The Brothers Karamazov

BOOK X: BOYS

Chapter 1: Kolya Krasotkin

The beginning of November. We had eleven degrees of frost, and with that came sheet ice. During the night a bit of dry snow had fallen on the frozen ground, and the wind, “dry and sharp,”^[276] lifted it up and blew it over the dreary streets of our little town and especially over the marketplace. The morning was dull, but it had stopped snowing. Near the marketplace, close to Plotnikov’s shop, stood a small house, very clean both inside and out, belonging to the widow of the official Krasotkin. Provincial secretary Krasotkin had died long ago, almost fourteen years before, but his widow, thirty years old and still a comely little lady, was alive and lived “on her own means” in her clean little house. She lived honestly and timidly, was of tender but quite cheerful character. She had lost her husband when she was eighteen, after living with him only for about a year and having just borne him a son. Since then, since the very day of his death, she had devoted herself entirely to the upbringing of her treasure, her boy Kolya, and though she had loved him to distraction all those fourteen years, she had of course endured incomparably more suffering than joy on account of him, trembling and dying of fear almost every day lest he become ill, catch cold, be naughty, climb on a chair and fall off, and so on and so forth. When Kolya started going to school and then to our high school, his mother threw herself into studying all the subjects with him, in order to help him and tutor him in his lessons, threw herself into acquaintances with his teachers and their wives, was sweet even to Kolya’s schoolboy friends, fawning on them so that they would not touch Kolya, would not laugh at him or beat him. She went so far that the boys indeed began laughing at him because of her and began teasing him for being a mama’s boy. But the lad knew how to stand up for himself. He was a brave boy, “terrifically strong,” according to the rumor spread about him and quickly established in his class; agile, persistent in character, bold and enterprising in spirit. He was a good student, and there was even a rumor that in both mathematics and world history he could show up the teacher, Dardanelov, himself. Yet, though he looked down on everyone and turned up his nose at them, the boy was still a good friend and not overly conceited. He accepted the schoolboys’ respect as his due, but behaved in a comradely way. Above all, he knew where to draw the line, could restrain himself when need be, and in relation to the authorities never overstepped that final and inscrutable limit beyond which a misdeed turns into disorder, rebellion, and lawlessness, and can no longer be tolerated. Yet he never minded getting into mischief at the first opportunity, any more than the worst boy, not so much for the sake of mischief as to do something whimsical, eccentric, to add some “extra spice,” to dazzle, to show off. Above all, he was extremely vain. He even managed to make his mama submit to him and treated her almost despotically. And she submitted, oh, she had submitted long ago, and the only thing she simply could not bear was the thought that the boy “had little love for her.” She imagined all the time that Kolya was “unfeeling” towards her, and there were occasions when, flooding herself with hysterical tears, she would begin to reproach him with his coldness. The boy did not like it, and the more heartfelt effusions she demanded of him, the more unyielding he became, as if deliberately. Yet it was not deliberate on his part, but involuntary—such was his nature. His mother was mistaken: he loved her very much, only he did not like “sentimental slop,” as he said in his schoolboy’s language. His father had left behind a bookcase in which a few books were kept; Kolya loved reading and had already read several of them on his own. His mother was not troubled by that, and only marveled sometimes at how the boy, instead of going out to play, would spend hours standing by the bookcase poring over some book. And it was thus that Kolya had read certain things that he should not have been given to read at his age. Of late, in any case, though the boy did not like to overstep a certain line in his pranks, there began to be some pranks that genuinely frightened his mother—not immoral ones, true, but desperate, daredevilish. Just that summer, in July, during the holidays, it so happened that the mama and her boy had gone to spend a week in another district, forty-five miles away, with a distant relative whose husband worked at a railway station (the same station, the one closest to our town, from which Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov left for Moscow a month later). There Kolya began by looking over the railroad in detail, studying the procedures, realizing that he would be able to show off his new knowledge among the boys in his school. But just then a few other boys turned up with whom he made friends; some of them lived at the station, others in the neighborhood—about six or seven youths altogether, between twelve and fifteen years old, and two of them happened to be from our town. The boys played together, pulled pranks together, until on the fourth or fifth day of the visit at the station the foolish youngsters made up a most impossible wager, for two roubles—that is: Kolya, who was almost the youngest of all and was therefore somewhat despised by the older boys, out of vanity or reckless bravado, offered to lie face down between the rails that night when the eleven o’clock train came, and to lie there without moving while the train passed over him at full steam. It is true that a preliminary examination had been carried out, which showed that it was indeed possible to stretch out and flatten oneself down between the rails, so that the train, of course, would pass over without touching the person lying there, but still, how would it feel to lie there! Kolya firmly maintained that he would do it. At first they laughed at him, called him a liar, a braggart, but that only egged him on even more. Above all, those fifteen-year-olds turned up their noses too much, and did not even want to be friends with him at first, but regarded him as “a little boy,” which was insufferably offensive. And so it was decided to go that evening to a spot about half a mile from the station, so that the train would have time to get up full speed after pulling out of the station. The boys met together. It was a moonless night, not just dark but almost pitch black. When the time came, Kolya lay down between the rails. The other five boys who were in on the wager waited with sinking hearts, and finally with fear and remorse, below the embankment, in the bushes near the road. At last there came the chugging of the train pulling out of the station. Two red lights flashed through the darkness, they heard the thunder of the approaching monster. “Run, run away from the rails!” the boys, dying with terror, shouted to Kolya from the bushes, but it was too late: the train loomed up and flew by. The boys rushed to Kolya: he lay without moving. They began pulling at him, lifting him up. Suddenly he rose and went silently down the embankment. When he got down he announced that he had pretended to be unconscious on purpose to frighten them, but the truth was that he had indeed fainted, as he himself later confessed long afterwards to his mama. Thus his reputation as a “desperado” was finally established forever. He returned home to the station white as a sheet. The next day he fell slightly ill with a nervous fever, but was in terribly joyful spirits, pleased and delighted. The incident became known in our town, though not at once, penetrated the high school, and reached the authorities. But at this point Kolya’s mama rushed to plead with the authorities on her boy’s behalf, and in the end got Dardanelov, a respected and influential teacher, to stand up and speak for him, and the case was set aside, as if it had never happened. This Dardanelov, a bachelor and not yet an old man, had for many years been passionately in love with Mrs. Krasotkin, and once already, about a year before, had ventured, most reverently, and sinking with fear and delicacy, to offer her his hand; but she flatly refused him, considering that acceptance would be a betrayal of her boy, though Dardanelov, from certain mysterious signs, even had, perhaps, some right to dream that he was not altogether repugnant to the lovely, but too chaste and sensitive, widow. Kolya’s mad prank seemed to have broken the ice, and Dardanelov, in return for his intercession, received a hint with regard to his hopes, though a very remote one; but Dardanelov himself was a miracle of purity and sensitivity, and therefore it sufficed at the time for the fullness of his happiness. He loved the boy, though he would have considered it humiliating to seek his favor, and in class he treated him sternly and demandingly. But Kolya also kept him at a respectful distance, prepared his lessons excellently, was second in his class, addressed Dardanelov drily, and the whole class firmly believed that Kolya was so strong in world history that he could even “show up” Dardanelov himself. And indeed Kolya had once asked him the question “Who founded Troy?”—to which Dardanelov gave only a general answer about peoples, their movements and migrations, about the remoteness of the times, about fable telling, but who precisely had founded Troy—that is, precisely which persons—he could not say, and even found the question for some reason an idle and groundless one. But this only left the boys convinced that Dardanelov did not know who had founded Troy. As for Kolya, he had learned about the founders of Troy in Smaragdov,^[277] whose history was in the bookcase left by his father. The upshot of it was that all the boys became interested finally in who precisely had founded Troy, but Krasotkin would not give away his secret, and the glory of his knowledge remained unshakably his own.

After the incident on the railway, a certain change took place in Kolya’s relations with his mother. When Anna Fyodorovna (Krasotkin’s widow) learned of her boy’s deed, she almost went out of her mind with horror. She had such terrible hysterical fits, which continued intermittently for several days, that Kolya, now seriously frightened, gave her his solemn word of honor that such pranks would never be repeated. He swore on his knees before an icon and he swore by his father’s memory, as Mrs. Krasotkin demanded, and the “manly” Kolya himself burst into tears like a six-year-old boy, from “feelings,” and all that day both mother and son kept falling into each other’s arms, sobbing and shaking. The next day Kolya woke up as “unfeeling” as ever, yet he grew more silent, more modest, more stern, more thoughtful. True, about a month and a half later, he was again caught in a prank, and his name even became known to our justice of the peace, but this was a prank of a very different sort, even a silly and funny one, and it turned out that he had not perpetrated it himself, but just happened to be mixed up in it. But of that another time. His mother went on trembling and suffering, and Dardanelov’s hopes increased more and more in measure with her anxiety. It should be noted that Kolya understood and figured out this side of Dardanelov, and, naturally, deeply despised him for his “feelings”; previously he had even been tactless enough to display his contempt before his mother, remotely hinting to her that he understood what Dardanelov was up to. But after the incident on the railway, he changed his behavior in this respect as well: he allowed himself no more hints, not even the remotest, and began to speak more respectfully of Dardanelov in his mother’s presence, which the sensitive Anna Fyodorovna understood at once with boundless gratitude in her heart, but at the same time, the slightest, most inadvertent mention of Dardanelov, even from some unaccustomed guest, if it was in Kolya’s presence, would make her blush all over with embarrassment, like a rose. And at such moments Kolya would either look frowning out the window, or study his face in the tips of his boots, or shout fiercely for Perezvon, a rather big, shaggy, and mangy dog he had acquired somewhere about a month before, dragged home, and for some reason kept secretly indoors, not showing him to any of his friends. He tyrannized over him terribly, teaching him all sorts of tricks and skills, and drove the poor dog so far that he howled in his absence, when he was away at school, and when he came home, squealed with delight, jumped madly, stood on his hind legs, fell down and played dead, and so on; in short, he did all the tricks he had been taught, not on command, but solely from the ardor of his rapturous feelings and grateful heart.

Incidentally, I have forgotten even to mention that Kolya Krasotkin was the same one whom the boy Ilyusha, already known to the reader, son of the retired captain Snegiryov, stabbed in the thigh with a penknife, defending his lather, whom the schoolboys taunted with “whiskbroom.”

Chapter 2: Kids

And so on that cold and wintry November morning, the boy Kolya Krasotkin was sitting at home. It was Sunday, and there was no school. But the clock had just struck eleven and he absolutely had to go out “on very important business,” and yet there he was, left alone in the whole house and decidedly in `harge of it, because it so happened that all of its elder inhabitants were away, owing to some urgent and singular circumstance. There was only one other apartment in the widow Krasotkin’s house, two little rooms across the hall from the widow’s apartment, which she rented out, and which were occupied by a doctor’s wife with two small children. This doctor’s wife was the same age as Anna Fyodorovna, and a great friend of hers, while the doctor himself had gone off somewhere about a year before, first to Orenburg, then to Tashkent, and nothing had been heard of him for the past six months, so that had it not been for the friendship of Mrs. Krasotkin, which somewhat softened the grief of the doctor’s abandoned wife, she would decidedly have drowned herself in the tears of that grief. And now it so happened, as if to crown all the adversities of fate, that Katerina, the doctor’s wife’s only maid, suddenly, and quite unexpectedly for her mistress, announced to her that very night, on Saturday, that she intended to give birth to a baby the next morning. How it happened that no one had noticed it before struck everyone as almost miraculous. The amazed doctor’s wife judged it best, while there was still time, to take Katerina to an establishment kept by a midwife in our town, suitable for such occasions. Since she highly valued her maid, she put her plan into action at once, took her there, and moreover stayed there with her. Later, in the morning, for some reason there was need for all the friendly participation and help of Mrs. Krasotkin herself, who on such an occasion could ask someone for something and wield a certain influence. Thus both ladies were absent, and as for Mrs. Krasotkin’s own maid, Agafya, she had gone to the market, and thus Kolya found himself for a time the keeper and guardian of the “squirts”—that is, the doctor’s wife’s little boy and girl, who were left all alone. Kolya was not afraid of guarding the house; besides he had Perezvon, who was ordered to lie down and “stay” under the bench in the front hall, and, precisely for that reason, every time Kolya, who kept pacing the rooms, came out to the hall, he shook his head and gave two firm and ingratiating thumps on the floor with his tail, but, alas, the summoning whistle did not come. Kolya would give the miserable dog a severe look, and again the dog would obediently freeze. But if anything troubled Kolya, it was the “squirts.” He naturally looked with the deepest contempt upon the unexpected adventure with Katerina, but the orphaned squirts he loved very much, and he had already brought them some children’s book. The older of the two, the girl Nastya, was eight and knew how to read, and the younger squirt, the seven-year-old boy, Kostya, liked it very much when Nastya read to him. Naturally, Krasotkin knew more interesting ways of entertaining them—for instance, by standing them side by side and playing soldiers, or hiding all over the house. He had done it more than once before and did not consider it beneath him, so that the rumor had even spread in his class that Krasotkin played “horses” at home with his little tenants, prancing and tossing his head like an outrunner, but Krasotkin proudly parried the accusation, putting forward the argument that “in our day” it would indeed be disgraceful to play “horses” with one’s peers, with thirteen-year-olds, but that he did so with the “squirts” because he loved them, and no one should dare call him to account for his feelings. And how the two “squirts” adored him! But this was no time for games. He was faced with some very important business of his own, which somehow even appeared almost mysterious, and meanwhile time was passing, and Agafya, with whom he could have left the children, still refused to come back from the market. He had already gone across the hall several times, opened the door to the other apartment, and looked in anxiously at the “squirts,” who, on his orders, were sitting there with a book, and, each time he opened the door, gave him big, silent smiles, expecting him to come in and do something wonderful and amusing. But Kolya was troubled in his soul and would not go in. Finally it struck eleven and he decided firmly and ultimately that if in ten minutes that “cursed” Agafya had not come back, he would leave without waiting for her, of course making the “squirts” give their word that they would not be scared without him, would not get into mischief, and would not cry from fear. With that thought in mind, he put on his padded winter coat with some kind of sealskin collar, slung his bag over his shoulder, and, despite his mother’s oft-repeated pleadings that he not go out “in such cold” without his galoshes, merely glanced at them in disdain, passing through the hall, and went out in just his boots. Perezvon, as soon as he saw him with his coat on, began thumping the floor still harder with his tail, nervously twitching all over, and even uttered a pitiful howl, but Kolya, seeing such passionate yearning in his dog, decided it was bad discipline, and kept him longer, though just a moment longer, under the bench, and only as he was opening the door to the hall did he suddenly whistle for him. The dog jumped up madly and began leaping ecstatically in front of him. Kolya crossed the hall and opened the “squirts’ “ door. They were both still sitting at the table, not reading now, but arguing heatedly about something. The children often argued with each other about various provocative matters of life, and Nastya, being older, always had the upper hand; and Kostya, if he did not agree with her, almost always went to appeal to Kolya Krasotkin, and whatever he decided remained the ultimate verdict for all sides. This time the argument between the “squirts” somewhat interested Krasotkin, and he stopped in the doorway to listen. The children saw he was listening and carried on their dispute with even greater enthusiasm.

“I’ll never, ever believe,” Nastya ardently prattled, “that midwives find little babies in the vegetable garden, between the cabbage rows. It’s winter now and there aren’t any cabbage rows, and the midwife couldn’t have brought Katerina a baby girl.”

“Whe-ew!” Kolya whistled to himself.

“Or maybe it’s like this: they do bring them from somewhere, but only when people get married.” Kostya stared at Nastya, listened gravely, and pondered.

“Nastya, what a fool you are,” he said at last, firmly and without excitement. “Where could Katerina get a baby if she’s not married?”

Nastya grew terribly excited.

“You don’t understand anything,” she cut him short irritably. “Maybe she had a husband, but he’s in prison now, so she went and had a baby.”

“But is her husband in prison?” the staid Kostya inquired gravely.

“Or else,” Nastya swiftly interrupted, completely abandoning and forgetting her first hypothesis, “she hasn’t got a husband, you’re right about that, but she wants to get married, so she started thinking how to get married, and she kept thinking and thinking, and she thought so much that now she got a baby instead.”

“Well, maybe,” agreed the utterly defeated Kostya, “but you didn’t say that before, so how could I know?”

“Well, kids,” said Kolya, taking a step into the room, “you’re dangerous people, I see!”

“And Perezvon, too?” Kostya grinned, and began snapping his fingers and calling Perezvon.

“I’m in trouble, squirts,” Krasotkin began importantly, “and you’ve got to help me: of course Agafya must have broken her leg, since she’s not back yet, that’s signed and sealed, but I have to leave. Will you let me go or not?”

The children worriedly exchanged looks, their grinning faces showed signs of anxiety. However, they still did not quite understand what was wanted of them.

“You won’t get into mischief while I’m gone? You won’t climb on the cupboard and break your leg? You won’t cry from fear if you’re left alone?”

Terrible grief showed on the children’s faces.

“And to make up for it I’ll show you a little something—it’s a little brass cannon that shoots with real powder.”

The children’s faces brightened at once.

“Show us the little cannon,” Kostya said, beaming all over.

Krasotkin thrust his hand into his bag, pulled out a little bronze cannon, and placed it on the table.

“‘Show us, show us! ‘ Look, it has little wheels,” he drove the toy along the table, “and it can shoot. Load it with small shot and it shoots.”

“And can it kill somebody?”

“It can kill everybody, you just have to aim it,” and Krasotkin explained how to put in the powder and roll in the shot, showed the little hole for the primer, and explained to them that there was such a thing as recoil. The children listened with terrible curiosity. What particularly struck their imagination was that there was such a thing as recoil.

“And have you got some powder?” Nastya inquired.

“I have.”

“Show us the powder, too,” she whined with an imploring smile.

Krasotkin again went into his bag, and took out of it a small bottle, which indeed contained some real powder, and a folded paper, which turned out to have a few pellets of shot in it. He even opened the bottle and poured a little powder out in his palm.

“So long as there’s no fire around, or it would explode and kill us all,” Krasotkin warned, for the sake of effect.

The children gazed at the powder with an awestruck fear, which only increased their pleasure. But Kostya liked the shot better.

“Does shot burn?” he inquired.

“Shot does not burn.”

“Give me some shot,” he said in a pleading voice.

“I’ll give you a little, here, take it, only don’t show it to your mother before I come back, or she may think it’s powder, and she’ll die of fear and give you a whipping.”

“Mama never beats us,” Nastya observed at once.

“I know, I just said it for the beauty of the style. And you should never deceive your mama, except this once—till I come back. Well, squirts, can I go or not? Are you going to cry from fear without me?”

“We w-will c-cry,” Kostya whined, already preparing to cry.

“We will, we really will cry!” Nastya added in a frightened patter.

“Oh, children, children, how perilous are your years.^[278] So, there’s nothing to be done, chicks, I’ll have to stay with you I don’t know how long. And the time, the time, oof!”

“Tell Perezvon to play dead,” Kostya asked.

“Well, nothing to be done, I’ll have to resort to Perezvon. Ici, Perezvon!” And Kolya began giving orders to the dog, and he began doing all his tricks. He was a shaggy dog, the size of any ordinary mongrel, with a sort of blue gray coat. He was blind in his right eye, and his left ear for some reason had a nick in it. He squealed and jumped, stood and walked on his hind legs, threw himself on his back with all four legs in the air and lay motionless as if dead. During this last trick the door opened and Agafya, Mrs. Krasotkin’s fat maid, a pockmarked woman of about forty, appeared on the threshold, returning from the market with a paper bag full of groceries in her hand. She stood with the bag perched on her left hand and began watching the dog. Kolya, however eagerly he had been waiting for Agafya, did not interrupt the performance, and having kept Perezvon dead for a certain length of time, finally whistled: the dog jumped up and began leaping for joy at having fulfilled his duty.

“Some dog that is!” Agafya said didactically.

“Why are you late, female sex?” Krasotkin asked sternly. “Female sex yourself, pipsqueak.”

“Pipsqueak?”

“Yes, pipsqueak. What’s it to you if I’m late? If I’m late I must have had good reason,” Agafya muttered, as she started bustling about the stove, not at all in a displeased or angry voice, but, on the contrary, sounding very pleased, as if she were glad of the chance to exchange quips with her cheerful young master.

“Listen, you frivolous old woman,” Krasotkin began, rising from the sofa, “will you swear to me by all that’s holy in this world, and something else besides, that you will keep a constant eye on the squirts in my absence? I’m going out.”

“Why should I go swearing to you?” Agafya laughed. “I’ll look after them anyway.”

“No, not unless you swear by the eternal salvation of your soul. Otherwise I won’t go.”

“Don’t go, then. I don’t care. It’s freezing out; stay home.”

“Squirts,” Kolya turned to the children, “this woman will stay with you till I come back, or till your mama comes, because she, too, should have been back long ago. And furthermore she will give you lunch. Will you fix them something, Agafya?”

“Could be.”

“Good-bye, chicks, I’m going with an easy heart. And you, granny,” he said, imposingly and in a low voice, as he passed by Agafya, “spare their young years, don’t go telling them all your old wives’ nonsense about Katerina. Ici, Perezvon!”

“And you know where you can go!” Agafya snarled, this time in earnest. “Funny boy! Ought to be whipped yourself for such talk, that’s what.”

Chapter 3: A Schoolboy

But Kolya was no longer listening. At last he was able to leave. He walked out the gate, looked around, hunched his shoulders, and having said “Freezing!” set off straight down the street and then turned right down a lane to the mar- , ket square. When he reached the next to the last house before the square, he stopped at the gate, pulled a whistle out of his pocket, and whistled with all his might, as if giving a prearranged signal. He did not have to wait more than a minute—a ruddy-cheeked boy of about eleven years old suddenly ran out to him through the gate, also wearing a warm, clean, and even stylish coat. This was the Smurov boy, who was in the preparatory class (whereas Kolya Krasotkin was two years ahead), the son of a well-to-do official, whose parents evidently would not allow him to go around with Krasotkin, a notoriously desperate prankster, so that this time Smurov obviously had escaped on the sly. This Smurov, if the reader has not forgotten, was one of the group of boys who were throwing stones at Ilyusha across the ditch two months before, and had told Alyosha Karamazov then about Ilyusha.

“I’ve been waiting a whole hour for you, Krasotkin,” Smurov said with a determined look, and the boys strode off towards the square.

“I’m late,” Krasotkin replied. “Circumstances arose. They won’t whip you for being with me?”

“Lord, no, they never whip me! So you’ve brought Perezvon?”

“Perezvon, too!”

“He’s going there, too?”

“He’s going, too.”

“Ah, if only it was Zhuchka!”

“Impossible. Zhuchka does not exist. Zhuchka has vanished in the darkness of the unknown.”

“Ah, couldn’t we do it?” Smurov suddenly stopped for a moment. “Ilyusha did say that Zhuchka was shaggy, and gray and smoky, just like Perezvon— couldn’t we tell him it’s really Zhuchka? Maybe he’ll even believe it?”

“Schoolboy, do not stoop to lying, first; and second, not even for a good cause. And above all, I hope you didn’t tell them anything about my coming.”

“God forbid, I know what I’m doing. But you won’t comfort him with Perezvon,” sighed Smurov. “You know, his father, the captain, I mean, the whiskbroom, told us he was going to bring him a puppy today, a real mastiff, with a black nose; he thinks he can comfort Ilyusha with it, only it’s not likely.”

“And Ilyusha himself—how is he?”

“Ah, he’s bad, bad! I think he has consumption. He’s quite conscious, only he keeps breathing, breathing, it’s not healthy the way he breathes. The other day he asked to be walked around the room, they put his boots on, he tried to walk but kept falling down. Ah,’ he said, ‘I told you my old boots were no good, papa, even before I had trouble walking in them.’ He thought he was stumbling because of his boots, but it was simply weakness. He won’t live another week. Herzenstube keeps coming. They’re rich again now, they’ve got a lot of money.”

“Swindlers.”

“Who are swindlers?”

“Doctors, and all medical scum, generally speaking, and, naturally, in particular as well. I reject medicine. A useless institution. But I’m still looking into all that. Anyway, what are these sentimentalities you’ve got going? Seems like your whole class is sitting there.”

“Not the whole class, but about ten of us always go there, every day. It’s all right.”

“What surprises me in all this is the role of Alexei Karamazov: his brother is going on trial tomorrow or the day after for such a crime, and he still finds so much time for sentimentalizing with boys!”

“There isn’t any sentimentalizing in it. You yourself are going now to make peace with Ilyusha.”

“To make peace? A funny expression. Incidentally, I allow no one to analyze my actions.”

“And Ilyusha will be so glad to see you! He doesn’t even dream that you’re coming. Why, why wouldn’t you come for such a long time?” Smurov exclaimed with sudden ardor.

“That’s my business, my dear boy, not yours. I am going on my own, because such is my will, while you were all dragged there by Alexei Karamazov, so there’s a difference. And how do you know, maybe I’m not going to make peace at all? Silly expression!”

“It wasn’t Karamazov at all, not him at all. Some of us just started going there by ourselves, of course with Karamazov at first. And there was never anything like that, nothing silly. First one of us went, then another. His father was terribly glad to see us. You know, he’ll just go out of his mind if Ilyusha dies. He can see Ilyusha’s going to die. But he’s so glad about us, that we made peace with Ilyusha. Ilyusha asked about you, but he didn’t add anything more. He just asks, and that’s all. His father will go out of his mind, or hang himself. He’s acted crazy before. You know, he’s a noble man, and that was all a mistake. It was the fault of that murderer, the one who gave him the beating.”

“Still, Karamazov is a riddle to me. I could have made his acquaintance long ago, but I like to be proud in certain cases. Besides, I’ve formed an opinion of him that still has to be verified and explained.”

Kolya fell imposingly silent; so did Smurov. Smurov, of course, stood in awe of Kolya Krasotkin and did not dare even think of rivaling him. And now he was terribly curious, because Kolya had explained that he was going “on his own,” and so there must be some riddle in the fact that Kolya had suddenly decided to go, and precisely on that day. They were crossing the market square, which at that hour was filled with farm wagons and lots of live fowl. Town women were selling rolls, thread, and so forth, under their shed roofs. In our town, such Sunday markets are naively called fairs, and there are many such fairs during the year. Perezvon ran along in the merriest spirits, constantly straying to right and left to smell something here and there. When he met other dogs, he sniffed them with remarkable zeal, according to all canine rules.

“I like observing realism, Smurov,” Kolya suddenly spoke. “Have you noticed how dogs sniff each other when they meet? It must be some general law of their nature.”

“Yes, and a funny one, too.”

“In fact, it is not a funny one, you’re wrong there. Nothing is funny in nature, however it may seem to man with his prejudices. If dogs could reason and criticize, they would undoubtedly find as much that is funny to them in the social relations of humans, their masters—if not far more; I repeat, because I am convinced of it, that there is far more foolishness in us. That is Rakitin’s thought, a remarkable thought. I am a socialist, Smurov.”

“And what is a socialist?” asked Smurov.

“It’s when everyone is equal, everyone has property in common, there are no marriages, and each one has whatever religion and laws he likes, and all the rest. You’re not grown up enough for that yet, you’re too young. It is cold, by the way.”

“Yes. Twelve degrees of frost. My father just looked at the thermometer.”

“And have you noticed, Smurov, that in the middle of winter, when there are fifteen or even eighteen degrees of frost, it doesn’t seem as cold as it does now, for example, in the beginning of winter, if there’s suddenly an unexpected cold snap, like now, of twelve degrees, especially when there isn’t much snow. It means people aren’t used to it yet. Everything is habit with people, everything, even state and political relations. Habit is the chief motive force. What a funny peasant, by the way.”

Kolya pointed to a stalwart peasant in a sheepskin coat, with a good-natured face, who was standing beside his wagon clapping his hands in their mittens to keep them warm. His long, light brown beard was all hoary with frost.

“The peasant’s got his beard frozen!” Kolya cried loudly and pertly as he passed by him.

“Many have got their beards frozen,” the peasant uttered calmly and sententiously in reply.

“Don’t pick on him,” Smurov remarked.

“It’s all right, he won’t be angry, he’s a nice fellow. Good-bye, Matvey.”

“Good-bye.”

“Are you really Matvey?”

“I am. Didn’t you know?”

“No, I just said it.”

“Well, I declare. You must be one of them schoolboys.”

“One of them schoolboys.”

“And what, do they whip you?”

“Not really, so-so.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It can.”

“E-eh, that’s life!” the peasant sighed from the bottom of his heart.

“Good-bye, Matvey.”

“Good-bye. You’re a nice lad, that’s what.”

The boys walked on.

“A good peasant,” Kolya began saying to Smurov. “I like talking with the people, and am always glad to do them justice.”

“Why did you lie about them whipping us at school?” asked Smurov.

“But I had to comfort him.”

“How so?”

“You know, Smurov, I don’t like it when people keep asking questions, when they don’t understand the first time. Some things can’t even be explained. A peasant’s notion is that schoolboys are whipped and ought to be whipped: what kind of schoolboy is he, if he isn’t whipped? And if I were suddenly to tell him that they don’t whip us in our school, it would upset him. Anyway, you don’t understand these things. One has to know how to talk with the people.”

“Only please don’t pick on them, or there’ll be another incident like that time with the goose.”

“Are you afraid?” “Don’t laugh, Kolya. I am afraid, by God. My father will be terribly angry. I’m strictly forbidden to go around with you.”

“Don’t worry, nothing will happen this time. Hello, Natasha,” he shouted to one of the market women under the shed.

“Natasha, is it? My name’s Maria,” the woman, who was still far from old, replied in a shrill voice.

“Maria! How nice! Good-bye.”

“Ah, the scamp! Knee-high to a mushroom and he’s at it already!”

“No time, I have no time for you now, tell me next Sunday,” Kolya waved his hand at her, as if he was not bothering her but she him.

“What am I going to tell you next Sunday? I’m not pestering you, you’re pestering me, you rascal,” Maria went on shouting, “you ought to be whipped, that’s what, you’re a famous offender, that’s what!”

There was laughter among the other market women, who were selling things from their stands next to Maria, when suddenly, from under the arcade of shops nearby, for no reason at all an irritated man jumped out, who looked like a shop clerk, but a stranger, not one of our tradesmen, in a long blue caftan and a visored cap, a young man, with dark brown, curly hair and a long, pale, slightly pockmarked face. He was somehow absurdly agitated, and at once began threatening Kolya with his fist.

“I know you,” he kept exclaiming irritably, “I know you!”

Kolya stared fixedly at him. He was unable to recall when he could have had any quarrel with this man. But he had had so many quarrels in the streets that he could not remember them all.

“So you know me?” he asked ironically.

“I know you! I know you!” the tradesman kept repeating like a fool.

“So much the better for you. But I am in a hurry. Good-bye.”

“You’re still up to your tricks?” the tradesman shouted. “Up to your tricks again? I know you! So you’re up to your tricks again?”

“It’s none of your business, brother, what tricks I’m up to,” Kolya said, stopping and continuing to examine him.

“None of my business, is it?”

“That’s right, it’s none of your business.”

“And whose is it? Whose? Well, whose?”

“It’s Trifon Nikitich’s business now, brother, not yours.”

“What Trifon Nikitich?” the fellow stared at Kolya in foolish surprise, though still with the same excitement. Kolya solemnly looked him up and down.

“Have you been to the Church of the Ascension?” he suddenly asked him sternly and insistently.

“What Ascension? Why? No, I haven’t,” the fellow was a bit taken aback. “Do you know Sabaneyev?” Kolya went on, still more insistently and sternly.

“What Sabaneyev? No, I don’t know him.”

“Devil take you, then!” Kolya suddenly snapped, and turning sharply to the right, quickly went his way as if scorning even to speak with such a dolt who does not even know Sabaneyev.

“Hey, wait! What Sabaneyev?” the fellow came to his senses and again got all excited. “What’s he talking about?” he suddenly turned to the market women, staring foolishly at them.

The women burst out laughing. “A clever boy,” one of them said.

“What, what Sabaneyev did he mean?” the fellow kept repeating frenziedly, waving his right hand.

“Ah, it must be the Sabaneyev that worked for the Kuzmichevs, must be that one,” one woman suddenly understood.

The fellow stared wildly at her.

“For the Kuz-mi-chevs?” another woman repeated. “He’s no Trifon. That one’s Kuzma, not Trifon, and the boy said Trifon Nikitich, so it’s somebody else.”

“No, he’s no Trifon, and he’s no Sabaneyev either, he’s Chizhov,” a third woman suddenly joined in, who up to then had been silent and listening seriously. “His name’s Alexei Ivanich. Alexei Ivanich Chizhov.”

“That’s right, he is Chizhov,” a fourth woman confirmed emphatically.

The stunned fellow kept looking from one woman to another.

“But why did he ask me, why did he ask me, good people?” he kept exclaiming, now almost in despair. ‘“Do you know Sabaneyev?’ Devil knows who Sabaneyev is!”

“What a muddlehead! Didn’t you hear, it’s not Sabaneyev, it’s Chizhov, Alexei Ivanich Chizhov, that’s who!” one of the market women shouted at him imposingly.

“What Chizhov? Who is he? Tell me, if you know.”

“A tall, snot-nosed fellow, he used to sit in the marketplace last summer.”

“What the hell do I need your Chizhov for, eh, good people?”

“How do I know what the hell you need Chizhov for?”

“Who knows what you need him for?” another woman joined in. “You should know what you need him for, it’s you doing all the squawking. He was speaking to you, not to us, fool that you are. So you really don’t know him?”

“Who?”

“Chizhov.”

“Ah, devil take Chizhov, and you along with him! I’ll give him a thrashing, that’s what! He was laughing at me!” “You’ll give Chizhov a thrashing? More likely he’ll give you one! You’re a fool, that’s what!”

“Not Chizhov, not Chizhov, you wicked, nasty woman, I’ll thrash the boy, that’s what! Let me have him, let me have him—he was laughing at me!”

The women all roared with laughter. And Kolya was already far off, strutting along with a triumphant expression on his face. Smurov walked beside him, looking back at the group shouting far behind them. He, too, was having a good time, though he still feared getting into some scandal with Kolya.

“What Sabaneyev were you asking him about?” he asked Kolya, guessing what the answer would be.

“How do I know? They’ll go on shouting till nighttime now. I like stirring up fools in all strata of society. There stands another dolt, that peasant there. People say, ‘There’s no one stupider than a stupid Frenchman,’ but note how the Russian physiognomy betrays itself. Isn’t it written all over that peasant’s face that he’s a fool, eh?”

“Leave him alone, Kolya. Let’s keep going.”

“No, now that I’ve gotten started, I wouldn’t stop for the world. Hey! Good morning, peasant!”

A burly peasant, who was slowly passing by and seemed to have had a drop to drink already, with a round, simple face and a beard streaked with gray, raised his head and looked at the lad.

“Well, good morning, if you’re not joking,” he answered unhurriedly.

“And if I am joking?” laughed Kolya.

“Joke then, if you’re joking, and God be with you. Never mind, it’s allowed. A man can always have his joke.”

“Sorry, brother, I was joking.”

“So, God will forgive you.”

“But you, do you forgive me?”

“That I do. Run along now.”

“Look here, you seem to be a smart peasant.”

“Smarter than you,” the peasant replied unexpectedly, and with the same air of importance.

“That’s unlikely,” Kolya was somewhat taken aback.

“It’s the truth I’m telling you.”

“Well, maybe it is.”

“So there, brother.”

“Good-bye, peasant.”

“Good-bye.”

“Peasants differ,” Kolya observed to Smurov after some silence. “How was I to know I’d run into a smart one? I’m always prepared to recognize intelligence in the people.” Far away the cathedral clock struck half past eleven. The boys began to hurry, and covered the rest of the still quite long way to Captain Snegiryov’s house quickly and now almost without speaking. Twenty paces from the house, Kolya stopped and told Smurov to go on ahead and call Karamazov out to meet him there.

“For some preliminary sniffing,” he observed to Smurov.

“But why call him out?” Smurov tried to object. “Just go in, they’ll be terribly glad to see you. Why do you want to get acquainted in the freezing cold?”

“It’s for me to know why I need him here, in the freezing cold,” Kolya snapped despotically (as he was terribly fond of doing with these “little boys”), and Smurov ran to carry out the order.

Chapter 4: Zhuchka

Kolya leaned against the fence with an important look on his face and began waiting for Alyosha to appear. Yes, he had long been wanting to meet him. He had heard a lot about him from the boys, but so far had always ostensibly displayed an air of scornful indifference whenever anyone spoke to him about Alyosha, and even “criticized” him as he listened to what was told about him. But within himself he wanted very, very much to make his acquaintance; there was something sympathetic and attractive in all the stories he had heard about Alyosha. Thus, the present moment was an important one; first of all he must not disgrace himself, he must show his independence: “Otherwise he’ll think I’m thirteen, and take me for the same sort as those boys. What does he find in those boys anyway? I’ll ask him once we’ve become friends. Too bad I’m so short, though. Tuzikov is younger than I am, but he’s half a head taller. Still, I have an intelligent face; I’m not good-looking, I know my face is disgusting, but it’s an intelligent face. I also mustn’t give myself away too much, otherwise, if I start right out with embraces, maybe he’ll think ... Pfui, how disgusting if he was to think ...”

Such were Kolya’s worries, while he did his best to assume the most independent look. Above all, what tormented him was his small stature, not so much his “disgusting” face as his stature. At home, on the wall in one corner, there was a little pencil mark showing his height, which he had put there a year before, and since then, every two months, he would go excitedly to measure himself and see how much he had grown. But, alas, he grew terribly little, and that at times would bring him simply to despair. As for his face, it was not “disgusting” at all; on the contrary, it was quite comely, fair, pale, and freckled. His small but lively gray eyes had a brave look and would often light up with emotion. His cheekbones were somewhat broad, his lips were small, not too thick, but very red; his nose was small and decidedly upturned: “Quite snub-nosed, quite snub-nosed!” Kolya muttered to himself whenever he looked in the mirror, and he always went away from the mirror with indignation. “And it’s not much of an intelligent face either,” he sometimes thought, doubting even that. Still, it must not be thought that worrying about his face and height absorbed his whole soul. On the contrary, however painful those moments before the mirror were, he would quickly forget them, and for a long time, “giving himself wholly to ideas and to real life,” as he himself defined his activity.

Alyosha soon appeared and hurriedly came up to Kolya; Kolya could see even from several paces away that Alyosha’s face was somehow quite joyful. “Can it be he’s so glad to see me?” Kolya thought with pleasure. Here, incidentally, we must note that Alyosha had changed very much since we last saw him: he had thrown off his cassock and was now wearing a finely tailored coat and a soft, round hat, and his hair was cut short. All of this lent him charm, and, indeed, he looked very handsome. His comely face always had a cheerful look, but this cheerfulness was somehow quiet and calm. To Kolya’s surprise, Alyosha came out to him dressed just as he was, without an overcoat; obviously he had rushed to meet him. He held out his hand to Kolya at once.

“Here you are at last, we’ve been waiting for you so!”

“There were reasons, which you will learn of in a moment. In any case, I am glad to make your acquaintance. I have long been waiting for an opportunity, and have heard a lot,” Kolya mumbled, slightly out of breath.

“But you and I would have become acquainted anyway, I’ve heard a lot about you myself; it’s here, to this place, you’ve been slow in coming.”

“Tell me, how are things here?”

“Ilyusha is very bad, he will certainly die.”

“Really? You must agree, Karamazov, that medicine is vile,” Kolya exclaimed ardently.

“Ilyusha has mentioned you often, very often, you know, even in his sleep, in delirium. Evidently you were very, very dear to him before ... that incident ... with the penknife. There’s another reason besides ... Tell me, is this your dog?”

“Yes. Perezvon.”

“Not Zhuchka?” Alyosha looked pitifully into Kolya’s eyes. “She just vanished like that?”

“I know you’d all like to have Zhuchka, I’ve heard all about it,” Kolya smiled mysteriously. “Listen, Karamazov, I’ll explain the whole business to you, I came mainly for that purpose, that was why I called you outside, to explain the whole affair to you ahead of time, before we go in,” he began animatedly. “You see, Karamazov, Ilyusha entered the preparatory class last spring. Well, everybody knows the preparatory class—little boys, kids. They immediately started picking on Ilyusha. I’m two classes ahead, and naturally looked on from a distance, as an outsider. I saw that the boy was small, weak, but he didn’t submit, he even fought with them—a proud boy, his eyes flashing. I like that kind. And they went after him worse than ever. The main thing was that he had such shabby clothes then, and his pants were riding up, and his boots had holes in them. They picked on that, too. Humiliated him. No, that I didn’t like, I stepped in and made it hot for them. I beat them up—and they adore me, do you know that, Karamazov?” Kolya boasted effusively. “And I like kids generally. I’ve got two chicks on my neck at home now, in fact they made me late today. So, after that they stopped beating Ilyusha, and I took him under my protection. I saw he was a proud boy, I can tell you how proud he is, but in the end he gave himself up to me like a slave, obeyed my every order, listened to me as though I were God, tried to copy me. In the breaks between classes he would come running to me at once and we would walk together. On Sundays, too. In our school they laugh when an older boy makes friends with a little one on such footing, but that is a prejudice. It suits my fancy, and that’s enough, don’t you think? I was teaching him, developing him—tell me, why shouldn’t I develop him, if I like him? And you did befriend all these kids, Karamazov, which means you want to influence the young generation, develop them, be useful, no? And I admit, this trait of your character, which I knew only from hearsay, interested me most of all. But to business: I noticed that a sort of tenderness, sensitivity, was developing in the boy, and, you know, I am decidedly the enemy of all sentimental slop, and have been since the day I was born. Moreover, there were contradictions: he was proud, but devoted to me like a slave—devoted to me like a slave, yet suddenly his eyes would flash and he wouldn’t even want to agree with me, he’d argue, beat on the wall. I used to put forward various ideas sometimes: it wasn’t that he disagreed with the ideas, I could see that he was simply rebelling against me personally, because I responded coldly to his sentimentalities. And so, the more sentimental he became, the colder I was, in order to season him; I did it on purpose, because it’s my conviction. I had in mind to discipline his character, to shape him up, to create a person ... well, and so ... you’ll understand me, naturally, from half a word. Suddenly I noticed he was troubled for a day, for two, three days, that he was grieving, not over sentiments now, but something else, something stronger, higher. What’s the tragedy, I wondered. I pressed him and found out this: he had somehow managed to make friends with Smerdyakov, your late father’s lackey (your father was still alive then), and he had taught the little fool a silly trick—that is, a beastly trick, a vile trick—to take a piece of bread, the soft part, stick a pin in it, and toss it to some yard dog, the kind that’s so hungry it will swallow whatever it gets without chewing it, and then watch what happens. And so they fixed up such a morsel and threw it to that very same shaggy Zhuchka that so much fuss is being made over now, a yard dog from the sort of house where they simply never fed her and she just barked at the wind all day long. (Do you like that silly barking, Karamazov? I can’t stand it.) She rushed for it, swallowed it, and started squealing, turning round and round, then broke into a run, still squealing as she ran, and disappeared—so Ilyusha described it to me himself. He was crying as he told me, crying, clinging to me, shaking: ‘She squealed and ran, she squealed and ran,’ he just kept repeating it, the picture really struck him. Well, I could see he felt remorse. I took it seriously. Above all I wanted to discipline him for the previous things, so that, I confess, I cheated here, I pretended to be more indignant than maybe I really was: ‘You have committed a base deed,’ I said, ‘you are a scoundrel. Of course, I will not give you away, but for the time being I am breaking relations with you. I will think it over and let you know through Smurov’ (the same boy who came with me today; he’s always been devoted to me) ‘whether I will continue relations with you hereafter, or will drop you forever as a scoundrel.’ That struck him terribly. I’ll admit I felt right then that I might be treating him too harshly, but what could I do, it was how I thought at the time. A day later I sent Smurov to him with the message from me that I was ‘not talking’ with him any more, that’s what we say when two friends break relations with each other. Secretly I just meant to give him the silent treatment for a few days, and then, seeing his repentance, to offer him my hand again. That was my firm intention. But what do you think: he listened to Smurov, and suddenly his eyes flashed. ‘Tell Krasotkin from me,’ he shouted, ‘that now I’m going to throw bread with pins in it to all the dogs, all of them, all!’ ‘Aha,’ I thought, ‘he’s got a free little spirit in him, this will have to be smoked out,’ and I began showing complete contempt for him, turning away whenever I met him, or smiling ironically. And then suddenly that incident with his father took place—the whiskbroom, I mean—remember? You should understand that he was already prepared beforehand to be terribly vexed. Seeing that I had dropped him, the boys all fell on him, taunting him: ‘Whiskbroom! Whiskbroom! ‘ It was then that the battles started between them, which I’m terribly sorry about, because it seems they beat him badly once. Then once he attacked them all in the street as they were coming out of school, and I happened to be standing ten steps away, looking at him. And, I swear, I don’t remember laughing then; on the contrary, I was feeling very, very sorry for him; another moment and I’d have rushed to defend him. But then he suddenly met my eyes: what he imagined I don’t know, but he pulled out a penknife, rushed at me, and stuck it into my thigh, here, on my right leg. I didn’t move, I must admit I can be brave sometimes, Karamazov, I just looked at him with contempt, as if to say: ‘Wouldn’t you like to do it again, in return for all my friendship? I’m at your service.’ But he didn’t stab me a second time, he couldn’t stand it, got scared himself, dropped the knife, burst into sobs, and ran away. Naturally, I did not go and squeal on him, and I told everybody to keep quiet about it so that the authorities wouldn’t find out; even my mother I told only after it was all healed—and the wound was a trifling one, just a scratch. Then I heard he’d been throwing stones that same day, and bit your finger—but you understand what state he was in! Well, what can I say, I acted foolishly: when he got sick, I didn’t go to forgive him—that is, to make peace—and now I regret it. But I had special reasons then. Well, that’s the whole story ... only I guess I did act foolishly...”

“Ah, what a pity,” Alyosha exclaimed with feeling, “that I didn’t know about the relations between you before, or I’d have come long ago and asked you to go and see him with me. Would you believe that he talked about you in his fever, in delirium, when he was sick? I didn’t even know how dear you were to him! And can it be, can it be that you never found that Zhuchka? His father and all the boys were searching all over town. Would you believe that three times, since he got sick, I’ve heard him say in tears to his father: ‘I’m sick because I killed Zhuchka, papa, God is punishing me for it’—and he won’t give up the idea! If only we could find that Zhuchka now and show him that she’s not dead, that she’s alive, he might just be resurrected by the joy of it. We’ve all had our hopes on you.”

“Tell me, what reason did you have to hope that I would find Zhuchka— that is, that precisely I would be the one to find her?” Kolya asked with great curiosity. “Why did you count precisely on me and not on someone else?”

“There was some rumor that you were looking for her, and that when you found her, you would bring her. Smurov said something like that. Most of all, we keep trying to assure him that Zhuchka is alive, that she’s been seen somewhere. The boys found a live hare someplace, but he just looked at it, smiled faintly, and asked us to let it go in the fields. And so we did. Just now his father came home and brought him a mastiff pup, he also got it someplace, he wanted to comfort him, but it seems to have made things even worse ...”

“Another thing, Karamazov: what about his father? I know him, but how would you define him: a buffoon, a clown?” “Ah, no, there are people who feel deeply but are somehow beaten down. Their buffoonery is something like a spiteful irony against those to whom they dare not speak the truth directly because of a long-standing, humiliating timidity before them. Believe me, Krasotkin, such buffoonery is sometimes extremely tragic. For him, now, everything on earth has come together in Ilyusha, and if Ilyusha dies, he will either go out of his mind from grief or take his own life. I’m almost convinced of it when I look at him now!”

“I understand you, Karamazov, I see that you know human nature,” Kolya added with feeling.

“And so, when I saw you with a dog, I immediately thought you must be bringing that Zhuchka.”

“Wait, Karamazov, maybe we’ll still find her, but this one—this one is Perezvon. I’ll let him into the room now, and maybe he’ll cheer Ilyusha up more than the mastiff. Wait, Karamazov, you’re going to find something out now. Ah, my God, but I’m keeping you out here!” Kolya suddenly cried. “You’re just wearing a jacket in such cold, and I’m keeping you—see, see what an egoist I am! Oh, we’re all egoists, Karamazov!”

“Don’t worry; it’s cold, true, but I don’t catch cold easily. Let’s go, however. By the way, what is your name? I know it’s Kolya, but the rest?”

“Nikolai, Nikolai Ivanov Krasotkin, or, as they say in official jargon, son of Krasotkin,” Kolya laughed at something, but suddenly added: “Naturally, I hate the name Nikolai.”

“But why?”

“Trivial, official-sounding...”

“You’re going on thirteen?” Alyosha asked.

“No, fourteen, in two weeks I’ll be fourteen, quite soon. I’ll confess one weakness to you beforehand, Karamazov, to you alone, for the sake of our new acquaintance, so that you can see the whole of my character at once: I hate being asked my age, more than hate it ... and finally, another thing, there’s a slanderous rumor going around about me, that I played robbers with the preparatory class last week. That I played with them is actually true, but that I played for myself, for my own pleasure, is decidedly slander. I have reason to think it may have reached your ears, but I played not for myself, but for the kids, because they couldn’t think up anything without me. And people here are always spreading nonsense. This town lives on gossip, I assure you.”

“And even if you did play for your own pleasure, what of it?”

“Well, even if I did ... But you don’t play hobbyhorse, do you?”

“You should reason like this,” Alyosha smiled. “Adults, for instance, go to the theater, and in the theater, too, all sorts of heroic adventures are acted out, sometimes also with robbers and battles—and isn’t that the same thing, in its own way, of course? And a game of war among youngsters during a period of recreation, or a game of robbers—that, too, is a sort of nascent art, an emerging need for art in a young soul, and these games are sometimes even better conceived than theater performances, with the only difference that people go to the theater to look at the actors, and here young people are themselves the actors. But it’s only natural.”

“You think so? Is that your conviction?” Kolya was looking at him intently. “You know, you’ve said a very interesting thought; I’ll set my mind to it when I get home. I admit, I did suspect it would be possible to learn something from you. I’ve come to learn from you, Karamazov,” Kolya concluded in an emotional and effusive voice.

“And I from you,” Alyosha smiled, pressing his hand.

Kolya was extremely pleased with Alyosha. It struck him that Alyosha was to the highest degree on an equal footing with him, and spoke with him as with “the most adult” person.

“I’m going to show you a stunt now, Karamazov, also a theater performance,” he laughed nervously, “that’s what I came for.”

“Let’s stop at the landlady’s first, on the left; we all leave our coats there, because it’s crowded and hot in the room.”

“Oh, I’ve just come for a moment, I’ll go in and keep my coat on. Perezvon will stay here in the entryway and play dead. Ici, Perezvon, couche, and play dead! See, he’s dead. I’ll go in first, check out the situation, and then at the right moment I’ll whistle: Ici, Perezvon! And you’ll see, he’ll come rushing in like mad. Only Smurov must not forget to open the door at that moment. I’ll arrange it, and you’ll see a real stunt...”