The Brothers Karamazov
At the moment when Krassotkin opened the door and came into the room,
the captain and all the boys were round Ilusha’s bed, looking at a tiny
mastiff pup, which had only been born the day before, though the
captain had bespoken it a week ago to comfort and amuse Ilusha, who was
still fretting over the lost and probably dead Zhutchka. Ilusha, who
had heard three days before that he was to be presented with a puppy,
not an ordinary puppy, but a pedigree mastiff (a very important point,
of course), tried from delicacy of feeling to pretend that he was
pleased. But his father and the boys could not help seeing that the
puppy only served to recall to his little heart the thought of the
unhappy dog he had killed. The puppy lay beside him feebly moving and
he, smiling sadly, stroked it with his thin, pale, wasted hand. Clearly
he liked the puppy, but ... it wasn’t Zhutchka; if he could have had
Zhutchka and the puppy, too, then he would have been completely happy.
“Krassotkin!” cried one of the boys suddenly. He was the first to see
him come in.
Krassotkin’s entrance made a general sensation; the boys moved away and
stood on each side of the bed, so that he could get a full view of
Ilusha. The captain ran eagerly to meet Kolya.
“Please come in ... you are welcome!” he said hurriedly. “Ilusha, Mr.
Krassotkin has come to see you!”
But Krassotkin, shaking hands with him hurriedly, instantly showed his
complete knowledge of the manners of good society. He turned first to
the captain’s wife sitting in her arm-chair, who was very ill-humored
at the moment, and was grumbling that the boys stood between her and
Ilusha’s bed and did not let her see the new puppy. With the greatest
courtesy he made her a bow, scraping his foot, and turning to Nina, he
made her, as the only other lady present, a similar bow. This polite
behavior made an extremely favorable impression on the deranged lady.
“There, you can see at once he is a young man that has been well
brought up,” she commented aloud, throwing up her hands; “but as for
our other visitors they come in one on the top of another.”
“How do you mean, mamma, one on the top of another, how is that?”
muttered the captain affectionately, though a little anxious on her
account.
“That’s how they ride in. They get on each other’s shoulders in the
passage and prance in like that on a respectable family. Strange sort
of visitors!”
“But who’s come in like that, mamma?”
“Why, that boy came in riding on that one’s back and this one on that
one’s.”
Kolya was already by Ilusha’s bedside. The sick boy turned visibly
paler. He raised himself in the bed and looked intently at Kolya. Kolya
had not seen his little friend for two months, and he was overwhelmed
at the sight of him. He had never imagined that he would see such a
wasted, yellow face, such enormous, feverishly glowing eyes and such
thin little hands. He saw, with grieved surprise, Ilusha’s rapid, hard
breathing and dry lips. He stepped close to him, held out his hand, and
almost overwhelmed, he said:
“Well, old man ... how are you?” But his voice failed him, he couldn’t
achieve an appearance of ease; his face suddenly twitched and the
corners of his mouth quivered. Ilusha smiled a pitiful little smile,
still unable to utter a word. Something moved Kolya to raise his hand
and pass it over Ilusha’s hair.
“Never mind!” he murmured softly to him to cheer him up, or perhaps not
knowing why he said it. For a minute they were silent again.
“Hallo, so you’ve got a new puppy?” Kolya said suddenly, in a most
callous voice.
“Ye—es,” answered Ilusha in a long whisper, gasping for breath.
“A black nose, that means he’ll be fierce, a good house-dog,” Kolya
observed gravely and stolidly, as if the only thing he cared about was
the puppy and its black nose. But in reality he still had to do his
utmost to control his feelings not to burst out crying like a child,
and do what he would he could not control it. “When it grows up, you’ll
have to keep it on the chain, I’m sure.”
“He’ll be a huge dog!” cried one of the boys.
“Of course he will,” “a mastiff,” “large,” “like this,” “as big as a
calf,” shouted several voices.
“As big as a calf, as a real calf,” chimed in the captain. “I got one
like that on purpose, one of the fiercest breed, and his parents are
huge and very fierce, they stand as high as this from the floor.... Sit
down here, on Ilusha’s bed, or here on the bench. You are welcome,
we’ve been hoping to see you a long time.... You were so kind as to
come with Alexey Fyodorovitch?”
Krassotkin sat on the edge of the bed, at Ilusha’s feet. Though he had
perhaps prepared a free-and-easy opening for the conversation on his
way, now he completely lost the thread of it.
“No ... I came with Perezvon. I’ve got a dog now, called Perezvon. A
Slavonic name. He’s out there ... if I whistle, he’ll run in. I’ve
brought a dog, too,” he said, addressing Ilusha all at once. “Do you
remember Zhutchka, old man?” he suddenly fired the question at him.
Ilusha’s little face quivered. He looked with an agonized expression at
Kolya. Alyosha, standing at the door, frowned and signed to Kolya not
to speak of Zhutchka, but he did not or would not notice.
“Where ... is Zhutchka?” Ilusha asked in a broken voice.
“Oh, well, my boy, your Zhutchka’s lost and done for!”
Ilusha did not speak, but he fixed an intent gaze once more on Kolya.
Alyosha, catching Kolya’s eye, signed to him vigorously again, but he
turned away his eyes pretending not to have noticed.
“It must have run away and died somewhere. It must have died after a
meal like that,” Kolya pronounced pitilessly, though he seemed a little
breathless. “But I’ve got a dog, Perezvon ... A Slavonic name.... I’ve
brought him to show you.”
“I don’t want him!” said Ilusha suddenly.
“No, no, you really must see him ... it will amuse you. I brought him
on purpose.... He’s the same sort of shaggy dog.... You allow me to
call in my dog, madam?” He suddenly addressed Madame Snegiryov, with
inexplicable excitement in his manner.
“I don’t want him, I don’t want him!” cried Ilusha, with a mournful
break in his voice. There was a reproachful light in his eyes.
“You’d better,” the captain started up from the chest by the wall on
which he had just sat down, “you’d better ... another time,” he
muttered, but Kolya could not be restrained. He hurriedly shouted to
Smurov, “Open the door,” and as soon as it was open, he blew his
whistle. Perezvon dashed headlong into the room.
“Jump, Perezvon, beg! Beg!” shouted Kolya, jumping up, and the dog
stood erect on its hind-legs by Ilusha’s bedside. What followed was a
surprise to every one: Ilusha started, lurched violently forward, bent
over Perezvon and gazed at him, faint with suspense.
“It’s ... Zhutchka!” he cried suddenly, in a voice breaking with joy
and suffering.
“And who did you think it was?” Krassotkin shouted with all his might,
in a ringing, happy voice, and bending down he seized the dog and
lifted him up to Ilusha.
“Look, old man, you see, blind of one eye and the left ear is torn,
just the marks you described to me. It was by that I found him. I found
him directly. He did not belong to any one!” he explained, turning
quickly to the captain, to his wife, to Alyosha and then again to
Ilusha. “He used to live in the Fedotovs’ back-yard. Though he made his
home there, they did not feed him. He was a stray dog that had run away
from the village ... I found him.... You see, old man, he couldn’t have
swallowed what you gave him. If he had, he must have died, he must
have! So he must have spat it out, since he is alive. You did not see
him do it. But the pin pricked his tongue, that is why he squealed. He
ran away squealing and you thought he’d swallowed it. He might well
squeal, because the skin of dogs’ mouths is so tender ... tenderer than
in men, much tenderer!” Kolya cried impetuously, his face glowing and
radiant with delight. Ilusha could not speak. White as a sheet, he
gazed open-mouthed at Kolya, with his great eyes almost starting out of
his head. And if Krassotkin, who had no suspicion of it, had known what
a disastrous and fatal effect such a moment might have on the sick
child’s health, nothing would have induced him to play such a trick on
him. But Alyosha was perhaps the only person in the room who realized
it. As for the captain he behaved like a small child.
“Zhutchka! It’s Zhutchka!” he cried in a blissful voice, “Ilusha, this
is Zhutchka, your Zhutchka! Mamma, this is Zhutchka!” He was almost
weeping.
“And I never guessed!” cried Smurov regretfully. “Bravo, Krassotkin! I
said he’d find the dog and here he’s found him.”
“Here he’s found him!” another boy repeated gleefully.
“Krassotkin’s a brick!” cried a third voice.
“He’s a brick, he’s a brick!” cried the other boys, and they began
clapping.
“Wait, wait,” Krassotkin did his utmost to shout above them all. “I’ll
tell you how it happened, that’s the whole point. I found him, I took
him home and hid him at once. I kept him locked up at home and did not
show him to any one till to-day. Only Smurov has known for the last
fortnight, but I assured him this dog was called Perezvon and he did
not guess. And meanwhile I taught the dog all sorts of tricks. You
should only see all the things he can do! I trained him so as to bring
you a well-trained dog, in good condition, old man, so as to be able to
say to you, ‘See, old man, what a fine dog your Zhutchka is now!’
Haven’t you a bit of meat? He’ll show you a trick that will make you
die with laughing. A piece of meat, haven’t you got any?”
The captain ran across the passage to the landlady, where their cooking
was done. Not to lose precious time, Kolya, in desperate haste, shouted
to Perezvon, “Dead!” And the dog immediately turned round and lay on
his back with its four paws in the air. The boys laughed. Ilusha looked
on with the same suffering smile, but the person most delighted with
the dog’s performance was “mamma.” She laughed at the dog and began
snapping her fingers and calling it, “Perezvon, Perezvon!”
“Nothing will make him get up, nothing!” Kolya cried triumphantly,
proud of his success. “He won’t move for all the shouting in the world,
but if I call to him, he’ll jump up in a minute. Ici, Perezvon!” The
dog leapt up and bounded about, whining with delight. The captain ran
back with a piece of cooked beef.
“Is it hot?” Kolya inquired hurriedly, with a business-like air, taking
the meat. “Dogs don’t like hot things. No, it’s all right. Look,
everybody, look, Ilusha, look, old man; why aren’t you looking? He does
not look at him, now I’ve brought him.”
The new trick consisted in making the dog stand motionless with his
nose out and putting a tempting morsel of meat just on his nose. The
luckless dog had to stand without moving, with the meat on his nose, as
long as his master chose to keep him, without a movement, perhaps for
half an hour. But he kept Perezvon only for a brief moment.
“Paid for!” cried Kolya, and the meat passed in a flash from the dog’s
nose to his mouth. The audience, of course, expressed enthusiasm and
surprise.
“Can you really have put off coming all this time simply to train the
dog?” exclaimed Alyosha, with an involuntary note of reproach in his
voice.
“Simply for that!” answered Kolya, with perfect simplicity. “I wanted
to show him in all his glory.”
“Perezvon! Perezvon,” called Ilusha suddenly, snapping his thin fingers
and beckoning to the dog.
“What is it? Let him jump up on the bed! _Ici_, Perezvon!” Kolya
slapped the bed and Perezvon darted up by Ilusha. The boy threw both
arms round his head and Perezvon instantly licked his cheek. Ilusha
crept close to him, stretched himself out in bed and hid his face in