The Brothers Karamazov
We’ve all been trying to persuade Ilusha that the dog is alive, that
it’s been seen. The boys brought him a live hare; he just looked at it,
with a faint smile, and asked them to set it free in the fields. And so
we did. His father has just this moment come back, bringing him a
mastiff pup, hoping to comfort him with that; but I think it only makes
it worse.”
“Tell me, Karamazov, what sort of man is the father? I know him, but
what do you make of him—a mountebank, a buffoon?”
“Oh, no; there are people of deep feeling who have been somehow
crushed. Buffoonery in them is a form of resentful irony against those
to whom they daren’t speak the truth, from having been for years
humiliated and intimidated by them. Believe me, Krassotkin, that sort
of buffoonery is sometimes tragic in the extreme. His whole life now is
centered in Ilusha, and if Ilusha dies, he will either go mad with
grief or kill himself. I feel almost certain of that when I look at him
now.”
“I understand you, Karamazov. I see you understand human nature,” Kolya
added, with feeling.
“And as soon as I saw you with a dog, I thought it was Zhutchka you
were bringing.”
“Wait a bit, Karamazov, perhaps we shall find it yet; but this is
Perezvon. I’ll let him go in now and perhaps it will amuse Ilusha more
than the mastiff pup. Wait a bit, Karamazov, you will know something in
a minute. But, I say, I am keeping you here!” Kolya cried suddenly.
“You’ve no overcoat on in this bitter cold. You see what an egoist I
am. Oh, we are all egoists, Karamazov!”
“Don’t trouble; it is cold, but I don’t often catch cold. Let us go in,
though, and, by the way, what is your name? I know you are called
Kolya, but what else?”
“Nikolay—Nikolay Ivanovitch Krassotkin, or, as they say in official
documents, ‘Krassotkin son.’” Kolya laughed for some reason, but added
suddenly, “Of course I hate my name Nikolay.”
“Why so?”
“It’s so trivial, so ordinary.”
“You are thirteen?” asked Alyosha.
“No, fourteen—that is, I shall be fourteen very soon, in a fortnight.
I’ll confess one weakness of mine, Karamazov, just to you, since it’s
our first meeting, so that you may understand my character at once. I
hate being asked my age, more than that ... and in fact ... there’s a
libelous story going about me, that last week I played robbers with the
preparatory boys. It’s a fact that I did play with them, but it’s a
perfect libel to say I did it for my own amusement. I have reasons for
believing that you’ve heard the story; but I wasn’t playing for my own
amusement, it was for the sake of the children, because they couldn’t
think of anything to do by themselves. But they’ve always got some
silly tale. This is an awful town for gossip, I can tell you.”
“But what if you had been playing for your own amusement, what’s the
harm?”
“Come, I say, for my own amusement! You don’t play horses, do you?”
“But you must look at it like this,” said Alyosha, smiling. “Grown-up
people go to the theater and there the adventures of all sorts of
heroes are represented—sometimes there are robbers and battles, too—and
isn’t that just the same thing, in a different form, of course? And
young people’s games of soldiers or robbers in their playtime are also
art in its first stage. You know, they spring from the growing artistic
instincts of the young. And sometimes these games are much better than
performances in the theater, the only difference is that people go
there to look at the actors, while in these games the young people are
the actors themselves. But that’s only natural.”
“You think so? Is that your idea?” Kolya looked at him intently. “Oh,
you know, that’s rather an interesting view. When I go home, I’ll think
it over. I’ll admit I thought I might learn something from you. I’ve
come to learn of you, Karamazov,” Kolya concluded, in a voice full of
spontaneous feeling.
“And I of you,” said Alyosha, smiling and pressing his hand.
Kolya was much pleased with Alyosha. What struck him most was that he
treated him exactly like an equal and that he talked to him just as if
he were “quite grown up.”
“I’ll show you something directly, Karamazov; it’s a theatrical
performance, too,” he said, laughing nervously. “That’s why I’ve come.”
“Let us go first to the people of the house, on the left. All the boys
leave their coats in there, because the room is small and hot.”
“Oh, I’m only coming in for a minute. I’ll keep on my overcoat.
Perezvon will stay here in the passage and be dead. _Ici_, Perezvon,
lie down and be dead! You see how he’s dead. I’ll go in first and
explore, then I’ll whistle to him when I think fit, and you’ll see,
he’ll dash in like mad. Only Smurov must not forget to open the door at
the moment. I’ll arrange it all and you’ll see something.”
Chapter V.
By Ilusha’s Bedside
The room inhabited by the family of the retired captain Snegiryov is
already familiar to the reader. It was close and crowded at that moment
with a number of visitors. Several boys were sitting with Ilusha, and
though all of them, like Smurov, were prepared to deny that it was
Alyosha who had brought them and reconciled them with Ilusha, it was
really the fact. All the art he had used had been to take them, one by
one, to Ilusha, without “sheepish sentimentality,” appearing to do so
casually and without design. It was a great consolation to Ilusha in
his suffering. He was greatly touched by seeing the almost tender
affection and sympathy shown him by these boys, who had been his
enemies. Krassotkin was the only one missing and his absence was a
heavy load on Ilusha’s heart. Perhaps the bitterest of all his bitter
memories was his stabbing Krassotkin, who had been his one friend and
protector. Clever little Smurov, who was the first to make it up with
Ilusha, thought it was so. But when Smurov hinted to Krassotkin that
Alyosha wanted to come and see him about something, the latter cut him
short, bidding Smurov tell “Karamazov” at once that he knew best what
to do, that he wanted no one’s advice, and that, if he went to see
Ilusha, he would choose his own time for he had “his own reasons.”
That was a fortnight before this Sunday. That was why Alyosha had not
been to see him, as he had meant to. But though he waited, he sent
Smurov to him twice again. Both times Krassotkin met him with a curt,
impatient refusal, sending Alyosha a message not to bother him any
more, that if he came himself, he, Krassotkin, would not go to Ilusha
at all. Up to the very last day, Smurov did not know that Kolya meant
to go to Ilusha that morning, and only the evening before, as he parted
from Smurov, Kolya abruptly told him to wait at home for him next
morning, for he would go with him to the Snegiryovs’, but warned him on
no account to say he was coming, as he wanted to drop in casually.
Smurov obeyed. Smurov’s fancy that Kolya would bring back the lost dog
was based on the words Kolya had dropped that “they must be asses not
to find the dog, if it was alive.” When Smurov, waiting for an
opportunity, timidly hinted at his guess about the dog, Krassotkin flew
into a violent rage. “I’m not such an ass as to go hunting about the
town for other people’s dogs when I’ve got a dog of my own! And how can
you imagine a dog could be alive after swallowing a pin? Sheepish
sentimentality, that’s what it is!”
For the last fortnight Ilusha had not left his little bed under the
ikons in the corner. He had not been to school since the day he met
Alyosha and bit his finger. He was taken ill the same day, though for a
month afterwards he was sometimes able to get up and walk about the
room and passage. But latterly he had become so weak that he could not
move without help from his father. His father was terribly concerned
about him. He even gave up drinking and was almost crazy with terror
that his boy would die. And often, especially after leading him round
the room on his arm and putting him back to bed, he would run to a dark
corner in the passage and, leaning his head against the wall, he would
break into paroxysms of violent weeping, stifling his sobs that they
might not be heard by Ilusha.
Returning to the room, he would usually begin doing something to amuse
and comfort his precious boy; he would tell him stories, funny
anecdotes, or would mimic comic people he had happened to meet, even
imitate the howls and cries of animals. But Ilusha could not bear to
see his father fooling and playing the buffoon. Though the boy tried
not to show how he disliked it, he saw with an aching heart that his
father was an object of contempt, and he was continually haunted by the
memory of the “wisp of tow” and that “terrible day.”
Nina, Ilusha’s gentle, crippled sister, did not like her father’s
buffoonery either (Varvara had been gone for some time past to
Petersburg to study at the university). But the half-imbecile mother
was greatly diverted and laughed heartily when her husband began
capering about or performing something. It was the only way she could
be amused; all the rest of the time she was grumbling and complaining
that now every one had forgotten her, that no one treated her with
respect, that she was slighted, and so on. But during the last few days
she had completely changed. She began looking constantly at Ilusha’s
bed in the corner and seemed lost in thought. She was more silent,
quieter, and, if she cried, she cried quietly so as not to be heard.
The captain noticed the change in her with mournful perplexity. The
boys’ visits at first only angered her, but later on their merry shouts
and stories began to divert her, and at last she liked them so much
that, if the boys had given up coming, she would have felt dreary
without them. When the children told some story or played a game, she
laughed and clapped her hands. She called some of them to her and
kissed them. She was particularly fond of Smurov.
As for the captain, the presence in his room of the children, who came
to cheer up Ilusha, filled his heart from the first with ecstatic joy.
He even hoped that Ilusha would now get over his depression, and that
that would hasten his recovery. In spite of his alarm about Ilusha, he
had not, till lately, felt one minute’s doubt of his boy’s ultimate
recovery.
He met his little visitors with homage, waited upon them hand and foot;
he was ready to be their horse and even began letting them ride on his
back, but Ilusha did not like the game and it was given up. He began
buying little things for them, gingerbread and nuts, gave them tea and
cut them sandwiches. It must be noted that all this time he had plenty
of money. He had taken the two hundred roubles from Katerina Ivanovna
just as Alyosha had predicted he would. And afterwards Katerina
Ivanovna, learning more about their circumstances and Ilusha’s illness,
visited them herself, made the acquaintance of the family, and
succeeded in fascinating the half-imbecile mother. Since then she had
been lavish in helping them, and the captain, terror-stricken at the
thought that his boy might be dying, forgot his pride and humbly
accepted her assistance.
All this time Doctor Herzenstube, who was called in by Katerina
Ivanovna, came punctually every other day, but little was gained by his
visits and he dosed the invalid mercilessly. But on that Sunday morning
a new doctor was expected, who had come from Moscow, where he had a
great reputation. Katerina Ivanovna had sent for him from Moscow at
great expense, not expressly for Ilusha, but for another object of
which more will be said in its place hereafter. But, as he had come,
she had asked him to see Ilusha as well, and the captain had been told
to expect him. He hadn’t the slightest idea that Kolya Krassotkin was
coming, though he had long wished for a visit from the boy for whom
Ilusha was fretting.