The Brothers Karamazov
many loaded wagons from the country and a great number of live fowls.
The market women were selling rolls, cottons and threads, etc., in
their booths. These Sunday markets were naïvely called “fairs” in the
town, and there were many such fairs in the year.
Perezvon ran about in the wildest spirits, sniffing about first one
side, then the other. When he met other dogs they zealously smelt each
other over according to the rules of canine etiquette.
“I like to watch such realistic scenes, Smurov,” said Kolya suddenly.
“Have you noticed how dogs sniff at one another when they meet? It
seems to be a law of their nature.”
“Yes; it’s a funny habit.”
“No, it’s not funny; you are wrong there. There’s nothing funny in
nature, however funny it may seem to man with his prejudices. If dogs
could reason and criticize us they’d be sure to find just as much that
would be funny to them, if not far more, in the social relations of
men, their masters—far more, indeed. I repeat that, because I am
convinced that there is far more foolishness among us. That’s Rakitin’s
idea—a remarkable idea. I am a Socialist, Smurov.”
“And what is a Socialist?” asked Smurov.
“That’s when all are equal and all have property in common, there are
no marriages, and every one has any religion and laws he likes best,
and all the rest of it. You are not old enough to understand that yet.
It’s cold, though.”
“Yes, twelve degrees of frost. Father looked at the thermometer just
now.”
“Have you noticed, Smurov, that in the middle of winter we don’t feel
so cold even when there are fifteen or eighteen degrees of frost as we
do now, in the beginning of winter, when there is a sudden frost of
twelve degrees, especially when there is not much snow. It’s because
people are not used to it. Everything is habit with men, everything
even in their social and political relations. Habit is the great
motive-power. What a funny-looking peasant!”
Kolya pointed to a tall peasant, with a good-natured countenance in a
long sheepskin coat, who was standing by his wagon, clapping together
his hands, in their shapeless leather gloves, to warm them. His long
fair beard was all white with frost.
“That peasant’s beard’s frozen,” Kolya cried in a loud provocative
voice as he passed him.
“Lots of people’s beards are frozen,” the peasant replied, calmly and
sententiously.
“Don’t provoke him,” observed Smurov.
“It’s all right; he won’t be cross; he’s a nice fellow. Good-by,
Matvey.”
“Good-by.”
“Is your name Matvey?”
“Yes. Didn’t you know?”
“No, I didn’t. It was a guess.”
“You don’t say so! You are a schoolboy, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
“You get whipped, I expect?”
“Nothing to speak of—sometimes.”
“Does it hurt?”
“Well, yes, it does.”
“Ech, what a life!” The peasant heaved a sigh from the bottom of his
heart.
“Good-by, Matvey.”
“Good-by. You are a nice chap, that you are.”
The boys went on.
“That was a nice peasant,” Kolya observed to Smurov. “I like talking to
the peasants, and am always glad to do them justice.”
“Why did you tell a lie, pretending we are thrashed?” asked Smurov.
“I had to say that to please him.”
“How do you mean?”
“You know, Smurov, I don’t like being asked the same thing twice. I
like people to understand at the first word. Some things can’t be
explained. According to a peasant’s notions, schoolboys are whipped,
and must be whipped. What would a schoolboy be if he were not whipped?
And if I were to tell him we are not, he’d be disappointed. But you
don’t understand that. One has to know how to talk to the peasants.”
“Only don’t tease them, please, or you’ll get into another scrape as
you did about that goose.”
“So you’re afraid?”
“Don’t laugh, Kolya. Of course I’m afraid. My father would be awfully
cross. I am strictly forbidden to go out with you.”
“Don’t be uneasy, nothing will happen this time. Hallo, Natasha!” he
shouted to a market woman in one of the booths.
“Call me Natasha! What next! My name is Marya,” the middle-aged market
woman shouted at him.
“I am so glad it’s Marya. Good-by!”
“Ah, you young rascal! A brat like you to carry on so!”
“I’m in a hurry. I can’t stay now. You shall tell me next Sunday.”
Kolya waved his hand at her, as though she had attacked him and not he
her.
“I’ve nothing to tell you next Sunday. You set upon me, you impudent
young monkey. I didn’t say anything,” bawled Marya. “You want a
whipping, that’s what you want, you saucy jackanapes!”
There was a roar of laughter among the other market women round her.
Suddenly a man in a violent rage darted out from the arcade of shops
close by. He was a young man, not a native of the town, with dark,
curly hair and a long, pale face, marked with smallpox. He wore a long
blue coat and a peaked cap, and looked like a merchant’s clerk. He was
in a state of stupid excitement and brandished his fist at Kolya.
“I know you!” he cried angrily, “I know you!”
Kolya stared at him. He could not recall when he could have had a row
with the man. But he had been in so many rows in the street that he
could hardly remember them all.
“Do you?” he asked sarcastically.
“I know you! I know you!” the man repeated idiotically.
“So much the better for you. Well, it’s time I was going. Good-by!”
“You are at your saucy pranks again?” cried the man. “You are at your
saucy pranks again? I know, you are at it again!”
“It’s not your business, brother, if I am at my saucy pranks again,”
said Kolya, standing still and scanning him.
“Not my business?”
“No; it’s not your business.”
“Whose then? Whose then? Whose then?”
“It’s Trifon Nikititch’s business, not yours.”
“What Trifon Nikititch?” asked the youth, staring with loutish
amazement at Kolya, but still as angry as ever.
Kolya scanned him gravely.
“Have you been to the Church of the Ascension?” he suddenly asked him,
with stern emphasis.
“What Church of Ascension? What for? No, I haven’t,” said the young
man, somewhat taken aback.
“Do you know Sabaneyev?” Kolya went on even more emphatically and even
more severely.
“What Sabaneyev? No, I don’t know him.”
“Well then you can go to the devil,” said Kolya, cutting short the
conversation; and turning sharply to the right he strode quickly on his
way as though he disdained further conversation with a dolt who did not
even know Sabaneyev.
“Stop, heigh! What Sabaneyev?” the young man recovered from his
momentary stupefaction and was as excited as before. “What did he say?”
He turned to the market women with a silly stare.
The women laughed.
“You can never tell what he’s after,” said one of them.
“What Sabaneyev is it he’s talking about?” the young man repeated,
still furious and brandishing his right arm.
“It must be a Sabaneyev who worked for the Kuzmitchovs, that’s who it
must be,” one of the women suggested.
The young man stared at her wildly.
“For the Kuzmitchovs?” repeated another woman. “But his name wasn’t
Trifon. His name’s Kuzma, not Trifon; but the boy said Trifon
Nikititch, so it can’t be the same.”
“His name is not Trifon and not Sabaneyev, it’s Tchizhov,” put in
suddenly a third woman, who had hitherto been silent, listening
gravely. “Alexey Ivanitch is his name. Tchizhov, Alexey Ivanitch.”
“Not a doubt about it, it’s Tchizhov,” a fourth woman emphatically
confirmed the statement.
The bewildered youth gazed from one to another.
“But what did he ask for, what did he ask for, good people?” he cried
almost in desperation. “‘Do you know Sabaneyev?’ says he. And who the
devil’s to know who is Sabaneyev?”
“You’re a senseless fellow. I tell you it’s not Sabaneyev, but
Tchizhov, Alexey Ivanitch Tchizhov, that’s who it is!” one of the women
shouted at him impressively.
“What Tchizhov? Who is he? Tell me, if you know.”
“That tall, sniveling fellow who used to sit in the market in the
summer.”
“And what’s your Tchizhov to do with me, good people, eh?”
“How can I tell what he’s to do with you?” put in another. “You ought
to know yourself what you want with him, if you make such a clamor
about him. He spoke to you, he did not speak to us, you stupid. Don’t
you really know him?”
“Know whom?”
“Tchizhov.”
“The devil take Tchizhov and you with him. I’ll give him a hiding, that
I will. He was laughing at me!”
“Will give Tchizhov a hiding! More likely he will give you one. You are
a fool, that’s what you are!”
“Not Tchizhov, not Tchizhov, you spiteful, mischievous woman. I’ll give
the boy a hiding. Catch him, catch him, he was laughing at me!”
The woman guffawed. But Kolya was by now a long way off, marching along
with a triumphant air. Smurov walked beside him, looking round at the
shouting group far behind. He too was in high spirits, though he was
still afraid of getting into some scrape in Kolya’s company.
“What Sabaneyev did you mean?” he asked Kolya, foreseeing what his
answer would be.
“How do I know? Now there’ll be a hubbub among them all day. I like to
stir up fools in every class of society. There’s another blockhead,
that peasant there. You know, they say ‘there’s no one stupider than a
stupid Frenchman,’ but a stupid Russian shows it in his face just as
much. Can’t you see it all over his face that he is a fool, that
peasant, eh?”
“Let him alone, Kolya. Let’s go on.”
“Nothing could stop me, now I am once off. Hey, good morning, peasant!”
A sturdy-looking peasant, with a round, simple face and grizzled beard,
who was walking by, raised his head and looked at the boy. He seemed
not quite sober.
“Good morning, if you are not laughing at me,” he said deliberately in
reply.
“And if I am?” laughed Kolya.
“Well, a joke’s a joke. Laugh away. I don’t mind. There’s no harm in a
joke.”
“I beg your pardon, brother, it was a joke.”
“Well, God forgive you!”
“Do you forgive me, too?”
“I quite forgive you. Go along.”
“I say, you seem a clever peasant.”
“Cleverer than you,” the peasant answered unexpectedly, with the same
gravity.
“I doubt it,” said Kolya, somewhat taken aback.
“It’s true, though.”
“Perhaps it is.”
“It is, brother.”
“Good-by, peasant!”
“Good-by!”
“There are all sorts of peasants,” Kolya observed to Smurov after a
brief silence. “How could I tell I had hit on a clever one? I am always
ready to recognize intelligence in the peasantry.”
In the distance the cathedral clock struck half-past eleven. The boys
made haste and they walked as far as Captain Snegiryov’s lodging, a
considerable distance, quickly and almost in silence. Twenty paces from
the house Kolya stopped and told Smurov to go on ahead and ask
Karamazov to come out to him.
“One must sniff round a bit first,” he observed to Smurov.
“Why ask him to come out?” Smurov protested. “You go in; they will be
awfully glad to see you. What’s the sense of making friends in the
frost out here?”
“I know why I want to see him out here in the frost,” Kolya cut him
short in the despotic tone he was fond of adopting with “small boys,”
and Smurov ran to do his bidding.
Chapter IV.
The Lost Dog
Kolya leaned against the fence with an air of dignity, waiting for
Alyosha to appear. Yes, he had long wanted to meet him. He had heard a
great deal about him from the boys, but hitherto he had always
maintained an appearance of disdainful indifference when he was
mentioned, and he had even “criticized” what he heard about Alyosha.
But secretly he had a great longing to make his acquaintance; there was
something sympathetic and attractive in all he was told about Alyosha.
So the present moment was important: to begin with, he had to show
himself at his best, to show his independence, “Or he’ll think of me as
thirteen and take me for a boy, like the rest of them. And what are