The Brothers Karamazov
the dog’s shaggy coat.
“Dear, dear!” kept exclaiming the captain. Kolya sat down again on the
edge of the bed.
“Ilusha, I can show you another trick. I’ve brought you a little
cannon. You remember, I told you about it before and you said how much
you’d like to see it. Well, here, I’ve brought it to you.”
And Kolya hurriedly pulled out of his satchel the little bronze cannon.
He hurried, because he was happy himself. Another time he would have
waited till the sensation made by Perezvon had passed off, now he
hurried on regardless of all consideration. “You are all happy now,” he
felt, “so here’s something to make you happier!” He was perfectly
enchanted himself.
“I’ve been coveting this thing for a long while; it’s for you, old man,
it’s for you. It belonged to Morozov, it was no use to him, he had it
from his brother. I swopped a book from father’s book-case for it, _A
Kinsman of Mahomet or Salutary Folly_, a scandalous book published in
Moscow a hundred years ago, before they had any censorship. And Morozov
has a taste for such things. He was grateful to me, too....”
Kolya held the cannon in his hand so that all could see and admire it.
Ilusha raised himself, and, with his right arm still round the dog, he
gazed enchanted at the toy. The sensation was even greater when Kolya
announced that he had gunpowder too, and that it could be fired off at
once “if it won’t alarm the ladies.” “Mamma” immediately asked to look
at the toy closer and her request was granted. She was much pleased
with the little bronze cannon on wheels and began rolling it to and fro
on her lap. She readily gave permission for the cannon to be fired,
without any idea of what she had been asked. Kolya showed the powder
and the shot. The captain, as a military man, undertook to load it,
putting in a minute quantity of powder. He asked that the shot might be
put off till another time. The cannon was put on the floor, aiming
towards an empty part of the room, three grains of powder were thrust
into the touch-hole and a match was put to it. A magnificent explosion
followed. Mamma was startled, but at once laughed with delight. The
boys gazed in speechless triumph. But the captain, looking at Ilusha,
was more enchanted than any of them. Kolya picked up the cannon and
immediately presented it to Ilusha, together with the powder and the
shot.
“I got it for you, for you! I’ve been keeping it for you a long time,”
he repeated once more in his delight.
“Oh, give it to me! No, give me the cannon!” mamma began begging like a
little child. Her face showed a piteous fear that she would not get it.
Kolya was disconcerted. The captain fidgeted uneasily.
“Mamma, mamma,” he ran to her, “the cannon’s yours, of course, but let
Ilusha have it, because it’s a present to him, but it’s just as good as
yours. Ilusha will always let you play with it; it shall belong to both
of you, both of you.”
“No, I don’t want it to belong to both of us, I want it to be mine
altogether, not Ilusha’s,” persisted mamma, on the point of tears.
“Take it, mother, here, keep it!” Ilusha cried. “Krassotkin, may I give
it to my mother?” he turned to Krassotkin with an imploring face, as
though he were afraid he might be offended at his giving his present to
some one else.
“Of course you may,” Krassotkin assented heartily, and, taking the
cannon from Ilusha, he handed it himself to mamma with a polite bow.
She was so touched that she cried.
“Ilusha, darling, he’s the one who loves his mamma!” she said tenderly,
and at once began wheeling the cannon to and fro on her lap again.
“Mamma, let me kiss your hand.” The captain darted up to her at once
and did so.
“And I never saw such a charming fellow as this nice boy,” said the
grateful lady, pointing to Krassotkin.
“And I’ll bring you as much powder as you like, Ilusha. We make the
powder ourselves now. Borovikov found out how it’s made—twenty-four
parts of saltpeter, ten of sulphur and six of birchwood charcoal. It’s
all pounded together, mixed into a paste with water and rubbed through
a tammy sieve—that’s how it’s done.”
“Smurov told me about your powder, only father says it’s not real
gunpowder,” responded Ilusha.
“Not real?” Kolya flushed. “It burns. I don’t know, of course.”
“No, I didn’t mean that,” put in the captain with a guilty face. “I
only said that real powder is not made like that, but that’s nothing,
it can be made so.”
“I don’t know, you know best. We lighted some in a pomatum pot, it
burned splendidly, it all burnt away leaving only a tiny ash. But that
was only the paste, and if you rub it through ... but of course you
know best, I don’t know.... And Bulkin’s father thrashed him on account
of our powder, did you hear?” he turned to Ilusha.
“Yes,” answered Ilusha. He listened to Kolya with immense interest and
enjoyment.
“We had prepared a whole bottle of it and he used to keep it under his
bed. His father saw it. He said it might explode, and thrashed him on
the spot. He was going to make a complaint against me to the masters.
He is not allowed to go about with me now, no one is allowed to go
about with me now. Smurov is not allowed to either, I’ve got a bad name
with every one. They say I’m a ‘desperate character,’” Kolya smiled
scornfully. “It all began from what happened on the railway.”
“Ah, we’ve heard of that exploit of yours, too,” cried the captain.
“How could you lie still on the line? Is it possible you weren’t the
least afraid, lying there under the train? Weren’t you frightened?”
The captain was abject in his flattery of Kolya.
“N—not particularly,” answered Kolya carelessly. “What’s blasted my
reputation more than anything here was that cursed goose,” he said,
turning again to Ilusha. But though he assumed an unconcerned air as he
talked, he still could not control himself and was continually missing
the note he tried to keep up.
“Ah! I heard about the goose!” Ilusha laughed, beaming all over. “They
told me, but I didn’t understand. Did they really take you to the
court?”
“The most stupid, trivial affair, they made a mountain of a molehill as
they always do,” Kolya began carelessly. “I was walking through the
market-place here one day, just when they’d driven in the geese. I
stopped and looked at them. All at once a fellow, who is an errand-boy
at Plotnikov’s now, looked at me and said, ‘What are you looking at the
geese for?’ I looked at him; he was a stupid, moon-faced fellow of
twenty. I am always on the side of the peasantry, you know. I like
talking to the peasants.... We’ve dropped behind the peasants—that’s an
axiom. I believe you are laughing, Karamazov?”
“No, Heaven forbid, I am listening,” said Alyosha with a most
good-natured air, and the sensitive Kolya was immediately reassured.
“My theory, Karamazov, is clear and simple,” he hurried on again,
looking pleased. “I believe in the people and am always glad to give
them their due, but I am not for spoiling them, that is a _sine qua
non_ ... But I was telling you about the goose. So I turned to the fool
and answered, ‘I am wondering what the goose thinks about.’ He looked
at me quite stupidly, ‘And what does the goose think about?’ he asked.
‘Do you see that cart full of oats?’ I said. ‘The oats are dropping out
of the sack, and the goose has put its neck right under the wheel to
gobble them up—do you see?’ ‘I see that quite well,’ he said. ‘Well,’
said I, ‘if that cart were to move on a little, would it break the
goose’s neck or not?’ ‘It’d be sure to break it,’ and he grinned all
over his face, highly delighted. ‘Come on, then,’ said I, ‘let’s try.’
‘Let’s,’ he said. And it did not take us long to arrange: he stood at
the bridle without being noticed, and I stood on one side to direct the
goose. And the owner wasn’t looking, he was talking to some one, so I
had nothing to do, the goose thrust its head in after the oats of
itself, under the cart, just under the wheel. I winked at the lad, he
tugged at the bridle, and crack. The goose’s neck was broken in half.
And, as luck would have it, all the peasants saw us at that moment and
they kicked up a shindy at once. ‘You did that on purpose!’ ‘No, not on
purpose.’ ‘Yes, you did, on purpose!’ Well, they shouted, ‘Take him to
the justice of the peace!’ They took me, too. ‘You were there, too,’
they said, ‘you helped, you’re known all over the market!’ And, for
some reason, I really am known all over the market,” Kolya added
conceitedly. “We all went off to the justice’s, they brought the goose,
too. The fellow was crying in a great funk, simply blubbering like a
woman. And the farmer kept shouting that you could kill any number of
geese like that. Well, of course, there were witnesses. The justice of
the peace settled it in a minute, that the farmer was to be paid a
rouble for the goose, and the fellow to have the goose. And he was
warned not to play such pranks again. And the fellow kept blubbering
like a woman. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he said, ‘it was he egged me on,’ and he
pointed to me. I answered with the utmost composure that I hadn’t egged
him on, that I simply stated the general proposition, had spoken
hypothetically. The justice of the peace smiled and was vexed with
himself at once for having smiled. ‘I’ll complain to your masters of
you, so that for the future you mayn’t waste your time on such general
propositions, instead of sitting at your books and learning your
lessons.’ He didn’t complain to the masters, that was a joke, but the
matter was noised abroad and came to the ears of the masters. Their
ears are long, you know! The classical master, Kolbasnikov, was
particularly shocked about it, but Dardanelov got me off again. But
Kolbasnikov is savage with every one now like a green ass. Did you
know, Ilusha, he is just married, got a dowry of a thousand roubles,
and his bride’s a regular fright of the first rank and the last degree.
The third-class fellows wrote an epigram on it:
Astounding news has reached the class,
Kolbasnikov has been an ass.
And so on, awfully funny, I’ll bring it to you later on. I say nothing
against Dardanelov, he is a learned man, there’s no doubt about it. I
respect men like that and it’s not because he stood up for me.”
“But you took him down about the founders of Troy!” Smurov put in
suddenly, unmistakably proud of Krassotkin at such a moment. He was
particularly pleased with the story of the goose.
“Did you really take him down?” the captain inquired, in a flattering
way. “On the question who founded Troy? We heard of it, Ilusha told me
about it at the time.”
“He knows everything, father, he knows more than any of us!” put in
Ilusha; “he only pretends to be like that, but really he is top in
every subject....”
Ilusha looked at Kolya with infinite happiness.
“Oh, that’s all nonsense about Troy, a trivial matter. I consider this
an unimportant question,” said Kolya with haughty humility. He had by
now completely recovered his dignity, though he was still a little
uneasy. He felt that he was greatly excited and that he had talked
about the goose, for instance, with too little reserve, while Alyosha
had looked serious and had not said a word all the time. And the vain
boy began by degrees to have a rankling fear that Alyosha was silent
because he despised him, and thought he was showing off before him. If
he dared to think anything like that Kolya would—
“I regard the question as quite a trivial one,” he rapped out again,
proudly.
“And I know who founded Troy,” a boy, who had not spoken before, said
suddenly, to the surprise of every one. He was silent and seemed to be
shy. He was a pretty boy of about eleven, called Kartashov. He was
sitting near the door. Kolya looked at him with dignified amazement.
The fact was that the identity of the founders of Troy had become a