The Brothers Karamazov
husband, only he is in prison, so now she’s got a baby.”
“But is her husband in prison?” the matter-of-fact Kostya inquired
gravely.
“Or, I tell you what,” Nastya interrupted impulsively, completely
rejecting and forgetting her first hypothesis. “She hasn’t a husband,
you are right there, but she wants to be married, and so she’s been
thinking of getting married, and thinking and thinking of it till now
she’s got it, that is, not a husband but a baby.”
“Well, perhaps so,” Kostya agreed, entirely vanquished. “But you didn’t
say so before. So how could I tell?”
“Come, kiddies,” said Kolya, stepping into the room. “You’re terrible
people, I see.”
“And Perezvon with you!” grinned Kostya, and began snapping his fingers
and calling Perezvon.
“I am in a difficulty, kids,” Krassotkin began solemnly, “and you must
help me. Agafya must have broken her leg, since she has not turned up
till now, that’s certain. I must go out. Will you let me go?”
The children looked anxiously at one another. Their smiling faces
showed signs of uneasiness, but they did not yet fully grasp what was
expected of them.
“You won’t be naughty while I am gone? You won’t climb on the cupboard
and break your legs? You won’t be frightened alone and cry?”
A look of profound despondency came into the children’s faces.
“And I could show you something as a reward, a little copper cannon
which can be fired with real gunpowder.”
The children’s faces instantly brightened. “Show us the cannon,” said
Kostya, beaming all over.
Krassotkin put his hand in his satchel, and pulling out a little bronze
cannon stood it on the table.
“Ah, you are bound to ask that! Look, it’s on wheels.” He rolled the
toy on along the table. “And it can be fired off, too. It can be loaded
with shot and fired off.”
“And it could kill any one?”
“It can kill any one; you’ve only got to aim at anybody,” and
Krassotkin explained where the powder had to be put, where the shot
should be rolled in, showing a tiny hole like a touch-hole, and told
them that it kicked when it was fired.
The children listened with intense interest. What particularly struck
their imagination was that the cannon kicked.
“And have you got any powder?” Nastya inquired.
“Yes.”
“Show us the powder, too,” she drawled with a smile of entreaty.
Krassotkin dived again into his satchel and pulled out a small flask
containing a little real gunpowder. He had some shot, too, in a screw
of paper. He even uncorked the flask and shook a little powder into the
palm of his hand.
“One has to be careful there’s no fire about, or it would blow up and
kill us all,” Krassotkin warned them sensationally.
The children gazed at the powder with an awe-stricken alarm that only
intensified their enjoyment. But Kostya liked the shot better.
“And does the shot burn?” he inquired.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“Give me a little shot,” he asked in an imploring voice.
“I’ll give you a little shot; here, take it, but don’t show it to your
mother till I come back, or she’ll be sure to think it’s gunpowder, and
will die of fright and give you a thrashing.”
“Mother never does whip us,” Nastya observed at once.
“I know, I only said it to finish the sentence. And don’t you ever
deceive your mother except just this once, until I come back. And so,
kiddies, can I go out? You won’t be frightened and cry when I’m gone?”
“We sha—all cry,” drawled Kostya, on the verge of tears already.
“We shall cry, we shall be sure to cry,” Nastya chimed in with timid
haste.
“Oh, children, children, how fraught with peril are your years! There’s
no help for it, chickens, I shall have to stay with you I don’t know
how long. And time is passing, time is passing, oogh!”
“Tell Perezvon to pretend to be dead!” Kostya begged.
“There’s no help for it, we must have recourse to Perezvon. _Ici_,
Perezvon.” And Kolya began giving orders to the dog, who performed all
his tricks.
He was a rough-haired dog, of medium size, with a coat of a sort of
lilac-gray color. He was blind in his right eye, and his left ear was
torn. He whined and jumped, stood and walked on his hind legs, lay on
his back with his paws in the air, rigid as though he were dead. While
this last performance was going on, the door opened and Agafya, Madame
Krassotkin’s servant, a stout woman of forty, marked with small-pox,
appeared in the doorway. She had come back from market and had a bag
full of provisions in her hand. Holding up the bag of provisions in her
left hand she stood still to watch the dog. Though Kolya had been so
anxious for her return, he did not cut short the performance, and after
keeping Perezvon dead for the usual time, at last he whistled to him.
The dog jumped up and began bounding about in his joy at having done
his duty.
“Only think, a dog!” Agafya observed sententiously.
“Why are you late, female?” asked Krassotkin sternly.
“Female, indeed! Go on with you, you brat.”
“Brat?”
“Yes, a brat. What is it to you if I’m late; if I’m late, you may be
sure I have good reason,” muttered Agafya, busying herself about the
stove, without a trace of anger or displeasure in her voice. She seemed
quite pleased, in fact, to enjoy a skirmish with her merry young
master.
“Listen, you frivolous young woman,” Krassotkin began, getting up from
the sofa, “can you swear by all you hold sacred in the world and
something else besides, that you will watch vigilantly over the kids in
my absence? I am going out.”
“And what am I going to swear for?” laughed Agafya. “I shall look after
them without that.”
“No, you must swear on your eternal salvation. Else I shan’t go.”
“Well, don’t then. What does it matter to me? It’s cold out; stay at
home.”
“Kids,” Kolya turned to the children, “this woman will stay with you
till I come back or till your mother comes, for she ought to have been
back long ago. She will give you some lunch, too. You’ll give them
something, Agafya, won’t you?”
“That I can do.”
“Good-by, chickens, I go with my heart at rest. And you, granny,” he
added gravely, in an undertone, as he passed Agafya, “I hope you’ll
spare their tender years and not tell them any of your old woman’s
nonsense about Katerina. _Ici_, Perezvon!”
“Get along with you!” retorted Agafya, really angry this time.
“Ridiculous boy! You want a whipping for saying such things, that’s
what you want!”
Chapter III.
The Schoolboy
But Kolya did not hear her. At last he could go out. As he went out at
the gate he looked round him, shrugged up his shoulders, and saying “It
is freezing,” went straight along the street and turned off to the
right towards the market-place. When he reached the last house but one
before the market-place he stopped at the gate, pulled a whistle out of
his pocket, and whistled with all his might as though giving a signal.
He had not to wait more than a minute before a rosy-cheeked boy of
about eleven, wearing a warm, neat and even stylish coat, darted out to
meet him. This was Smurov, a boy in the preparatory class (two classes
below Kolya Krassotkin), son of a well-to-do official. Apparently he
was forbidden by his parents to associate with Krassotkin, who was well
known to be a desperately naughty boy, so Smurov was obviously slipping
out on the sly. He was—if the reader has not forgotten—one of the group
of boys who two months before had thrown stones at Ilusha. He was the
one who told Alyosha Karamazov about Ilusha.
“I’ve been waiting for you for the last hour, Krassotkin,” said Smurov
stolidly, and the boys strode towards the market-place.
“I am late,” answered Krassotkin. “I was detained by circumstances. You
won’t be thrashed for coming with me?”
“Come, I say, I’m never thrashed! And you’ve got Perezvon with you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re taking him, too?”
“Yes.”
“Ah! if it were only Zhutchka!”
“That’s impossible. Zhutchka’s non-existent. Zhutchka is lost in the
mists of obscurity.”
“Ah! couldn’t we do this?” Smurov suddenly stood still. “You see Ilusha
says that Zhutchka was a shaggy, grayish, smoky-looking dog like
Perezvon. Couldn’t you tell him this is Zhutchka, and he might believe
you?”
“Boy, shun a lie, that’s one thing; even with a good object—that’s
another. Above all, I hope you’ve not told them anything about my
coming.”
“Heaven forbid! I know what I am about. But you won’t comfort him with
Perezvon,” said Smurov, with a sigh. “You know his father, the captain,
‘the wisp of tow,’ told us that he was going to bring him a real
mastiff pup, with a black nose, to-day. He thinks that would comfort
Ilusha; but I doubt it.”
“And how is Ilusha?”
“Ah, he is bad, very bad! I believe he’s in consumption: he is quite
conscious, but his breathing! His breathing’s gone wrong. The other day
he asked to have his boots on to be led round the room. He tried to
walk, but he couldn’t stand. ‘Ah, I told you before, father,’ he said,
‘that those boots were no good. I could never walk properly in them.’
He fancied it was his boots that made him stagger, but it was simply
weakness, really. He won’t live another week. Herzenstube is looking
after him. Now they are rich again—they’ve got heaps of money.”
“They are rogues.”
“Who are rogues?”
“Doctors and the whole crew of quacks collectively, and also, of
course, individually. I don’t believe in medicine. It’s a useless
institution. I mean to go into all that. But what’s that sentimentality
you’ve got up there? The whole class seems to be there every day.”
“Not the whole class: it’s only ten of our fellows who go to see him
every day. There’s nothing in that.”
“What I don’t understand in all this is the part that Alexey Karamazov
is taking in it. His brother’s going to be tried to-morrow or next day
for such a crime, and yet he has so much time to spend on
sentimentality with boys.”
“There’s no sentimentality about it. You are going yourself now to make
it up with Ilusha.”
“Make it up with him? What an absurd expression! But I allow no one to
analyze my actions.”
“And how pleased Ilusha will be to see you! He has no idea that you are
coming. Why was it, why was it you wouldn’t come all this time?” Smurov
cried with sudden warmth.
“My dear boy, that’s my business, not yours. I am going of myself
because I choose to, but you’ve all been hauled there by Alexey
Karamazov—there’s a difference, you know. And how do you know? I may
not be going to make it up at all. It’s a stupid expression.”
“It’s not Karamazov at all; it’s not his doing. Our fellows began going
there of themselves. Of course, they went with Karamazov at first. And
there’s been nothing of that sort—no silliness. First one went, and
then another. His father was awfully pleased to see us. You know he
will simply go out of his mind if Ilusha dies. He sees that Ilusha’s
dying. And he seems so glad we’ve made it up with Ilusha. Ilusha asked
after you, that was all. He just asks and says no more. His father will
go out of his mind or hang himself. He behaved like a madman before.
You know he is a very decent man. We made a mistake then. It’s all the
fault of that murderer who beat him then.”
“Karamazov’s a riddle to me all the same. I might have made his
acquaintance long ago, but I like to have a proper pride in some cases.
Besides, I have a theory about him which I must work out and verify.”
Kolya subsided into dignified silence. Smurov, too, was silent. Smurov,
of course, worshiped Krassotkin and never dreamed of putting himself on
a level with him. Now he was tremendously interested at Kolya’s saying
that he was “going of himself” to see Ilusha. He felt that there must
be some mystery in Kolya’s suddenly taking it into his head to go to
him that day. They crossed the market-place, in which at that hour were