turned to Ilyusha. “Do you remember Zhuchka, old man?” he suddenly struck him with the question.

Ilyushechka’s little face twisted. He looked at Kolya in anguish. Alyosha, who was standing by the door, frowned and nodded to Kolya on the sly, so that he would not start talking about Zhuchka, but Kolya did not notice or did not want to notice.

“Where is… Zhuchka?” Ilyusha asked in a strained little voice.

“Well, brother, your Zhuchka—whew! Your Zhuchka is gone!”

Ilyusha said nothing, but looked intently, intently at Kolya once more. Alyosha, catching Kolya’s eye, again began nodding at him with all his might, but Kolya again looked away, pretending that this time too he had not noticed.

“She ran off somewhere and was lost. How could she not be lost after a snack like that,” Kolya cut away pitilessly, and meanwhile he himself seemed to be gasping from something. “But I’ve got Perezvon instead… A Slavic name… I’ve brought him to you…”

“I don’t wa-ant him!” Ilyushechka suddenly said.

“No, no, you do, you absolutely must look at him… It’ll cheer you up. I brought him on purpose… he’s shaggy just like that one… Will you allow me, madam, to call my dog in here?” he suddenly turned to Mrs. Snegiryova in some now utterly incomprehensible agitation.

“I don’t want him, I don’t want him!” Ilyusha exclaimed with a sorrowful strain in his voice. Reproach blazed up in his eyes.

“You might, sir…” the staff captain suddenly started up from the chest by the wall on which he had sat down, “you might, sir… some other time, sir…” he babbled, but Kolya, irrepressibly insisting and hurrying, suddenly shouted to Smurov: “Smurov, open the door!”—and the moment he opened it, blew on his little whistle. Perezvon flew impetuously into the room.

“Jump, Perezvon, beg! Beg!” Kolya yelled, leaping up from his place, and the dog, standing up on its hind legs, drew itself up straight in front of Ilyusha’s little bed. Something happened that no one expected: Ilyusha gave a start and suddenly moved his whole body forcefully forward, bent toward Perezvon, and, as though his heart had stopped, gazed at him.

“It’s… Zhuchka!” he suddenly cried out in a little voice cracked with suffering and happiness.

“And who did you think?” Krasotkin yelled with all his might in a ringing, happy voice, and, bending down to the dog, he seized it in his arms and lifted it up to Ilyusha.

“Look, old man, you see, his eye is blind and his left ear is slit, exactly the marks you told me about. It was by those marks that I found him! I found him back then, soon after. She didn’t belong to anybody, you know, she didn’t belong to anybody!” he explained, turning quickly to the staff captain, to his spouse, to Alyosha, and then again to Ilyusha. “She was in the Fedotovs’ back yard, she’d settled in there, but they didn’t feed her, and she’s a runaway, she’s run away from some village… So I found her… You see, old man, that means she didn’t swallow your piece that time. If she had swallowed it, she would certainly have died, why, certainly! So she must have managed to spit it out, if she’s alive now. And you didn’t notice that she spat it out. She spat it out, but she pricked her tongue all the same, that’s why she squealed then. She ran and squealed, and you thought she had swallowed it altogether. She must have squealed a lot, because a dog has very tender skin in its mouth… more tender than a man’s, much more tender!” Kolya exclaimed frantically, his face flushed and shining with rapture.

But Ilyusha could not even speak. He was looking at Kolya with his big and somehow terribly bulging eyes, his mouth open, white as a sheet. And if only Krasotkin, who suspected nothing, had known how tormentingly and murderously such a minute could affect the sick boy’s health, he would never have ventured to pull such a trick as he pulled. But in the room perhaps only Alyosha understood this. As for the staff captain, he seemed to have turned entirely into the littlest of boys.

“Zhuchka! So this is Zhuchka?” he kept crying out in a blissful voice. “Ilyushechka, why, it’s Zhuchka, your Zhuchka! Mamma, why, it’s Zhuchka!” He was almost crying.

“And I never guessed!” Smurov exclaimed ruefully. “Hurrah for Krasotkin, I said he’d find Zhuchka, and he did find her!”

“And he did find her!” someone else responded joyfully.

“Good for Krasotkin!” a third little voice rang out.

“Good for him, good for him!” all the boys shouted and began to applaud.

“But wait, wait,” Krasotkin strained to outshout them all, “I’ll tell you how it was, the trick is in how it was, and not in anything else! I found him, you see, dragged him home, and hid him at once, and the house under lock and key, and didn’t show him to anyone until the very last day. Only Smurov found out two weeks ago, but I assured him that this was Perezvon, and he didn’t guess, and in the interval I taught Zhuchka all the sciences; just look, look what tricks he knows! That’s why I taught him, so as to bring him to you, old man, trained and sleek: here, old man, I’d say, look what your Zhuchka is like now! Haven’t you got some little piece of beef? He’ll show you one trick right away that will make you fall down laughing—a bit of beef, a little piece, now surely you’ve got some?”

The staff captain dashed impetuously across the entryway into the landlords’ cottage, where the staff captain’s food was cooked too. And Kolya, so as not to lose precious time, in a desperate hurry shouted to Perezvon: “Die!” And the dog suddenly spun around, lay on his back, and froze motionless with all four of his little paws in the air. The boys laughed, Ilyusha looked on with the same suffering smile as before, but the one who liked it best of all that Perezvon died was “mamma.” She burst out laughing at the dog and began snapping her fingers and calling:

“Perezvon, Perezvon!”

“Not for anything will he get up, not for anything,” Kolya shouted triumphantly and with just pride, “though the whole world shouts at him, but just let me shout, and he’ll jump up in an instant! Ici, Perezvon!”

The dog leaped up and began to jump about, squealing with joy. The staff captain ran in with a piece of boiled beef.

“It’s not hot?” Kolya inquired hurriedly and in a businesslike way, taking the piece. “No, it’s not hot, or else dogs don’t like hot things. Now everybody look, Ilyushechka, look, now do look, look, old man, why aren’t you looking? I brought him, and he’s not looking!”

The new trick consisted in placing a tasty little piece of beef right on the nose of the dog, who stood motionless with his nose stretched out. The unhappy dog had to stand without stirring, with the piece on his nose, as long as his master ordered, not move, not twitch, even for half an hour. But Perezvon was kept like that only for the very shortest little minute.

“Take it!” Kolya shouted, and in an instant the piece flew from Perezvon’s nose into his mouth. The public, of course, expressed rapturous amazement.

“And is it really, really just for the sake of training the dog that you stayed away all this time!” Alyosha exclaimed with involuntary reproach.

“Precisely for that,” Kolya shouted in the most simplehearted way. “I wanted to show him in all his glory!”

“Perezvon! Perezvon!” Ilyusha suddenly began snapping his thin little fingers, beckoning the dog.

“What are you doing that for! Let him jump up on the bed to you himself. Ici, Perezvon!” Kolya slapped the bed with his palm, and Perezvon flew up to Ilyusha like an arrow. Ilyusha impetuously threw both arms around his head, and Perezvon instantly licked his cheek for it. Ilyushechka pressed close to him, stretched out on his little bed, and hid his face from everyone in the dog’s shaggy coat.

“Lord, Lord!” the staff captain kept exclaiming.

Kolya sat down on the bed by Ilyusha again.

“Ilyusha, I can show you one more thing. I’ve brought you a little cannon. Remember, I told you about this little cannon back then, and you said: ‘Ah, if only I could see it too!’ Well, here, now I’ve brought it.”

And Kolya, hurrying, pulled his bronze cannon out of his satchel. He was hurrying because he himself was by now very happy: at another time he would have waited until the effect produced by Perezvon had passed, but now he hurried, scorning all restraint: “You’re happy as it is, so here’s more happiness for you!” He himself was quite intoxicated by now.

“I had my eye on this little thing at the official Morozov’s a long time ago—for you, old man, for you. It was standing at his place for nothing, it came to him from his brother, and I traded him a book for it, from Papa’s bookcase: Mahomet’s Kinsman, or Healing Folly. The book is a hundred years old, a rakish one, it came out in Moscow when there was no censorship yet, and Morozov is a great one for such things. He even thanked me…”

Kolya held the little cannon in his hand before everyone, so that all could see it and delight in it. Ilyusha raised himself and, still embracing Perezvon with his right arm, gazed at the toy with delight. The effect rose to a high degree when Kolya announced that he had gunpowder too and that the cannon could be fired right now, “if only it won’t disturb the ladies.” “Mamma” at once asked to be allowed to look at the toy closer, which was immediately done. She liked the bronze cannon on little wheels terribly, and she began rolling it about on her knees. To the request for permission to fire it she answered with the fullest consent, not understanding, however, what she was being asked. Kolya showed the powder and the shot. The staff captain, as a former military man, saw to the loading himself, pouring in the very smallest portion of powder, but asking that the shot be put off until another time. They set the cannon on the floor, its muzzle toward an empty spot, pressed three grains of powder into the touchhole, and lit it with a match. A most splendid shot rang out. Mamma gave a start, but at once laughed with joy. The boys looked on in silent triumph, but the most blissful of all, looking at Ilyusha, was the staff captain. Kolya picked up the little cannon and at once presented it to Ilyusha, together with the shot and the powder.

“This is for you, for you! I got it ready long ago,” he repeated once more, in the fullness of his happiness.

“Ah, give it to me! No, give the little cannon to me instead!” mamma suddenly began begging, just like a little girl. Her face expressed a sorrowful anxiety for fear she would not be given it. Kolya was embarrassed. The staff captain grew uneasy and agitated.

“Mama dear, Mama dear!” he sprang up to her. “The little cannon is yours, yours, but let Ilyusha keep it, because it was given to him, but it’s just the same as yours, Ilyushechka will always let you play with it, let it belong to the two of you, to both of you…”

“No, I don’t want it to belong to both, no, I want it to be all mine, and not Ilyusha’s,” mamma went on, now getting ready to cry in earnest.

“Mama, take it, here, take it!” Ilyusha suddenly cried. “Krasotkin, may I give it to Mama?” he suddenly turned to Krasotkin with an imploring look, as if afraid that he would be offended at his giving his present to someone else.

“Perfectly possible!” Krasotkin at once agreed, and, taking the little cannon from Ilyusha’s hands, himself handed it with the most polite bow to mamma. She even burst into tears of tenderness.

“Ilyushechka, darling, there’s one who loves his mama!” she exclaimed tenderly, and at once began rolling the cannon about on her knees again.

“Mamma, let me kiss your hand,” her spouse sprang up to her, and at once carried out his intention.

“And who else is the nicest young man, why, it’s this kind boy!” said the grateful lady, pointing at Krasotkin.

“And as for powder, Ilyusha, I’ll bring you as much as you like now. We make powder ourselves now. Borovikov found out the composition: twenty-four parts saltpeter, ten of sulfur, and six of birch charcoal; pound it all together, pour in water, mix it into a paste, and rub it through a drumskin—and there’s your powder.”

“Smurov already told me about your powder, only Papa says it’s not real powder,” Ilyusha responded.

“How is it not real?” Kolya flushed. “Ours burns. However, I don’t know…”

“No, sir, I didn’t mean anything, sir,” the staff captain suddenly sprang up with a guilty look. “I did say, it’s true, that real powder isn’t made like that, but it doesn’t matter, sir, it can be done that way too, sir.”

“I don’t know, you know better. We lit it in a stone pomade jar, it burned splendidly, it all burned up, only the tiniest bit of soot was left. But that was only the paste, and if you rub it through a skin… But then, you know better, I don’t know… And Bulkin’s father gave him a thrashing on account of our powder, did you hear?” he suddenly turned to Ilyusha.

“I heard,” answered Ilyusha. He was listening to Kolya with infinite interest and delight.

“We had got a whole bottle of powder ready, and he kept it under his bed. His father saw it. It might blow up, he says. And he flogged him right there and then. He wanted to complain about me to the gymnasium. Now they don’t let him go about with me, now they don’t let anybody go about with me. They don’t let Smurov either; I’ve become famous with everybody; they say I’m ‘a desperate one,’” Kolya grinned contemptuously. “It all started here with that business on the railway.”

“Ah, we have heard about that adventure of yours too!” the staff captain exclaimed. “How did you lie there? And were you really not frightened at all when you were lying under the train? Were you scared, sir?”

The staff captain was fawning terribly before Kolya.

“N-not especially!” Kolya responded carelessly. “What damaged my reputation here most of all was that damned goose,” he turned to Ilyusha again. But though he put on a careless air as he talked, he still could not get control of himself and kept somehow slipping off key.

“Ah, I heard about the goose too!” Ilyusha laughed, all beaming. “They told me, but I didn’t understand. Were you really tried before the judge?”

“The most brainless business, the most trivial, out of which, as usual here, they made a whole elephant,” Kolya began in a free and easy manner. “I was walking across the square here one time, and they had just driven in some geese. I stopped and looked at the geese. Suddenly a local fellow, Vishnyakov, he works as an errand boy at the Plotnikovs’ now, looks at me and says: ‘What are you looking at the geese for?’ I look at him: a stupid, round mug, the fellow is twenty years old; I, you know, never reject the people. I like being with the people… We have fallen behind the people—that is an axiom—you seem to be laughing, Karamazov?”

“No, God forbid, I am listening to you closely,” Alyosha responded with the most simplehearted air, and the suspicious Kolya instantly took heart.

“My theory, Karamazov, is clear and simple,” he at once hurried on joyfully again. “I believe in the people and am always glad to do them justice, but without spoiling them in the least, that is sine qua… Yes, but I was talking about the goose. So I turn to this fool and answer him: ‘Why, I’m thinking about what the goose is thinking about.’ He looks at me completely stupidly: ‘And what,’ he says, ‘is the goose thinking about?’ ‘Why, you see,’ I say, ‘there’s a cart standing there with oats. The oats are spilling out of the sack, and the goose has stretched its neck right under the wheel and is pecking at the grain—do you see?’ ‘That I see awful well,’ he says. ‘Well, then,’ I say, ‘if that very cart were moved forward just a tiny bit now—would the wheel cut the goose’s neck or not?’ ‘It’d cut it for sure,’ he says, and he’s already grinning all over his face, he’s simply melted. ‘Well, come on, then, lad,’ I say, ‘let’s go.’ ‘Let’s go,’ he says. And we didn’t have to contrive for long: he stood unnoticed, sort of, by the bridle, and I to one side, to steer the goose. And the peasant just then was gaping, talking with someone, so that I didn’t have to steer at all: the goose stretched out its neck all by itself after the oats, under the cart, right under the wheel. I winked at the fellow, he gave a tug, and—c-crack, the wheel went right over the goose’s neck and cut it in half! And as luck would have it, at that very second all the peasants saw us, and they all started shouting at once: ‘You did that on purpose!’ ‘No, not on purpose.’ ‘Yes, on purpose!’ Well, they shout: ‘To the justice of the peace!’ They grabbed me too: ‘You were in on it too, you helped, the whole market knows you!’ And for some reason the whole market really does know me,” Kolya added vaingloriously. “We all trooped off to the justice of the peace, and they carry the goose along too. I look, and my fellow has lost his nerve and started bawling, really, bawling like a woman. And the drover shouts: ‘In that fashion you could crush as many of them geese as you like!’ Well, there were witnesses, of course. The justice of the peace finished it in a moment: the fellow was to pay the drover a ruble for the goose, and let him take the goose for himself. And from now on such jokes were by no means to be permitted. And the fellow keeps bawling like a woman: ‘It wasn’t me,’ he says, ‘it was him that put me up to it,’ and he points at me. I answer with complete coolness that I did not teach him at all, that I only expressed the fundamental idea and spoke merely of a project. The justice of the peace, Nefedov, grinned, and then got angry at himself at once for having grinned: ‘I shall report you to your authorities at once,’ he says to me, ‘so that in future you do not go in for such projects, instead of sitting over your books and learning your lessons.’ He didn’t report me to the authorities, that was a joke, but the matter really did get about and reached the ears of the authorities: ears are long here, you know! The classics master Kolbasnikov especially rose up against me, but Dardanelov stood up for me again. And Kolbasnikov is now as mad at everybody here as a green donkey. Did you hear, Ilyusha, he got married, he took a dowry of a thousand rubles from the Mikhailovs, and the bride is a face-twister of the first water and the last degree. The third-year boys at once composed an epigram:

“The news has stunned the third-year boys,
That Kolbasnikov the slob has wed.

“Well, and so on, very funny, I’ll bring it to you later. I don’t say anything about Dardanelov: a man of learning, of decided learning. I respect that sort, and not at all because he stood up for me…”

“But you did trip him up over who founded Troy!” Smurov suddenly slipped in, decidedly proud of Krasotkin at that moment. He had liked the story about the goose very much.

“Did you really trip him up, sir?” the staff captain chimed in flatteringly. “That’s about who founded Troy, sir? We’ve heard already that you tripped him up, sir. Ilyushechka told me about it at the time, sir…”

“He knows everything, Papa, he knows better than anybody here!” Ilyushechka chimed in too. “He only pretends to be like that, but he’s the top pupil in our school in every subject…”

Ilyusha was looking at Kolya with boundless happiness.

“Well, that about Troy is nonsense, a trifle. I consider the question an empty one myself,” Kolya responded with proud modesty. He had already managed to strike the right tone completely, though he was, however, also somewhat uneasy: he felt that he was very excited and that, for instance, he had told about the goose much too wholeheartedly, while Alyosha had been silent the whole time he was telling it, and serious, and so the proud boy was little by little beginning to feel a scratching at his heart: “Isn’t he silent, maybe, because he despises me, thinking I’m seeking his praise? In that case, if he dares to think that, then I…”

“I consider the question decidedly an empty one,” he snapped once more, proudly.

“And I know who founded Troy,” a boy who until then had said almost nothing suddenly spoke up quite unexpectedly, a silent and evidently shy boy, very good-looking, about eleven years old, by the name of Kartashov. He was sitting right by the door. Kolya looked at him with surprise and importance. The point was that the question “Who precisely founded Troy?” had decidedly turned into a secret in all the classes, and to penetrate it one had to read Smaragdov. But nobody except Kolya had Smaragdov. And so one time the boy Kartashov, on the quiet, when Kolya had turned away, had quickly opened the Smaragdov lying among his books and had come straight upon the place where it spoke of the founders of Troy. This had happened rather a long time ago, but he had somehow kept feeling embarrassed and had not ventured to reveal publicly that he too knew who founded Troy, for fear that something might come of it and that Kolya might somehow put him to shame for it. But now suddenly, for some reason, he could not hold back and said it. And he had long been wanting to.

“Well, who did found it?” Kolya turned to him haughtily and loftily, already guessing from his face that he really did know, and, of course, at once preparing himself for all the consequences. A dissonance, as they say, came into the general mood.

“Troy was founded by Teucer, Dardanus, Ilus, and Tros,” the boy rapped out all at once, and in an instant he blushed all over, blushed so that it was pitiful to look at him. But all the boys stared at him point-blank, stared for a whole minute, and then suddenly all those point-blank staring eyes turned all at once to Kolya. Kolya, with contemptuous coolness, was still measuring the impudent boy with his eyes.

“That is, how exactly did they found it?” he deigned to say at last. “And what does it mean, in general, to found a city or a state? What did they do: come and each lay a brick, or what?”

There was laughter. The guilty boy turned from pink to crimson. He was silent, he was ready to cry. Kolya kept him like that a little minute longer.

“To discuss such historical events as the founding of a nationality, one must first of all understand what that means,” he rapped out sternly, for edification. “However, I attach no importance to all these old wives’ tales, and in general I do not much respect world history,” he suddenly added carelessly, now addressing everyone in general.

“World history, sir?” the staff captain inquired with a sort of sudden alarm.

“Yes, world history. The study of a series of human follies, and nothing more. I respect only mathematics and the natural sciences,” Kolya showed off, and glanced fleetingly at Alyosha: his was the only opinion he feared here. But Alyosha was still silent and as serious as before. If Alyosha had said something now, that would have been the end of it, but Alyosha kept silent, and “his silence might be contemptuous,” and Kolya grew thoroughly irritated.

“And then there are these classical languages we have now: sheer madness, and nothing more… You don’t seem to agree with me again, Karamazov?”

“I don’t agree,” Alyosha smiled with restraint.

“The classical languages, if you want my whole opinion of them, are a police measure, that is the only reason they have been introduced,” Kolya, little by little, suddenly began to gasp for breath again. “They have been introduced because they are boring and because they dull the faculties. It was boring, so how could things be made still more boring? It was muddle-headed, so how could it be made still more muddle-headed? And so they invented the classical languages. That is my complete opinion of them, and I hope that I will never change it,” Kolya finished sharply. On each of his cheeks a red spot of color appeared.

“That’s true,” Smurov, who had been listening diligently, suddenly agreed in a ringing and convinced little voice.

“And he’s top in Latin himself!” one boy suddenly shouted from the crowd.

“Yes, Papa, he says that, but he’s top in Latin in our class himself,” Ilyusha responded too.

“What of it?” Kolya thought it necessary to defend himself, though the praise was very pleasant to him too. “I cram Latin because I must, because I promised my mother to finish the course, and in my opinion, whatever you take up, you should do well, but in my soul I deeply despise classicism and all that vileness… You don’t agree, Karamazov?”

“But why ‘vileness’?” Alyosha smiled again.

“But good heavens, the classics have all been translated into every language, so they didn’t need Latin at all for the study of the classics, but solely as a police measure and to dull the faculties. How is that not vileness, then?”

“But who taught you all this?” Alyosha exclaimed, surprised at last.

“In the first place, I can understand things myself, without being taught, and in the second, let me tell you, this very thing I have just been explaining to you about the translated classics was said aloud to the whole third class by the teacher Kolbasnikov himself…”

“The doctor has come!” Ninochka, who had been silent all the time, suddenly exclaimed.

In fact, the carriage belonging to Mrs. Khokhlakova had driven up to the gate of the house. The staff captain, who had been waiting for the doctor all morning, rushed headlong to the gate to meet him. Mamma pulled herself together and assumed an air of importance. Alyosha went over to Ilyusha and began straightening his pillow. Ninochka, from her armchair, watched anxiously as he straightened the little bed. The boys hurriedly began to take their leave; some of them promised to drop in in the evening. Kolya called Perezvon, and the dog jumped down from the bed.

“I won’t leave, I won’t leave!” Kolya said hurriedly to Ilyusha. “I’ll wait in the entryway and come back again when the doctor has gone, I’ll come with Perezvon.”

But the doctor was already coming in—an imposing figure in a bearskin coat, with long dark side-whiskers and a glossily shaven chin. Stepping across the threshold, he suddenly stopped as if taken aback: it must have seemed to him that he had come to the wrong place. “What is this? Where am I?” he muttered, not throwing off the fur coat from his shoulders and not removing from his head his sealskin cap with its sealskin visor. The crowd, the poverty of the room, the washing hung on a line in the corner, put him off his stride. The staff captain bent double before him.

“You’re here, sir, here, sir,” he muttered obsequiously, “you’re here, sir, at my place, sir, it’s me you’re coming to, sir…”

“Sne-gi-ryov?” the doctor pronounced gravely and loudly. “Mr. Snegiryov—is that you?”

“It is I, sir!”

“Ah!”

The doctor once more looked around the room squeamishly and threw off his fur coat. An important order at his neck flashed in everyone’s eyes. The staff captain caught the fur coat in midair, and the doctor took off his cap.

“Where is the patient?” he asked loudly and insistently.