I. Kolya Krasotkin

November at the beginning. We had a frost of eleven degrees, and with it sleet. A bit of dry snow fell on the frozen ground during the night, and the “dry and sharp” wind picks it up and sweeps it through the boring streets of our town, and especially through the market square. Cloudy morning, but the snow stopped. Not far from the square, near the Plotnikovs' shop, there is a small one. very clean both outside and inside the house of the official's widow Krasotkina. The provincial secretary Krasotkin himself died a very long time ago, almost fourteen years ago, but his widow. a thirty-year-old and still very pretty lady, is alive and lives in her clean house "with her own capital." She lives honestly and timidly, with a gentle but rather cheerful character. She remained after her husband of eighteen years, having lived with him for only about a year and had just given birth to his son. Since then, since his death, she devoted herself entirely to raising this little baby of hers - the boy Kolya, and although she loved him all fourteen years without memory, she certainly endured incomparably more suffering with him than she survived joys, trembling and dying of fear. almost every day that he falls ill, catches a cold, catches a cold, climbs onto a chair and falls down, and so on and so forth. When Kolya began to go to school and then to our gymnasium, his mother rushed to study all the sciences with him in order to help him and rehearse lessons with him, rushed to get acquainted with teachers and their wives, even caressed Kolya's comrades schoolchildren, and foxed before them, so as not to touch Kolya, not to mock him, not to beat him. She brought it to the point that the boys actually began to mock him through her and began to tease him with the fact that he was a sissy. But the boy managed to defend himself. He was a brave boy, "terribly strong," as the rumor about him in the class swept through and soon established itself, he was dexterous, stubborn in character, audacious and enterprising spirit. He studied well, and there was even a rumor that he was both from arithmetic and from world history knock down the teacher Dardanelov himself. But the boy, although he looked down on everyone, turning up his nose, was a good comrade and did not exalt himself. He took the respect of the schoolchildren for granted, but kept himself friendly. The main thing is that he knew the measure, he knew how to restrain himself on occasion, and in relations with his superiors he never crossed some last and cherished line, beyond which a misdemeanor can no longer be tolerated, turning into disorder, rebellion and lawlessness. And yet he was very, very not averse to fooling around at every opportunity, fooling around like the very last boy, and not so much fooling around as tricking something, doing wonders, giving "extrafefer", chic, showing off. Most importantly, he was very selfish. He even managed to put subordinates in his relationship with his mother, acting on her almost arbitrarily. She obeyed, oh, she had long since obeyed, and only she could not endure the mere thought that the boy “loved her little.” It constantly seemed to her that Kolya was “insensitive” to her, and there were times when, shedding hysterical tears, she began to reproach him for being cold. The boy did not like this, and the more they demanded from him heartfelt outpourings, the more unyielding, as it were on purpose, became. But this happened with him not on purpose, but involuntarily - such was his character. His mother was wrong: he loved his mother very much, and did not love only “calf tenderness,” as he put it in his schoolboy language. After the father left a cupboard in which several books were kept; Kolya loved to read and had already read some of them to himself. The mother was not embarrassed by this, and only sometimes wondered how this boy, instead of going to play, stood by the cupboard for whole hours over some book. And in this way, Kolya read something that he should not have been allowed to read at his age. However, in Lately Although the boy did not like to cross a certain line in his pranks, pranks began that frightened his mother in earnest - though not immoral, but desperate, cutthroat. Just in this summer, in the month of July, during the holidays, it happened that mother and son went to stay for a week in another county, seventy miles away, to a distant relative, whose husband served at the railway station (the very same, nearest from our city, the station from which Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov set off for Moscow a month later). There, Kolya began by looking at the railway in detail, studying the routines, realizing that he could show off his new knowledge when he returned home, among the schoolchildren of his progymnasium. But just at that time there were also several other boys with whom he met: some of them lived at the station, others in the neighborhood - all young people from twelve to fifteen years old came together about six or seven, and two of them happened and from our town. The boys played together, played pranks, and on the fourth or fifth day of their stay at the station, an incredible bet of two rubles took place between the stupid youth, namely: Kolya, almost the youngest of all, and therefore somewhat despised by the elders, out of pride or out of shameless courage, suggested that he, at night, when the eleven o'clock train arrives, lie prone between the rails and lie motionless while the train rushes over him at full speed. True, it was done preliminary study , from which it turned out that it is really possible to stretch out and flatten along between the rails so that the train will certainly sweep through and not touch the one who is lying, but nevertheless, what is it like to lie down! Kolya stood firmly that he would lie down. At first they laughed at him, called him a liar, a fanfare, but they encouraged him all the more. The main thing is that these fifteen-year-olds turned up their noses in front of him too much and at first did not even want to consider him a comrade, as a “little one”, which was already unbearably insulting. And so it was decided to leave in the evening for a verst from the station, so that the train, having left the station, had time to completely scatter. The boys have gathered. The night was moonless, not that dark, but almost black. At the proper hour, Kolya lay down between the rails. The five others who had wagered, with bated breath, and finally in fear and remorse, waited at the bottom of the embankment beside the road in the bushes. Finally, a train rumbled out of the station in the distance. Two red lanterns flashed out of the darkness, an approaching monster rumbled. "Run, run away from the rails!" the boys, who were dying of fear, shouted to Kolya from the bushes, but it was too late: the train galloped up and rushed past. The boys rushed to Kolya: he lay motionless. They began to pull at him, began to lift him up. He suddenly got up and silently descended from the embankment. Going downstairs, he announced that he had purposely been lying unconscious in order to frighten them, but the truth was that he had indeed lost consciousness, as he later admitted, long later, to his mother. Thus the glory of the "desperate" behind him was strengthened forever. He returned home to the station pale as a sheet. The next day he fell ill with a slightly nervous fever, but in spirit he was terribly cheerful, glad and pleased. The incident was announced not now, but already in our city, penetrated into the progymnasium and reached its superiors. But then mother Kolya rushed to pray to the authorities for her boy and ended up defending him and begging for him by the respected and influential teacher Dardanelov, and the matter was left in vain, as if it had never happened at all. This Dardanelov, a bachelor and not old man, was passionately and for many years already in love with Madame Krasotkina, and already once, about a year ago, most respectfully and dying from fear and delicacy, he ventured to offer her his hand, but she flatly refused, considering her consent betrayal of his boy, although Dardanelov, according to some mysterious signs, might even have had some right to dream that he was not completely disgusted by the charming, but already too chaste and tender widow. Kolya's crazy prank seems to have broken through the ice, and for his intercession a hint of hope was made to Dardanelov, though a distant one, but Dardanelov himself was a phenomenon of purity and delicacy, and therefore it was enough for him for the time being to complete his happiness. He loved the boy, although he would have considered it humiliating to curry favor with him, and treated him sternly and demandingly in the classes. But Kolya himself kept him at a respectful distance, prepared his lessons perfectly, was the second student in the class, addressed Dardanelov dryly, and the whole class firmly believed that Kolya was so strong in world history that he would “knock down” Dardanelov himself. And indeed, Kolya once asked him the question: Who founded Troy? to which Dardanelov answered only in general about the peoples, their movements and migrations, about the depth of times, about fables, but he could not answer who exactly founded Troy, that is, what kind of persons, and even found the question somehow idle and untenable . But the boys remained convinced that Dardanelov did not know who founded Troy. Kolya read about the founders of Troy from Smaragdov, who was kept in a closet with books, which was left after his parent. It ended up that everyone, even boys, finally became interested in: Who exactly founded Troy, but Krasotkin did not reveal his secret, and the glory of knowledge remained unshakable for him.

After the incident on railway, Kolya had some change in his relationship with his mother. When Anna Fedorovna (Krasotkin's widow) found out about her son's feat, she almost went crazy with horror. She had such terrible hysterical fits, which lasted intermittently for several days, that Kolya, already seriously frightened, gave her an honest and noble word that such pranks would never happen again. He swore on his knees before the image and swore by the memory of his father, as Madame Krasotkina herself demanded, and the “courageous” Kolya himself burst into tears like a six-year-old boy from “feelings”, and mother and son all that day threw themselves into each other’s arms and cried shaking .

The next day, Kolya woke up still “insensitive”, but became more silent, more modest, stricter, more thoughtful. True, after a month and a half he was again caught in one prank, and his name even became known to our justice of the peace, but the prank was already of a completely different kind, even funny and stupid, and it turned out that it was not he himself who committed it, but only found himself involved in it. But more on that later. The mother continued to tremble and suffer, and Dardanelov, as her worries, more and more perceived hope. It should be noted that Kolya understood and guessed from this side of Dardanelov and, of course, deeply despised him for his "feelings"; before, he even had the indelicacy to show his contempt in front of his mother, remotely hinting to her that he understood what Dardanelov was trying to achieve. But after the incident on the railroad, he changed his behavior on this matter too: he no longer allowed himself hints, even the most distant ones, and he began to speak of Dardanelov more respectfully in his mother’s presence, which the sensitive Anna Feodorovna immediately realized with boundless gratitude in her heart, but but at the slightest, most unexpected word, even from some stranger about Dardanelov, if Kolya was present at the same time, she suddenly flared up with shame like a rose. Kolya, at that moment, either looked frowningly out the window, or looked to see if he was asking for porridge boots, or fiercely called “Chime”, a shaggy, rather large and lousy dog, which he suddenly acquired from somewhere for a month, dragged into the house and for some reason he kept it a secret in the rooms, not showing it to any of his comrades. He tyrannized terribly, teaching her all sorts of things and sciences, and brought the poor dog to the point that she howled without him when he went to classes, and when he came, she squealed with delight, jumped like crazy, served, fell to the ground and pretended to be dead and so on, in a word, showed all the tricks that she was taught, no longer on demand, but solely from the ardor of her enthusiastic feelings and a grateful heart.

By the way, I forgot to mention that Kolya Krasotkin was the same boy whom the reader already knew the boy Ilyusha, the son of the retired staff captain Snegirev, stabbed in the thigh with a penknife, standing up for his father, whom the schoolchildren teased with a “washcloth”.

II. kids

So, on that frosty and wild November morning, the boy Kolya Krasotkin was sitting at home. It was Sunday and there were no classes. But it was already eleven o'clock, and he certainly had to go from the yard "on one very important matter," and meanwhile he remained alone in the whole house and decidedly as its keeper, because it so happened that all its older inhabitants, for some urgent and original circumstance, they left the yard. In the house of the widow Krasotkina. through the hallway from the apartment, which she herself occupied, another and the only apartment in the house was given away from two small rooms for rent, and was occupied by her doctor's wife with two young children. This doctor was the same age as Anna Fedorovna and was a great friend of hers, but the doctor himself had been visiting for about a year, first to Orenburg, and then to Tashkent, and for half a year there had been neither a word nor a breath from him, so if it were not for her friendship with Madame Krasotkina, which somewhat softened the grief of the abandoned doctor, she would definitely have shed tears from this grief. And so, to complete all the oppressions of fate, it had to happen that on that same night, from Saturday to Sunday, Katerina, the doctor's only servant, suddenly and quite unexpectedly for her mistress announced to her that she intended to give birth to a baby by morning. How it happened that no one noticed this in advance was almost a miracle for everyone. The amazed doctor's wife decided, while there was still time, to take Katerina to one institution adapted for such cases in our town at the midwife's. Since she valued this servant very much, she immediately fulfilled her project, took her away and, moreover, remained there with her. Then, in the morning, for some reason, all the friendly participation and help of Ms. Krasotkina herself, who in this case could ask someone for something and provide some protection, were needed. Thus, both ladies were absent, the maid of Ms. Krasotkina herself, Baba Agafya, went to the market, and Kolya thus found himself for a time the guardian and guardian of the "bubbles", that is, the doctor's boy and girl, left alone. Kolya was not afraid to guard the house, besides, Chime was with him, who was ordered to lie face down in the hall under the bench “without movement”, and for this very reason, every time Kolya walked around the rooms, he trembled his head and gave two hard and ingratiating blows with their tails on the floor, but alas, there was no inviting whistle. Kolya looked menacingly at the unfortunate dog, and he again froze in an obedient stupor. But if anything confused Kolya, then only "bubbles". Of course, he looked at the unexpected adventure with Katerina with the deepest contempt, but he loved the orphaned bubbles very much, and had already taken them some kind of children's book. Nastya, the eldest girl, had already gone to bed at eight, knew how to read, and the younger bubble, a seven-year-old boy, Kostya, loved to listen when Nastya read to him. Of course, Krasotkin could occupy them more interestingly, that is, put both of them side by side and start playing soldiers with them, or hiding all over the house. He had done this more than once before and did not disdain to do it, so that even in the classroom it was once rumored that Krasotkin was playing horses with his little tenants at home, jumping for the harness and bending his head, but Krasotkin proudly retorted this accusation, exposing that with peers, with thirteen-year-olds, it would really be shameful to play horses “in our age”, but that he does this for “bubbles”, because they are loved, and in his feelings no one dares to ask him for an account . But both "bubbles" adored him. But this time there was no time for toys. He had one very important business of his own, and in appearance it was almost even mysterious, meanwhile time was running out, and Agafya, on whom one could leave the children, still did not want to return from the market. He had already crossed the passage several times, opened the door to the doctor's office, and anxiously looked around the "bubbles" who, on his orders, were sitting at the book, and every time he opened the door, they silently smiled at him from the bottom of their mouths, expecting that there he was. come in and do something beautiful and funny. But Kolya was in mental anxiety and did not enter. Finally it struck eleven, and he firmly and definitively decided that if in ten minutes the "damned" Agafya did not return, then he would leave the yard without waiting for her, of course, taking the word from the "bubbles" that they would not chicken out without him, not they will play pranks and will not cry out of fear. In these thoughts, he dressed himself in his wadded winter coat with a fur collar made of some kind of cat, hung his bag over his shoulder, and, despite his mother’s previous repeated pleas, that he should always put on galoshes when leaving the yard in “such a cold”, only looked at them contemptuously as he passed through the ante-room, and went out in only his boots. The chime, seeing him dressed, began to vigorously tap his tail on the floor, nervously twitching all over, and even let out a plaintive howl, but Kolya, seeing such a passionate impetuosity of his dog, concluded that this was harmful to discipline, and at least a minute, but withstood he was still under the bench, and, having already opened only the door to the passage, he suddenly whistled for him. The dog jumped up like crazy, and rushed to gallop before him with delight. Crossing the entrance, Kolya opened the door to the "bubbles". Both were still sitting at the table, but they were no longer reading, but were arguing heatedly about something. These children often argued with each other about various provocative everyday subjects, and Nastya, as the eldest, always prevailed; Kostya, if he did not agree with her, he almost always went to appeal to Kolya Krasotkin, and as he decided, so it remained in the form of an absolute verdict for all parties. This time Krasotkin was somewhat interested in the dispute between the "bubbles", and he stopped at the door to listen. The children saw that he was listening, and they continued their bickering with even greater passion.

“I will never, never believe,” Nastya babbled fervently, “that midwives find little children in the garden between the cabbage beds. Now it is winter, and there are no beds, and grandmother could not bring Katerina a daughter.

- Phew! Kolya whistled to himself.

- Or like this: they bring from somewhere, but only to those who get married.

Kostya looked intently at Nastya, listened thoughtfully and thought.

“Nastya, what a fool you are,” he finally said firmly and without getting excited, “how can Katerina have a baby when she is not married?

Nastya got terribly hot.

“You don’t understand anything,” she interrupted irritably, “maybe she had a husband, but only he is in prison, and she gave birth.”

Does she have a husband in prison? positive Kostya inquired importantly.

“Or something like this,” Nastya quickly interrupted, completely abandoning and forgetting her first hypothesis:

- she doesn’t have a husband, you’re right, but she wants to get married, so she began to think about how she would get married, and she kept thinking, thinking all the time, and until then she thought that now he was not her husband, but a baby .

“Well, isn’t it so,” Kostya, completely defeated, agreed, “but you didn’t say this before, so how could I know.

“Well, kids,” Kolya said, stepping into their room, “you are a dangerous people, I see!”

- And Chime with you? Kostya grinned and began snapping his fingers and calling Chime.

“Bubbles, I’m in trouble,” Krasotkin began importantly, “and you must help me: Agafya, of course, broke her leg, because she still hasn’t appeared, it’s been decided and signed, but I need it from the yard. Will you let me go or not?

The children exchanged worried glances with each other, their grinning faces began to express anxiety. However, they still did not fully understand what they were trying to achieve.

- Will you play pranks without me? Won't you climb on the closet, won't you break your legs? Do not cry from fear alone?

The faces of the children expressed a terrible longing.

- And I could show you one thing for that, a copper cannon, from which you can shoot with real gunpowder.

The children's faces instantly cleared up.

“Show me the cannon,” Kostya said, beaming all over. Krasotkin put his hand into his bag and, taking out a small bronze cannon, placed it on the table.

- Show me something! Look, on wheels, - he rolled the toy on the table, - and you can shoot. Shot load and shoot.

- And kill?

“He’ll kill everyone, it’s only worth pointing,” and Krasotkin explained where to put the gunpowder, where to roll in the pellet, pointed to a hole in the form of a seed and said that there was a rollback. The children listened with great curiosity. They were especially struck by their imagination that there is a rollback.

- Do you have gunpowder? - Nastya inquired.

“Show me the gunpowder, too,” she drawled with a begging smile. Krasotkin again climbed into the bag and took out a small vial, in which, indeed, some real gunpowder was poured, and in the folded piece of paper there were several grains of shot. He even uncorked the vial and poured a little gunpowder into his palm.

“Here, but there would be no fire anywhere, otherwise it would blow up and kill us all,” Krasotkin warned for effect.

The children looked at the gunpowder with awe that added to the pleasure. But Kostya liked the fraction more.

- And the shot does not burn? he inquired.

- The shot does not burn.

“Give me some fractions,” he said in an imploring voice.

- I’ll give you a little fraction, here, take it, just don’t show your mother before me until I come back, otherwise she’ll think it’s gunpowder, and she’ll die of fear, and she’ll flog you.

“Mom never flogs us with a rod,” Nastya immediately noticed.

- I know, I just said it for the sake of style. And you never deceive your mother, but this time - until I come. So, bubbles, can I go or not? won't you cry without me from fear?

“For-crying,” Kostya drawled, already preparing to cry.

We will cry, we will certainly cry! - Nastya also picked up in a timid patter.

“Oh, children, children, how dangerous your years are. Nothing to do, chicks, I'll have to sit with you I don't know how long. And time, time, wow!

“Order Chime to pretend to be dead,” Kostya asked.

- Yes, there is nothing to do, you will have to resort to Chime. Ici, Chime! - And Kolya began to command the dog, and she imagined everything she knew. It was a shaggy dog, the size of an ordinary mongrel, with some kind of gray-lilac hair. Her right eye was crooked, and for some reason her left ear was slit. She squealed and jumped, served, walked on her hind legs, threw herself on her back with all four paws up and lay motionless as if dead. During this last thing, the door opened, and Agafya, Madame Krasotkina's fat maid, a pockmarked woman of about forty, appeared on the threshold, returning from the market with a bag of purchased provisions in her hand. She stood up and, holding a bag on a plumb line in her left hand, began to look at the dog. Kolya, no matter how he waited for Agafya, did not interrupt the performance and, having withstood the Chime for a certain dead time, finally whistled to him: the dog jumped up and started jumping for joy that he had fulfilled his duty.

- Look, dog! Agafya said instructively.

- What are you, female, late? Krasotkin asked menacingly.

- Female, oh pimple!

- Bubble?

- And a pimple. What do you care that I'm late, it means it's necessary, if I'm late, ”Agafya muttered, starting to fiddle around the stove, but in no way dissatisfied and not angry, but on the contrary, very pleased, as if rejoicing at the opportunity to scoff with a cheerful barchenko.

“Listen, frivolous old woman,” Krasotkin began, getting up from the sofa, “can you swear to me by everything that is sacred in this world, and moreover by something else, that you will tirelessly watch the bubbles in my absence?” I'm leaving the yard.

“Why would I swear to you?” Agafya laughed, “I’ll keep an eye on it.

- No, not otherwise than by swearing to the eternal salvation of your soul. Otherwise, I won't leave.

“And don't leave. What do I care, it's cold outside, stay at home.

“Bubbles,” Kolya turned to the children, “this woman will stay with you until my arrival or until your mother arrives, because she should have come back long ago. Moreover, he will give you breakfast. Will you give them something, Agafya?

– It is possible.

- Goodbye, chicks, I'm leaving with a calm heart. And you, grandma, - he said in an undertone and importantly, passing Agafya, - I hope you won’t lie to them with your usual womanish nonsense about Katerina, you will spare your childhood. Ici, Chime!

- And well, God bless you, - Agafya snapped already with a heart. - Funny! Flog himself, that's what, for such words.

III. Schoolboy

But Kolya was no longer listening. Finally, he could leave. Going out the gate, he looked around, twitched his shoulders and said: "Frost!" went straight along the street and then to the right along the alley to the market square. Not reaching one house to the square, he stopped at the gate, took a whistle from his pocket and whistled with all his might, as if giving a conventional signal. He had to wait no more than a minute, a ruddy-faced boy, about eleven years old, also dressed in a warm, clean and even smart coat, suddenly jumped out of the gate to him. It was the boy Smurov, who was in the preparatory class (whereas Kolya Krasotkin was already two classes higher), the son of a prosperous official, and who, it seems, was not allowed by his parents to associate with Krasotkin, as with the most famous desperate rascal, so that Smurov now apparently slipped out furtively . This Smurov, if the reader has not forgotten, was one of the group of boys who two months ago were throwing stones across the ditch at Ilyusha, and who then told Alyosha Karamazov about Ilyusha.

"I've been waiting for you for an hour, Krasotkin," Smurov said with a resolute look, and the boys walked towards the square.

"I'm late," Krasotkin replied. - There are circumstances. They won't flog you, why are you with me?

- Well, come on, do they flog me? And Chime with you?

- And Chime!

- You and him there?

- And him there.

- Oh, if only the Bug!

- You can't Bug. The bug doesn't exist. The bug disappeared into the darkness of the unknown.

“Ah, couldn’t it be like that,” Smurov suddenly paused, “because Ilyusha says that Zhuchka was also shaggy and also the same gray-haired, smoky, like Chime, can’t you say that this is the same Beetle, he be and believe?

- Schoolboy, shun lies, this time; even for a good deed, two. And most importantly, I hope you did not announce anything about my arrival there.

“God forbid, I understand. But you can’t console him with Chimes,” Smurov sighed. - You know what: this father, captain, a washcloth, told us that today he would bring a puppy, a real Medelian, with a black nose; he thinks that this will console Ilyusha, but hardly?

- And what is he like, Ilyusha?

- Oh, bad, bad! I think he has tuberculosis. He is all in memory, only he breathes, breathes, he breathes badly. The other day he asked to be led, shod him in boots, he was about to go, and he falls down. “Ah, he says, I told you, dad, that these are my bad boots, the old ones, it was embarrassing to walk in them before.” It was he who thought that he was falling down from his boots, but he was simply from weakness. It won't last a week. Herzenstube is driving. Now they are rich again, they have a lot of money.

- Rogues.

- Who are the rogues?

- Doctors, and all medical bastards in general, and certainly in particular. I reject medicine. Useless institution. However, I am researching this. What kind of sentimentality do you have there, however? You are there with the whole class, it seems, stay?

“Not everyone, but about ten of ours go there, always, every day. It's nothing.

– The role of Alexei Karamazov in all this surprises me: tomorrow or the next day his brother is being tried for such a crime, and he has so much time for sentimentalism with the boys!

“There is absolutely no sentimentality here. You yourself are now going to put up with Ilyusha.

- Reconcile? Funny expression. However, I do not allow anyone to analyze my actions.

- And how Ilyusha will be glad to see you! He does not imagine that you will come. Why, why didn't you want to go for so long? Smurov suddenly exclaimed with warmth.

“Dear boy, this is my business, not yours. I'm going on my own, because that's my will, and Alexei Karamazov dragged you all there, so that's the difference. And how do you know, I can not put up with going? Silly expression.

“Not Karamazov at all, not him at all. It's just that our people themselves began to go there, of course, first with Karamazov. And there was nothing like that, no nonsense. First one, then another. Father was terribly happy for us. You know, he'll just go crazy if Ilyusha dies. He sees that Ilyusha will die. And how glad we are that Ilyusha and I have reconciled. Ilyusha asked about you, but added nothing more. Ask and shut up. And the father will go crazy or hang himself. He had acted like a lunatic before. You know, he's a noble man, and then there was a mistake. It's all this parricide's fault for beating him then.

– Still, Karamazov is a mystery to me. I could have known him long ago, but I like to be proud otherwise. Moreover, I formed an opinion about him, which still needs to be verified and explained.

Kolya importantly fell silent; Smurov too. Smurov, of course, was in awe of Kolya Krasotkin and did not even dare to think of equaling him. Now he was terribly interested, because Kolya explained that he was going “on his own”, and there was certainly some kind of riddle here in that Kolya suddenly took it into his head to go now and just today. They walked along the market square, where this time there were many visiting carts and there were many imported birds. City women traded bagels, threads and so on under their sheds. Such Sunday conventions are naively called fairs in our town, and there are many such fairs a year. The chime ran in the most cheerful mood, constantly evading to the right and left to sniff something somewhere. Meeting with other little dogs, he sniffed with them with unusual eagerness according to all dog rules.

“I like to observe realism, Smurov,” Kolya suddenly spoke up. Have you noticed how dogs meet and sniff? There is a common law of nature between them.

- Yes, it's kind of funny.

- That is, not funny, you are not right. There is nothing funny in nature, no matter how it may seem to a person with his prejudices. If dogs could reason and criticize, they would probably find just as much, if not much more, in social relations among themselves people, their masters, if not much more; I repeat this because I am firmly convinced that we have much more stupidity. This is Rakitin's idea, a wonderful idea. I am a socialist, Smurov.

- What is a socialist? Smurov asked.

- This is if everyone is equal, everyone has one common property, there are no marriages, and religion and all laws are as anyone likes, well, everything else is there. You haven't grown up yet, it's too early for you. It's cold though.

- Yes. Twelve degrees. The other day my father looked at the thermometer.

“And you noticed, Smurov, that in the middle of winter, if it’s fifteen or even eighteen degrees, it doesn’t seem as cold as, for example, now, at the beginning of winter, when frost suddenly hits, like now, at twelve degrees, and even when there is little snow. It means people are not used to it yet. People have a habit, in everything, even in state and political relations. Habit is the main driver. What a funny guy though.

Kolya pointed to a tall peasant in a sheepskin coat, with a good-natured physiognomy, who at his cart was clapping his mittened hands in the cold. His long blond beard was frosted all over.

- The man's beard is frozen! - Kolya shouted loudly and cockily, passing by him.

“It’s cold for many,” the peasant said calmly and sententiously in response.

"Don't bully him," Smurov remarked.

- Don't get angry, he's good. Farewell, Matthew.

- Goodbye.

- Are you Matthew?

- Matthew. You didn `t know?

- Did not know; I randomly said.

- Look, after all. Perhaps in schoolchildren?

- In schoolchildren.

- What are you, flogged?

- Not really, but yes.

- Painfully?

- Not without it.

- Oh life! The man sighed from the bottom of his heart.

- Farewell, Matthew.

- Goodbye. Boy, you're cute, that's what.

"He's a good man," Kolya spoke to Smurov. “I love talking to people and am always happy to do justice to them.

“Why did you lie to him that they were whipping us?” Smurov asked.

"You should have consoled him!"

– What is it?

“You see, Smurov, I don’t like it when they ask again if they don’t understand from the first word. Otherwise, it is impossible to interpret. According to the idea of ​​a peasant, a schoolboy is flogged and should be flogged: what kind of a schoolboy is he if he is not flogged? And suddenly I will tell him that we do not flog, because he will be upset by this. And yet, you don't understand it. You have to be able to speak with the people.

“Just don’t bully, please, otherwise the story will come out again, as then with this goose.

– Are you afraid?

- Don't laugh, Kolya, I'm afraid of God. The father will be terribly angry. I am strictly forbidden to go with you.

Don't worry, nothing will happen this time. Hello, Natasha, - he shouted to one of the merchants under a canopy.

“What kind of Natasha am I to you, I’m Marya,” the merchant, far from being an old woman, answered yellingly.

- It's good that Marya, goodbye.

- Oh, you shooter, you can’t see from the ground, but there too!

- Once, once I'm with you, next Sunday you will tell, - Kolya waved his hands, as if she was molesting him, and not he was molesting her.

What should I tell you on Sunday? I myself became attached, and not I to you, mischievous one, - Marya shouted, - to flog you, that's what, you are a well-known offender, that's what!

Laughter rang out among the other merchants, who were trading on their stalls next to Marya, when suddenly from under the arcade of the city shops jumped out for no reason at all, one irritated person in the genus of a merchant clerk, and not our merchant, but from visitors, in long-brimmed blue caftan, in a cap with a visor, still young, in dark blond curls and with a long, pale, pockmarked face. He was in some kind of stupid excitement and immediately began to threaten Kolya with his fist.

“I know you,” he exclaimed irritably, “I know you!”

Kolya looked at him intently. He could not remember anything when he could have had any kind of fight with this man. But you never know he had fights in the streets, it was impossible to remember all of them.

- You know? he asked ironically.

- Do I know you! Do I know you! - adjusted like a fool tradesman.

- You're better off. Well, no time for me, goodbye!

- What are you arguing about? shouted the tradesman. – Are you being naughty again? Do I know you! Are you being naughty again?

“It’s none of your business now, brother, that I’m being naughty,” Kolya said, stopping and continuing to look at him.

- How not mine?

Yes, not yours.

- And whose is it? Whose? Well, whose is it?

- This, brother, is now Trifon Nikitich's business, and not yours.

- What kind of Trifon Nikitich? - with stupid surprise, although still getting excited, the guy stared at Kolya. Kolya gave him an important look.

- Did you go to Ascension? he suddenly asked sternly and insistently.

- To what Ascension? What for? No, I didn’t go, - the guy was taken aback a little.

Do you know Sabaneev? Kolya went on even more insistently and even more sternly.

- What are those Sabaneeva? No, I do not know.

- Well, to hell with you after that! - Kolya suddenly snapped and, turning sharply to the right, quickly walked along the road, as if despising even talking to such an idiot that Sabaneeva does not even know.

- Stop, hey! What are those Sabaneeva? - the guy came to his senses, all excited again. - What was he saying? he suddenly turned to the merchants, looking at them stupidly,

The grandmothers laughed.

“Wise boy,” said one.

- What, what kind of Sabaneeva is he? - the guy repeated furiously, waving right hand.

“And it’s got to be Sabaneev, who served with the Kuzmichevs, that’s how it’s got to be,” one woman suddenly guessed. The boy glared at her wildly.

- Kuz-mi-cheva? - another woman spoke up, - but what kind of Tryphon is he? That Kuzma, not Trifon, but the boy called Trifon Nikitich, it was not him.

“This, you see, is not Trifon and not Sabaneev, this is Chizhov,” suddenly picked up the third woman, who until now had been silent and seriously listening, “Alexey Ivanovich is his name.” Chizhov, Alexey I.

“It is true that Chizhov,” the fourth woman insistently confirmed.

The stunned guy looked first at one, then at the other.

Why did he ask, why did he ask, good people! he exclaimed almost in despair:

- "Do you know Sabaneev?" And the devil knows what he is, such is Sabaneev?

- You are a stupid person, they say not Sabaneev, but Chizhov, Alexei Ivanovich Chizhov, that's who! one woman shouted impressively to him.

- Which Chizhov? well, what? Speak if you know.

- A long, hoary, flying in the bazaar was sitting.

- And why the hell do I need your Chizhov, good people, huh?

- And how do I know what the fuck Chizhov is for.

“And who knows what you need him for,” another one picked up, “he himself should know what you need him for, if you are making a noise. After all, he told you, not us, you stupid man. Do you really not know?

- Chizhov.

- And the devil take him Chizhova, together with you! I'll cut him off, that's what! He laughed at me!

- Will you beat Chizhov off? Either he you! you're a fool, that's what!

- Not Chizhov, not Chizhov, you are an evil, harmful woman, I’ll beat the boy, that’s what! Give it, give it here, he laughed at me!

The grandmothers laughed. And Kolya was already walking far away with a victorious expression on his face. Smurov walked beside him, looking back at the group shouting in the distance. He also had a lot of fun, although he was still afraid of not getting into history with Kolya.

- What did you ask Sabaneev about? he asked Kolya, anticipating the answer.

- And how do I know about what? Now they will cry until the evening. I love to stir up fools in all walks of life. Here and there is still a dolt, here is this guy. Note to yourself, they say: "There is nothing more stupid than a stupid Frenchman," but the Russian physiognomy also betrays itself. Well, isn't it written on this guy's face that he's a fool, this guy, huh?

- Leave him, Kolya, let's pass by.

“I won’t leave you, I’m on my way now.” Hey hello man!

A hefty peasant, who was slowly passing by and must have already drunk, with a round, rustic face and a beard with gray hair, raised his head and looked at the boy.

“Well, hello, if you’re not joking,” he said leisurely in response.

- And if I'm kidding? Kolya laughed.

- And you joke, so joke, God bless you. Nothing, it's possible. It's always possible to joke around.

- I'm sorry, brother, I was joking.

- Well, God forgive you.

- Do you forgive?

- I really forgive you. Go.

- You see, you are, perhaps, a smart man.

“Smarter than you,” the man answered unexpectedly and still importantly.

- Hardly, - Kolya was somewhat taken aback.

- I'm telling the truth.

- And perhaps so.

- That's it, brother.

- Farewell, man.

- Goodbye.

“Guys are different,” Kolya remarked to Smurov after some silence. - How did I know that I would run into a smart guy. I am always ready to recognize the mind in the people.

In the distance, the cathedral clock struck half-past eleven. The boys hurried, and the rest of the rather long way to the dwelling of Staff Captain Snegirev went quickly and almost without speaking. Twenty paces from the house, Kolya stopped and ordered Smurov to go ahead and call Karamazov here for him.

“We must sniff first,” he remarked to Smurov.

“But why call,” Smurov began to object, “come in anyway, you will be terribly delighted.” And what about getting to know each other in the cold?

“I already know why I need him here in the cold,” Kolya snapped despotically (which he loved to do with these “little ones”), and Smurov ran to fulfill the order.

Kolya, with an important air in his face, leaned against the fence and began to wait for Alyosha to appear. Yes, he had long wanted to meet him. He had heard a great deal about him from the boys, but until now he had always outwardly shown a contemptuously indifferent air when they spoke of him, he even "criticized" Alyosha, listening to what they told him about him. But about himself he really, really wanted to get to know him: there was something in all the stories he heard about Alyosha that was sympathetic and enticing. Thus the present minute was important; firstly, it was necessary not to hit oneself in the dirt, to show independence: “Otherwise, he will think that I am thirteen years old, and he will take me for the same boy as these. And what are these boys to him? I'll ask him when I get there. However, it’s bad that I’m so short: Tuzikov is younger than me, but half a head taller. My face, however, is intelligent; I'm not good, I know that my face is ugly, but my face is smart. It’s also necessary not to speak out very much, otherwise he’ll immediately think with hugs ... Ugh, what an abomination it will be if he thinks! .. ”

Kolya was so worried, trying with all his might to assume the most independent air. Most importantly, he was tormented by his small stature, not so much by his "vile" face as by his height. At home, in the corner on the wall, since last year a line had been made with a pencil, with which he marked his height, and since then every two months he excitedly approached again to measure himself: how much did he grow? But alas! He grew terribly little, and this sometimes led him simply to despair. As for the face, it was not at all "nasty", on the contrary, rather pretty, white, pale, with freckles. Gray, small, but lively eyes looked boldly and often lit up with feeling. The cheekbones were somewhat broad, the lips small, not very thick, but very red; the nose is small and resolutely upturned: "quite snub-nosed, completely snub-nosed!" Kolya muttered to himself when he looked in the mirror, and always walked away from the mirror indignantly. “Yes, and hardly a smart face?” he sometimes thought, even doubting it. However, it is not necessary to assume that concern for his face and growth absorbed his whole soul. On the contrary, no matter how caustic the minutes in front of the mirror were, he quickly forgot about them and even for a long time, "giving himself all over to ideas and real life," as he himself defined his activity.

Alyosha appeared soon and hurriedly went up to Kolya; after a few steps he could see that Alyosha had some kind of completely joyful face. "Are you so happy for me?" Kolya thought with pleasure. Here, by the way, we note that Alyosha has changed a lot since we left him: he threw off his cassock and now wore a beautifully tailored frock coat, a soft round hat and short-cropped hair. All this greatly brightened him up, and he looked quite handsome. His pretty face always had a cheerful look, but this gaiety was somehow quiet and calm. To Kolya's surprise, Alyosha came out to him in the clothes he was wearing in the room, without a coat, it was obvious that he was in a hurry. He held out his hand directly to Kolya.

- Here you are at last, as we all have been waiting for you.

There were reasons that you will now learn about. Anyway, nice to meet you. I've been waiting for a chance for a long time and heard a lot, - Kolya muttered, a little breathless.

- Yes, we would have met without that, I myself have heard a lot about you, but here, here, you are late.

- Tell me, how is it here?

- Ilyusha is very bad, he will certainly die.

- What are you! Agree that medicine is vile, Karamazov,” Kolya exclaimed with fervor.

- Ilyusha often, very often mentioned you, even, you know, in a dream, in delirium. It can be seen that you were very, very dear to him before ... before that incident ... with a knife. There is another reason… Tell me, is this your dog?

- My. Chime.

- And not the Bug? Alyosha looked pitifully into Kolya's eyes. - Has she disappeared yet?

“I know that you would like all the Bug, I heard everything, sir,” Kolya grinned enigmatically. “Listen, Karamazov, I’ll explain the whole matter to you, the main reason I came here is why I summoned you to explain the whole passage before we go in,” he began briskly. - You see, Karamazov, in the spring Ilyusha enters the preparatory class: Well, you know, our preparatory class: boys, children. Ilyusha immediately began to bully. I am two classes higher and, of course, I look from a distance. I see the boy is small, weak, but does not obey, he even fights with them, proud, his eyes are burning. I love these. And they are more than him. The main thing is that he then had a bad dress, his pants climbed to the top, and his boots asked for porridge. They are his and for it. Humiliate. No, I don’t like this, I immediately interceded and asked the extrafefer. I beat them, and they adore me, do you know that, Karamazov? Kolya boasted expansively. “Yes, I do love kids. I still have two chicks sitting on my neck at home, even today I was detained. Thus they stopped beating Ilyusha, and I took him under my protection. I see that the boy is proud, I tell you that he is proud, but ended up surrendering to me slavishly, fulfilling my slightest commands, listening to me like a god, trying to imitate me. In the intermissions between classes now to me, and we go with him. Sundays too. In our gymnasium, they laugh when the elder converges on such a leg with the little one, but this is a prejudice. This is my fantasy, and that's it, isn't it? I teach and develop. - why, tell me, I can not develop it, if I like it? After all, you, Karamazov, agreed with all these chicks, so you want to act on the younger generation, develop, be useful? And I confess that this trait in your character, which I learned by hearsay, interested me most of all. However, to the point: I notice that some kind of sensitivity, sentimentality develops in the boy, and, you know, I am a resolute enemy of all calf tenderness, from my very birth. And besides, there are contradictions: he is proud, but slavishly devoted to me, - slavishly devoted, and suddenly his eyes sparkle and he doesn’t even want to agree with me, he argues, he climbs the wall. I sometimes put forward different ideas: it’s not that he doesn’t agree with the ideas, but I simply see that he personally rebels against me, because I respond to his tenderness with composure. And so, in order to endure it, I, the more tender it is, the more cold-blooded I become, I do it on purpose, such is my conviction. I meant to train the character, to equalize, to create a person ... well, there ... you, of course, understand me perfectly. Suddenly I notice that for a day or two, he is embarrassed, mourns, but not about tenderness, but about something else, stronger, higher. What do you think is a tragedy? I step on him and find out a thing: somehow he got along with the footman of your late father (who was then still alive) Smerdyakov, and he teach him, fool, a stupid joke, that is, a bestial joke, a vile joke - take a piece of bread, a crumb, stick a pin into it and throw it to some yard dog, one of those who, from hunger, swallow a piece without chewing, and see what comes of it. So they made such a piece and threw it to this very shaggy Beetle, about which such a story is now, to one yard dog from such a yard where they simply did not feed it, but it barks into the wind all day. (Do you love this stupid barking. Karamazov? I can't stand it.) And so she rushed, swallowed and squealed, spun and started to run, runs and screeched, and disappeared, - that's how Ilyusha himself described it to me. He confesses to me, but he cries, cries, hugs me, shakes: “Running and squealing, running and squealing” - this is all he repeats, this picture struck him. Well, I see remorse. I took it seriously. I, most importantly, and for the former wanted to school him, so, I confess, I cheated here. pretended to be in such indignation as I might not have had at all; “You, I say, did a low deed, you are a scoundrel, of course I will not disclose it, but for now I am interrupting relations with you. I will think over this matter, and let you know through Smurov (this very boy who has now come with me and who has always been devoted to me): whether I will continue my relationship with you in the future or I will leave you forever as a scoundrel. This shocked him terribly. I confess, at the same time I felt that maybe I was too strict, but what to do, that was my then thought. A day later, I send Smurov to him and through him tell him that I no longer “talk” to him, that is, that is what we call it when two comrades break off relations with each other. The secret is that I wanted to keep him on ferbant for only a few days, and then, seeing repentance, again stretch out my hand to him. This was my firm intention. But what do you think: he listened to Smurov, and suddenly his eyes sparkled: “Tell me, he shouted, from me to Krasotkin that I will now throw pieces with pins to all the dogs, to everyone, to everyone!” “Ah, I think the free spirit has wound up, it needs to be smoked out,” and I began to show him complete contempt, at every meeting I turn away or smile ironically. And suddenly this incident happens with his father, remember, a washcloth? Understand that in this way he was already prepared for a terrible irritation. The boys, seeing that I left him, pounced on him, teasing him: "washcloth, washcloth." It was then that they began to fight, which I terribly regret, because it seems that he was beaten very painfully then. That time he rushes at everyone in the yard when they were leaving the classrooms, and I was just standing ten steps away and looking at him. And I swear I don't remember laughing then, on the contrary, I felt very, very sorry for him then, and another moment and I would have rushed to defend him. But he suddenly met my gaze: I don’t know what it seemed to him, but he grabbed a penknife, rushed at me and poked it in my thigh, right here, near my right leg. I didn’t move, I confess, sometimes I am brave, Karamazov, I just looked with contempt, as if saying with a glance: “Would you like more, for all my friendship, so I am at your service.” But he did not stab another time, he could not stand it, he himself was frightened, threw down the knife, burst into tears and started to run. Of course, I did not fiscally and ordered everyone to be silent so that it would not reach the authorities, I even told my mother only when everything had healed, and the wound was empty, a scratch. Then I hear that on the same day he threw stones and bit your finger - but you understand what a state he was in! Well, what to do, I did stupidly: when he fell ill, I did not go to forgive him, that is, to make peace, now I repent. But here I have special goals. Well, that's the whole story ... only, it seems, I did stupidly ...

“Oh, what a pity,” Alyosha exclaimed with emotion, “that I did not know your relations with him before, otherwise I myself would have come to you long ago to ask you to go to him with me. Believe me, in the heat, in the disease, he raved about you. I didn't know how much you love him! And really, didn't you find this Beetle? Father and all the boys around the city were looking for. Would you believe it, he, sick, in tears, repeated to my father three times in front of me: “It’s because I’m sick, dad, that I killed Zhuchka then, God punished me”: you won’t lead him away from this thought! And if only this Bug would be taken out now and shown that she was not dead, but alive, then it seems that he would have risen from joy. We all hoped for you.

- Tell me, why on earth did they hope that I would find the Beetle, that is, what exactly would I find? - Kolya asked with extreme curiosity, - why did they count on me, and not on another?

- There was some rumor that you were looking for her, and that when you find her, you will bring her. Smurov said something along these lines. We, most importantly, are trying to assure that the Bug is alive, that she was seen somewhere. The boys got him a live bunny from somewhere, only he looked, smiled a little and asked to be released into the field. So we did. That very minute his father came back and brought him a Medelian puppy, also got it from somewhere, thought to console him with this, only it seemed to get worse ...

“Tell me again, Karamazov: what is this father?” I know him, but what is he according to your definition: a jester, a clown?

- Oh, no, there are people who feel deeply, but are somehow crushed. Their buffoonery is a kind of malicious irony towards those to whom they do not dare to tell the truth in their eyes because of their long-term humiliating timidity before them. Believe me, Krasotkin, that such buffoonery is sometimes extremely tragic. He has everything now, everything on earth is united in Ilyusha, and if Ilyusha dies, he will either go crazy with grief or take his own life. I'm almost convinced of it when I look at it now!

“I understand you, Karamazov, I see you know the man,” Kolya added heartily.

- And when I saw you with a dog, I thought that you had brought that same Beetle.

“Wait, Karamazov, maybe we will find her, but this one is Chime. I'll let her into the room now and maybe I'll cheer up Ilyusha more than with a Medelian puppy. Wait, Karamazov, you will learn something now. Oh, my God, why am I holding you! Kolya suddenly exclaimed swiftly. - You are in one frock coat in such a cold, and I detain you; see, see what an egoist I am! Oh, we are all egoists, Karamazov!

“Don’t worry, it’s really cold, but I don’t have a cold.” Let's go though. By the way: what's your name, I know it's Kolya, what's next?

“Nikolai, Nikolai Ivanov Krasotkin, or as they say in official language: son Krasotkin,” Kolya laughed at something, but suddenly added:

“Of course I hate my name Nikolai.

Why not?

- Trivial, official ...

Are you thirteen years old? Alyosha asked.

- That is, the fourteenth, in two weeks fourteen, very soon. I confess to you in advance in one weakness, Karamazov, this is so before you, for the first acquaintance, so that you can immediately see my whole nature: I hate it when people ask me about my years, I more than hate ... and finally ... there is slander about me, for example that I played last week with the prep in the robbers. What I played is reality, but what I played for myself, for my own pleasure, is decidedly slander. I have reason to think that this has reached you, but I didn’t play for myself, but for the children, because they couldn’t invent anything without me. And here we always dissolve nonsense. It's a city of gossip, I assure you.

- And even if they played for their own pleasure, what's wrong with that?

- Well, for yourself ... You won’t play horses, will you?

“And you reason like this,” Alyosha smiled:

- adults, for example, go to the theater, and in the theater they also present the adventures of all kinds of heroes, sometimes also with robbers and with the war - so isn't this the same thing, in its own way, of course? And the game of war among young people, during recreational time, or there in robbers - this is also an emerging art, an emerging need for art in a young soul, and these games are sometimes even composed more smoothly than theater performances, only the difference is that they go to the theater to watch actors, and here young people are actors themselves. But it's only natural.

- You think so? Is that your belief? Kolya looked intently at the Negro. - You know, you said a rather curious thought; I will now come home and use my brains on this matter. I confess, I was expecting that I could learn something from you. I came to study with you, Karamazov,” Kolya concluded in a penetrating and expansive voice.

“And I’m with you,” Alyosha smiled, shaking his hand. Kolya was extremely pleased with Alyosha. He was struck by the fact that with him he was on an equal footing to the highest degree, and that he spoke to him as to "the biggest."

“I’ll show you one trick now, Karamazov, also one theatrical performance,” he laughed nervously, “I came with that.

- Let's go first to the left to the owners, there they leave all your coats, because the room is cramped and hot.

- Oh, I'm just for a moment, I'll come in and sit in my coat. The chime will remain here in the hallway and die: “go, chime, kush and die!” You see, he died. And first I will go in, look out for the situation, and then, when necessary, I will whistle: go, Chime! and you will see, he immediately flies like crazy. Only it is necessary that Smurov does not forget to open the door at that moment. I’ll make arrangements, and you will see the trick ...

V. At Ilyushin's bed

In the room already familiar to us, in which the family of the retired staff captain Snegirev known to us lived, at that moment it was both stuffy and cramped from the large crowd that had gathered. This time several boys were sitting with Ilyusha, and although they were all ready, like Smurov, to deny that Alyosha had reconciled and brought them together with Ilyusha, but it was so. All his skill in this case consisted in bringing them together with Ilyusha, one after the other, without "veal tenderness", but not at all on purpose and by accident. This brought Ilyusha great relief in his suffering. Seeing the almost tender friendship and participation of all these boys, his former enemies, he was very touched. Only Krasotkin was missing, and this lay on his heart with a terrible oppression. If there was anything bitterest in Ilyushechka's bitter reminiscences, then it was precisely this whole episode with Krasotkin, his former only friend and defender, on whom he then rushed with a knife. So did the clever little boy Smurov (the first to come to make peace with Ilyusha). But Krasotkin himself, when Smurov remotely informed him that Alyosha wanted to come to him "on one matter," immediately broke off and cut off the approach, instructing Smurov to immediately inform "Karamazov" that he himself knew how to act, that no advice from anyone does not ask, and that if he goes to the patient, he himself knows when to go, because he has "his own calculation." It was still two weeks before this Sunday. That is why Alyosha did not go to him himself, as he had intended. However, although he waited, he nevertheless sent Smurov to Krasotkin again and again. But on both these occasions, Krasotkin responded with the most impatient and sharp refusal, conveying to Alyosha that if he came for him himself, he would never go to Ilyusha for this, and that he would not be bothered again. Even before this last day Smurov himself did not know that Kolya had decided to go to Ilyusha that morning, and only the night before, as he said goodbye to Smurov, Kolya abruptly announced to him that he should wait for him at home tomorrow morning, because he would go with him to the Snegirevs, but not to he dared, however, notify anyone of his arrival, since he wants to come by accident. Smurov obeyed. The dream that he would bring the missing Zhuchka came to Smurov on the basis of Krasotkin’s words thrown in a glimpse that “they are all donkeys if they cannot find the dog, if only it is alive.” When Smurov timidly, after waiting for a while, hinted about his guess about the dog to Krasotkin, he suddenly became terribly angry: “What kind of a donkey am I to look for other people's dogs all over the city when I have my own chime? And is it possible to dream that a dog that swallowed a pin would remain alive? Veal tenderness, nothing else!

Meanwhile, Ilyusha had hardly left his bed for two weeks now, in the corner, by the icons. He had not gone to classes since the very moment when he met Alyosha and bit his finger. However, from the same day he fell ill, although for another month he could somehow walk around the room and in the hallway, occasionally getting up from his bed. Finally, he was completely exhausted, so that without the help of his father he could not move. His father trembled over him, even stopped drinking completely, almost went mad with fear that his boy would die, and often, especially after he used to lead him around the room by the arm and put him back to bed, he would suddenly run out into the passage, into a dark corner , and, leaning his forehead against the wall, he began to sob with some kind of flooded, shaking cry, suppressing his voice so that his sobs could not be heard from Ilyushechka.

Returning to the room, he usually began to entertain and console his dear boy with something, told him fairy tales, funny anecdotes, or pretended to be various funny people whom he managed to meet, even imitated animals, how funny they howl or scream. But Ilyusha did not like very much when his father distorted himself and pretended to be a jester. Although the boy tried not to show that this was unpleasant for him, he realized with pain of his heart that his father was humiliated in society, and always, persistently, recalled the “washcloth” and that “terrible day”. Ninochka, Ilyushechka's legless, meek and quiet sister, also did not like it when her father distorted himself (as for Varvara Nikolaevna, she had long gone to St. sometimes imagining something or making some funny gestures. This was the only thing that could console her, but all the rest of the time she was constantly grumbling and crying that now everyone had forgotten her, that no one respected her, that they offended her, etc., etc. But in the very last days, she suddenly, as it were, everything has changed. She often began to look into the corner at Ilyusha and began to think. She became much more silent, quieted down and, if she began to cry, then quietly so that they would not hear. The staff captain noticed this change in her with bitter bewilderment. At first she did not like the visits of the boys and only made her angry, but then the cheerful cries and stories of the children began to amuse her, and she liked them so much in the end that if these boys stopped coming, she would be terribly bored. When the children told something or started to play, she laughed and clapped her hands. She called others to her and kissed them. Smurova especially fell in love with the boy. As for the staff captain, the appearance in his apartment of children who came to amuse Ilyusha filled his soul from the very beginning with enthusiastic joy and even hope that Ilyusha would now stop yearning and maybe that’s why he would soon recover. He did not doubt for a single minute, until very recently, despite all his fear for Ilyusha, that his boy would suddenly recover. He met the little guests with reverence, walked around them, waited, was ready to carry them on himself, and even really began to carry them, but Ilyusha did not like these games, and were left. He began to buy gifts, gingerbread, nuts for them, arranged tea, spread sandwiches. It should be noted that during all this time the money was not transferred from him. He accepted the then two hundred rubles from Katerina Ivanovna exactly as Alyosha had predicted. And then Katerina Ivanovna, having found out more about their circumstances and about Ilyusha's illness, visited their apartment herself, got acquainted with the whole family and even managed to charm the half-witted staff captain. Since then, her hand has not failed, and the staff captain himself, crushed by horror at the thought that his boy would die, forgot his former ambition and humbly accepted alms. All this time, Dr. Herzenshtube, at the invitation of Katerina Ivanovna, went constantly and carefully every other day to the patient, but there was little use from his visits, and he soiled him terribly with medicines. But on the other hand, on this day, that is, on this Sunday morning, a new doctor was expected at the staff captain, who had come from Moscow and was considered a celebrity in Moscow. He was specially discharged and invited from Moscow by Katerina Ivanovna for a lot of money - not for Ilyushechka, but for another one purpose, which will be discussed below and in its place, but since he arrived, she asked him to visit Ilyushechka too, oh than the staff captain was forewarned. He had no foreboding about the arrival of Kolya Krasotkin, although he had long wished that this boy, for whom his Ilyushechka was so tormented, would finally come. At the very moment when Krasotkin opened the door and appeared in the room, everyone, the staff captain and the boys, crowded around the patient’s bed and examined the tiny Medelian puppy that had just been brought in, which had just been born yesterday, but had been ordered by the staff captain a week before to entertain and console Ilyushechka, who was always yearning for the disappeared and, of course, already dead Zhuchka. But Ilyusha, who had already heard and knew three days before that he would be presented with a small dog and not a simple one, but a real Medelyan dog (which, of course, was terribly important), although he showed from a subtle and delicate feeling that he was pleased with the gift, but that’s all, and father and the boys, clearly saw that the new dog could only stir even more strongly in his heart the memory of the unfortunate Beetle he had tortured to death. The puppy lay and scurried about beside him, and he, smiling painfully, stroked him with his thin, pale, withered hand; it was even clear that he liked the dog, but ... Bugs still didn’t exist, after all it’s not a Beetle, but if the Beetle and the puppy were together, then there would be complete happiness!

- Krasotkin! one of the boys suddenly shouted, the first to see Kolya come in. There was a visible excitement, the boys parted and stood on both sides of the bed, so that all of a sudden Ilyushechka was revealed. The captain quickly rushed to meet Kolya.

- Please, please ... dear guest! - he babbled to him, - Ilyushechka, Mr. Krasotkin came to you ...

But Krasotkin, hastily giving him his hand, instantly showed his extraordinary knowledge of social decorum. He immediately and first of all turned to the wife of the staff captain, who was sitting in her armchair (who at that very moment was terribly displeased and grumbled that the boys covered Ilyusha’s bed with them and did not allow her to look at the new dog), and extremely he politely shuffled his foot in front of her, and then, turning to Ninochka, gave her the same bow, as a lady. This polite act made an unusually pleasant impression on the sick lady.

“Now you can see a well-bred young man. - she said loudly, spreading her arms, - but the fact that the other guests are ours: they come one on the other.

- How, mommy, one on top of the other, how is it? - although affectionately, but fearing a little for the "mommy", the staff captain murmured.

- And they're coming in. He will sit in the entryway one to the other astride the shoulders, and into a noble family he will enter, sitting on horseback. What kind of guest is this?

- But who, who, mommy, drove in like that, who?

- Yes, this boy rode in on this boy today, but that one on that ...

But Kolya was already standing by Ilyusha's bed. The patient appears to have turned pale. He sat up in his bed and looked intently, intently at Kolya. He had not seen his former little friend for two months now, and suddenly stopped in front of him, completely amazed: he could not even imagine that he would see such a thinner and yellowed face, such burning in a feverish heat and as if terribly enlarged eyes, such thin hands. He peered with woeful surprise that Ilyusha was breathing so deeply and often, and that his lips were so dry. He took a step toward him, offered his hand, and, almost at a loss, said:

“Well, old man… how are you?”

But his voice was cut off, there was not enough swagger, his face somehow suddenly twitched, and something quivered around his lips. Ilyusha smiled painfully at him, still unable to say a word. Kolya suddenly raised his hand and for some reason ran his palm through Ilyusha's hair.

- Nothing! he murmured quietly to him, either encouraging him, or not knowing himself why he said it. They were silent again for a minute.

- What is your new puppy? Kolya suddenly asked in the most insensitive voice.

- Yeees! Ilyusha answered in a long whisper, out of breath.

“A black nose means one of the evil ones, one of the chain ones,” Kolya remarked importantly and firmly, as if the whole thing was precisely in the puppy and in his black nose. But the main thing was that he was still struggling to overcome the feeling in himself, so as not to cry like a "little one", and still could not overcome it. - When he grows up, he will have to be put on a chain, I know.

- It will be huge! exclaimed one boy from the crowd.

- It is known, Medelyansky, huge, like this, from a calf, - several voices suddenly rang out.

“From a calf, from a real calf, sir,” the staff captain jumped up, “I purposely found such a very, very furious one, and his parents are also huge and the most furious, like that, from half the height ... Sit down, sir, right here on the bed at Ilyusha's, or else here on the bench. You are welcome, dear guest, long-awaited guest... Did you deign to come with Alexei Fyodorovich, sir?

Krasotkin sat down on the bed, at Ilyusha's feet. At least he may have prepared on the way how to start a conversation in a cheeky way, but now he has decidedly lost the thread.

- No ... I'm with Chime ... I have such a dog now, Chime. Slavic name. Waiting there ... I'll whistle and fly in. I, too, with the dog, - he suddenly turned to Ilyusha, - do you remember, old man, Zhuchka? – he suddenly warmed him with a question.

Ilyushechka's face twisted. He looked painfully at Kolya. Alyosha, who was standing at the door, frowned and nodded furtively to Kolya so that he would not talk about the Beetle, but he did not notice or did not want to notice.

- Well, brother, your Bug - wow! Your bug is gone!

Ilyusha was silent, but intently, intently looked once more at Kolya. Alyosha, catching Kolya's eye, again nodded to him with all his might, but he again averted his eyes, pretending that he did not notice even now.

- Ran somewhere and disappeared. How not to disappear after such an appetizer, - Kolya cut ruthlessly. meanwhile he himself seemed to be suffocating from something. - But I have a Chime ... Slavic name ... I brought you ...

- No need! Ilyushechka said suddenly.

- No, no, you must, by all means, look ... You will be entertained, I purposely brought ... as shaggy as that one ... Will you allow me, madam, to call my dog ​​here? he suddenly turned to Mrs. Snegireva in some quite incomprehensible excitement.

- Don't, don't! Ilyusha exclaimed with a bitter strain in his voice. Reproach lit up in his eyes.

“You sir…” the staff captain suddenly rushed from the chest by the wall on which he was sitting down, “you sir… at another time, sir…” he murmured, but Kolya insisting uncontrollably and in a hurry, suddenly shouted to Smurov: "Smurov, open the door!" and as soon as he opened it, he whistled into his whistle. The chime quickly flew into the room.

- Jump, Chime, serve! serve! yelled Kolya, jumping up from his seat, and the dog, standing on its hind legs, stretched out right in front of Ilyusha's bed. Something unexpected happened: Ilyusha shuddered and suddenly moved forward with force, bent down to Chime and, as if fading, looked at him:

- This is ... a bug! he shouted in a voice cracked from suffering and happiness,

- Look, old man, you see, the eye is crooked and the left ear is notched, exactly the same signs as you told me. I tracked him down according to these signs! Then I found it, in speed. She was a draw, she was a draw! - he explained, quickly turning to the staff captain, to his wife, to Alyosha and then back to Ilyusha, - she was in the backyards of the Fedotovs, took root there, but they did not feed her, and she is a runaway, she is a runaway from the village ... I found her... You see, old man, then she didn't swallow your piece. If she had swallowed it, she would certainly have died, because of course! So, she managed to spit it out, if she is now alive. And you didn't notice that she spat out. She spat out, but nevertheless pricked her tongue, which is why she squealed then. She ran and squealed, and you thought that she completely swallowed it. She must have been very squealing because a dog has very delicate skin in its mouth... softer than a human, much softer! Kolya exclaimed furiously, his face flushed and beaming with delight.

Ilyusha couldn't even speak. He looked at Kolya with his large and somehow terribly protruding eyes, with his mouth open and turning as pale as a sheet. And if only Krasotkin, who did not suspect anything, knew how painfully and deadly such a minute could affect the health of a sick boy, then he would never have decided to throw out such a thing as he threw out. But only Alyosha could understand it in the room. As for the staff captain, he seemed to have completely turned into the smallest boy.

- Bug! So this is a bug? he shouted in a blissful voice. - Ilyushechka, it's a Bug, your Bug! Mom, it's a Bug! - He almost cried.

- I didn't even know! Smurov exclaimed sadly. - Oh yes, Krasotkin, I said that he would find the Bug, so he found it!

- I found it! Someone else cheered.

- Well done, well done! all the boys shouted and began to applaud.

- Yes, wait, wait, - Krasotkin tried to shout over everyone: - I'll tell you how it was, the thing is how it was, and not in anything else! After all, I found him, dragged him to me and immediately hid him, and locked the house, and did not show it to anyone until the very last day. Only Smurov found out two weeks ago, but I assured him that it was Chime, and he did not guess, and during the intermission I taught Zhuchka all the sciences, you look, just look at what things he knows! That's why he taught, in order to bring to you, old man, trained, smooth: Here, they say, old man, what is your Bug now! But don't you have some piece of beef, he will show you one such thing that you will fall with laughter - beef, a piece, well, don't you?

The staff captain quickly rushed across the entryway to the hut to the owners, where the staff captain's food was also cooked. Kolya, in order not to waste precious time, in a desperate hurry, shouted to Chime: Die! And he suddenly spun, lay on his back and stood motionless with all four of his paws up. The boys laughed, Ilyusha looked with his former pained smile, but they all liked it better that Chime, “mother,” had died. She burst out laughing at the dog and began to snap her fingers and call:

- Chime, Chime!

“It won’t rise for anything, for nothing,” Kolya shouted victoriously and justly proud, “even if the whole world screams, but I’ll shout, and in an instant he will jump up!” Ici, Chime!

The dog jumped up and began to jump, squealing with joy. The captain ran in with a piece of boiled beef.

- Not hot? Kolya inquired hurriedly and businesslike, accepting a piece. Look, everyone, Ilyushechka, look, but look, look, old man, why aren’t you looking? I brought it, but he does not look!

The new thing was to put a tidbit of beef on the very nose of the dog, standing still and stretching its nose. The unfortunate dog, not moving, had to stand with a piece on his nose as long as the owner orders, not to move, not to move, even for half an hour. But Chime lasted only the smallest minute.

- Peel! Kolya shouted, and in an instant a piece flew from Chime's nose into his mouth. The audience, of course, expressed enthusiastic surprise.

- And really, really, just to train the dog, you didn’t come all the time! Alyosha exclaimed with involuntary reproach.

“Exactly for this,” Kolya shouted in the most ingenuous way. - I wanted to show it in all its splendor!

- Chime! Chime! Ilyusha suddenly snapped his thin fingers, beckoning the dog.

- What do you want! Let him jump on your bed himself. Ici, Chime! - Kolya slammed his palm on the bed, and Chime flew like an arrow to Ilyusha. He promptly hugged his head with both hands, and Chime instantly licked his cheek for it. Ilyushechka clung to him, stretched out on the bed and hid his face from everyone in his shaggy fur.

- Lord, Lord! exclaimed the captain. Kolya sat down again on the bed next to Ilyusha.

- Ilyusha, I can show you one more thing. I brought you a cannon. Do you remember, I told you about this cannon back then, and you said: “Oh, how I would like to see it!” Well, now I brought it.

And Kolya, in a hurry, pulled out his bronze cannon from his bag. He was in a hurry because he himself was very happy: at another time he would have waited so long for the effect produced by the Chime to pass, but now he hurried, despising any restraint: “We are already so happy, so here you have more happiness!” He himself was very drunk.

- I have seen this little thing for a long time at the official Morozov, - for you, old man, for you. He had it for free, he got it from his brother, and I traded it for him for a book from my father's closet: A relative of Mohammed or healing tomfoolery. A hundred years old book, tambourine, came out in Moscow when there was still no censorship, and Morozov is a hunter for these things. Also thanked...

Kolya held the cannon in his hand in front of everyone, so that everyone could see and enjoy, Ilyusha got up and, continuing to hug Chime with his right hand, looked at the toy with admiration. The effect has reached high degree when Kolya announced that he also had gunpowder, and that he could shoot right away, "if it doesn't bother the ladies." "Mama" immediately asked to be given a closer look at the toy, which was immediately done. She liked the bronze cannon on wheels very much, and she began to roll it on her knees. To the request for permission to shoot, she answered with the most complete consent, not understanding, however, what she was being asked about. Kolya showed gunpowder and shot. The staff captain, as a former military man, himself disposed of the charge, pouring in the smallest portion of gunpowder, but asked the shot to be postponed until another time. The cannon was placed on the floor, with the muzzle in an empty place, three powders of powder were squeezed into the seed and lit with a match. The most brilliant shot was fired. "Mamma" started, but immediately laughed with joy. The boys watched with silent triumph, but most of all, looking at Ilyusha, the staff captain was blissful. Kolya picked up the cannon and immediately presented it to Ilyusha, along with shot and gunpowder.

- It's me for you, for you! I cooked it a long time ago,” he repeated again, in the fullness of happiness.

- Oh, give it to me! No, give me a cannon better! - suddenly, like a little one, mother began to ask. Her face depicted sorrowful anxiety from fear that she would not be given. Kolya was confused. The staff captain became restless.

- Mommy, mommy! - he jumped up to her, the cannon is yours, yours, but let Ilyusha have it, because it was given to him, but it’s all the same as yours, Ilyushechka will always let you play, let it be common, common ...

“No, I don’t want a common one, no, to be completely mine, and not Ilyushina,” continued mother, preparing to cry completely.

- Mom, take it, take it! Ilyusha suddenly shouted. - Krasotkin, can I give it to my mother? he suddenly turned to Krasotkin with a pleading look, as if afraid that he would not be offended that he was giving his gift to another.

– Absolutely possible! Krasotkin immediately agreed and, taking the cannon from Ilyusha's hands, he himself handed it over to his mother with the most polite bow. She even burst into tears of emotion.

- Ilyushechka, dear, that's who loves his mother! she exclaimed tenderly, and immediately began to roll the cannon on her knees again.

“Mother, let me kiss your hand,” her husband jumped up to her and immediately fulfilled his intention.

- And who else is the sweetest young man, so this kind boy! said the grateful lady, pointing to Krasotkin.

- And I’ll carry gunpowder for you, Ilyusha, now I’ll carry as much as I like. We now make our own gunpowder. Borovikov recognized the composition: twenty-four parts of saltpeter, ten sulfur and six birch charcoal, crush everything together, pour in water, mix until soft and rub through the drum skin - that's gunpowder.

“Smurov already told me about your gunpowder, but only dad says that it’s not real gunpowder,” Ilyusha replied.

How not real? - Kolya blushed, - we are on fire. However, I don't know...

“No, sir, I’m fine,” the staff captain suddenly jumped up with a guilty air. - True, I said that real gunpowder is not made up like that, but it's okay, sir, it can be done like that.

I don't know, you know better. We lit it in a fondant stone jar, it burned gloriously, everything burned down, the smallest soot remained. But it’s only pulp, and if you rub it through the skin ... But you know better, I don’t know ... And Bulkin’s father tore for our gunpowder, did you hear? he suddenly turned to Ilyusha.

“I heard,” Ilyusha replied. He listened to Kolya with infinite interest and pleasure.

- We prepared a whole bottle of gunpowder, he kept it under the bed. Father saw. Blow up, he says, maybe. Yes, cut it out right away. He wanted to complain about me to the gymnasium. Now they won't let him in with me, now they won't let anyone in with me. Smurov is also not allowed in, he became famous among everyone, - they say that I am “desperate”, - Kolya sneered contemptuously. “It all started with the railroad here.

“Ah, we heard about that passage of yours too! - exclaimed the staff captain, - how did you lie there? And weren't you really afraid of nothing at all when you were lying under the train. Were you scared?

The staff captain was terribly foxed in front of Kolya.

“N-not especially! Kolya replied casually. “My reputation is best here, this accursed goose podkuzmil,” he turned again to Ilyusha. But although he grimaced while telling a casual look, he still could not control himself and continued, as it were, to lose his tone.

- Oh, I heard about the goose! - laughed, all beaming, Ilyusha; - They told me, but I didn’t understand, were you really tried by the judge?

- The most brainless thing, the most insignificant, from which, as usual, they composed a whole elephant, - Kolya began cheekily. - It was me who was walking along the square here, but the geese were just brought in. I stopped and looked at the geese. Suddenly, one local guy, Vishnyakov, he now serves as a messenger for the Plotnikovs, looks at me, and says: “Why are you looking at geese?” I look at him: a stupid, round mug, a guy of twenty years old, you know, I never reject the people. I love with the people... We are lagging behind the people - it's an axiom - you seem to want to laugh, Karamazov?

“No, God forbid, I’m listening to you very much,” Alyosha replied with the most ingenuous air, and the suspicious Kolya instantly cheered up.

“My theory, Karamazov, is clear and simple,” he hurried again joyfully at once. - I believe in the people and am always happy to do justice to them, but by no means spoiling them, this is sine qua ... Yes, I'm talking about the goose. So I turn to this fool and answer him: "But I think what the goose is thinking about." He looks at me completely stupidly: “And what does the goose think about?” “But you see, I say, a cart with oats is standing. The oats are pouring out of the sack, and the goose stretched its neck under the very wheel and pecks at the grain - see? “I can see that very clearly,” he says. “Well, I say, if this same cart is now moved forward a little, will it cut the goose’s neck with a wheel or not?” - “Certainly, he says, he will cut it,” and he himself is already grinning from ear to ear, so he melted all over. "Well, let's go, I say, boy, come on." “Come on,” he says. And for a short time we had to make things: He stood so inconspicuously near the bridle, and I on the side, in order to direct the goose. And the peasant at that time gaped, talked with someone, so that I didn’t have to direct at all: right by itself, the goose stretched its neck behind the oats, under the cart, under the very wheel. I blinked at the guy, he twitched and - k-crack, and moved the goose's neck in half! And now it must be so that at that very second all the peasants saw us, well, and shouted at once: “You did it on purpose!” “No, not on purpose.” “No, on purpose!” Well, they are shouting: "To the world!" they captured me too: “And you, they say, were here, you helped, the whole market knows you!” And for some reason, the whole bazaar really knows me, ”Kolya added proudly. - We all reached out to the world, and they carry a goose. I look, and my boyfriend got scared and roared, really, roars like a woman. And the driver shouts: “In this manner, you can crush them, geese, as much as you like!” Well, of course, the witnesses. The world officer finished in an instant: give the driver a ruble for the goose, and let the guy take the goose for himself. Yes, henceforth, so as not to allow yourself such jokes. And the guy is still roaring like a woman: “It’s not me, he says, it’s he who set me up” - and he points at me. I answer with complete composure that I did not teach at all, that I only expressed the main idea and spoke only in the draft. The world Nefedov chuckled, and was now angry with himself for having chuckled: “I, he tells me, will immediately certify your superiors so that you don’t start such projects in the future, instead of sitting behind books and teaching your lessons” . He did not attest me to the authorities, these are jokes, but the matter really spread and reached the ears of the authorities: our ears are long! The classic Kolbasnikov especially rose, but Dardanelov again defended. And now Kolbasnikov is angry with us all like a green donkey. You, Ilyusha, have heard that he got married, took a thousand rubles dowry from the Mikhailovs, and the bride is a snout of the first hand and the last degree. The third-graders immediately composed an epigram:

I was struck by the news of the third graders,

That the slut Kolbasnikov married.

“However, you brought him down on the one who founded Troy!” Smurov suddenly added, resolutely proud of Krasotkin at that moment. He really liked the story about the goose.

- Is that really how they shot down, sir? - flatteringly picked up the captain; - this is about who founded Troy, sir? We already heard that they shot down, sir. Ilyushenka told me at the same time, sir ...

- He, dad, knows everything, knows better than anyone among us! - Ilyushechka also picked up, - after all, he only pretends that he is like that, and he is our first student in all subjects ...

Ilyusha looked at Kolya with boundless happiness.

- Well, this is nonsense about Troy, nothing. I myself consider this question empty, ”Kolya replied with proud modesty. He had already managed to quite get into the tone, although, by the way, he was also in some uneasiness: he felt that he was in great agitation and that, for example, he spoke too wholeheartedly about the goose, but meanwhile Alyosha was silent all the time of the story and was serious, and now, little by little, the self-loving boy began to scratch his heart: “Isn't he silent because he despises me, thinking that I'm looking for his praise? In that case, if he dares to think that, then I…”

“I consider this question decidedly empty,” he snapped once more proudly.

“But I know who founded Troy,” suddenly, quite unexpectedly, one boy who had hardly said anything until now, silent and apparently shy, very handsome, about eleven years old, by the name of Kartashov, suddenly spoke. He was sitting at the very door. Kolya looked at him with surprise and importance. The fact is that the question: “Who exactly founded Troy?” resolutely turned into a secret in all classes, and in order to penetrate it, one had to read it from Smaragdov. But no one except Kolya had Smaragdov. And once the boy Kartashov slowly, when Kolya turned away, quickly unfolded Smaragdov, who was lying between his books, and went straight to the place where it was said about the founders of Troy. This happened quite a long time ago, but he was somehow embarrassed and did not dare to open publicly that he also knew who founded Troy, fearing that something would not come out and that Kolya would somehow embarrass him for this. And now, for some reason, he could not resist and said. Yes, he wanted to for a long time.

- Well, who founded it? Kolya turned to him arrogantly and condescendingly, already guessing from his face that he really knew, and, of course, immediately preparing for all the consequences. In the general mood there was what is called dissonance.

- Troy was founded by Teucer, Dardanus, Illus and Tros, - the boy minted at once and in an instant blushed all over, so reddened that it became a pity to look at him. But the boys kept looking at him point-blank, staring for a full minute, and then suddenly all those point-blank eyes turned at once to Kolya. He, with contemptuous composure, still continued to measure the impudent boy with his eyes:

So how did they set it up? he finally deigned to say, “and what does it mean to found a city or a state at all? Well: did they come and lay bricks or something?

There was laughter. The guilty boy went from pink to crimson. He was silent, he was ready to cry. Kolya held it like that for another minute.

“In order to talk about such historical events as the founding of a nationality, one must first of all understand what this means,” he sternly minted out as a warning. “However, I don’t attach any importance to all these women’s tales, and in general I don’t have much respect for world history,” he added suddenly casually, addressing everyone in general.

“Is this world history, sir?” the staff captain inquired with a sort of fright.

Yes, world history. The study of a number of human stupidities, and nothing more. I respect only mathematics and the natural sciences, - Kolya forcefully and glanced at Alyosha: he was afraid of his only opinion here. But Alyosha remained silent and was as serious as ever. If Alyosha had said something now, it would have ended there, but Alyosha was silent, and "his silence could be contemptuous," and Kolya was already completely irritated.

“Again those classical languages ​​we now have: one madness and nothing more… You again seem to disagree with me, Karamazov?”

“I don’t agree,” Alyosha smiled restrainedly.

“Classical languages, if you want all my opinion about them, are a police measure, that’s the only reason they were brought up,” Kolya suddenly began to gasp again, little by little, “they are wound up because they are boring, and because they dull one’s abilities. It was boring, so here's how to make it even more boring? It was stupid, so how to make it even more stupid? This is how classical languages ​​were invented. Here is my full opinion about them and I hope that I will never change it, - Kolya finished abruptly. There was a red dot of blush on both cheeks.

- And the first Latin! one boy suddenly shouted from the crowd.

“Yes, dad, he speaks himself, and he himself is the first in Latin in the class,” Ilyusha also responded.

- What is it? - Kolya considered it necessary to defend himself, although praise was also very pleasant to him. “I am cramming Latin because I have to, because I promised my mother to finish my course, but in my opinion, what I have undertaken is good to do, but in my heart I deeply despise classicism and all this meanness ... Don’t you agree, Karamazov?

- Well, why the "meanness"? Alyosha chuckled again.

- Yes, for mercy, after all, the classics have all been translated into all languages, so it was not at all for studying the classics that they needed Latin, but solely for police measures and to dull their abilities. How then is it not meanness?

- Well, who taught you all this? exclaimed Alyosha, surprised at last.

- Firstly, I myself can understand, without learning, and secondly, you know, this is the same thing that I just explained to you about the translated classics, the teacher Kolbasnikov himself said aloud to the entire third grade ...

The doctor has arrived! Ninochka, who had been silent all the time, suddenly exclaimed.

Indeed, a carriage belonging to Mrs. Khokhlakov drove up to the gates of the house. The staff captain, who had been waiting all morning for the doctor, rushed headlong to the gate to meet him. "Mommy" crept up and put on importance. Alyosha went up to Ilyusha and began straightening his pillow. Ninochka, from her armchair, watched anxiously as he straightened the bed. The boys hurriedly began to say goodbye, some of them promised to come back in the evening. Kolya called out Chime, and he jumped out of bed.

“I won’t leave, I won’t leave!” - Kolya said in a hurry to Ilyusha, I will wait in the hallway and come again, when the doctor leaves, I will come with Chime.

But the doctor was already entering, an important figure in a bearskin coat, with long dark sideburns and a slickly shaven chin. Stepping over the threshold, he suddenly stopped, as if taken aback: it truly seemed to him that he had gone in the wrong place: “What is this? Where I am?" he muttered, without throwing off his fur coat from his shoulders and without taking off his seal cap with a seal peak from his head. The crowd, the poverty of the room, the laundry hanging on a line in the corner confused him. The staff captain bent before him in three deaths.

“You are here, sir, here, sir,” he muttered servilely, “you are here, sir, at my place, you come to me sir ...

- Snow-gi-roar? - said the doctor importantly and loudly. - Mr. Snegirev - is that you?

- It's me!

The doctor looked around the room with disgust once more and threw off his fur coat. An important order on the neck flashed into everyone's eyes. The captain picked up his fur coat on the fly, and the doctor took off his cap.

- Where is the patient? he asked loudly and urgently.

VI. Early development

What do you think the doctor will say to him? - Kolya spoke quickly; What a disgusting face, though, isn't it? I can't stand medicine!

- Ilyusha will die. That, it seems to me, is quite certain,” Alyosha replied sadly.

- Rogues! Rogue medicine! I am glad, however, that I recognized you, Karamazov. I have long wanted to know you. It's just a pity that we met so sadly ...

Kolya would very much like to say something even hotter, even more expansive, but something seemed to jar him. Alyosha noticed this, smiled and shook hands with him.

“I learned a long time ago to respect a rare being in you,” Kolya muttered again, confused and confused. “I heard you are a mystic and you were in a monastery. I know you're a mystic, but... that didn't stop me. Touching reality will heal you... With natures like you, it doesn't happen otherwise.

What do you call a mystic? What will it heal? Alyosha was a little surprised.

- Well, there is God and so on.

“What, don’t you believe in God?”

On the contrary, I have nothing against God. Of course, God is only a hypothesis... but... I admit that he is needed for order... for world order, and so on... and if he didn't exist, then we'd have to invent him," Kolya added, beginning to blush. He suddenly imagined that Alyosha would now think that he wanted to show off his knowledge and show how "big" he was. "And I don't want to show my knowledge before him," Kolya thought indignantly. And he suddenly became terribly annoyed.

“I confess, I hate to enter into all these squabbles,” he snapped, “it’s possible, after all, without believing in God to love humanity, what do you think? Voltaire did not believe in God, but loved humanity? (Again, again! he thought to himself.)

“Voltaire believed in God, but it seems he didn’t like much, and it seems he didn’t love humanity either,” Alyosha said quietly, restrainedly and completely naturally, as if talking to an equal in age, or even to an older person. It was Kolya who was struck by this, as it were, Alyosha's uncertainty about his opinion about Voltaire, and that it was as if he, little Kolya, were giving this question to be decided.

Have you read Voltaire? Alyosha concluded.

- No, not that I read ... I read Candide, however, in a Russian translation ... in an old, ugly translation, funny ... (Again, again!)

– Did you understand?

“Oh yes, that’s all… that is… why do you think I wouldn’t understand?” Of course, there are a lot of smut... Of course, I am able to understand that this is a philosophical novel, and written to carry the idea... - Kolya was already completely confused. “I am a socialist, Karamazov, I am an incorrigible socialist,” he suddenly interrupted for no apparent reason.

- A socialist? - Alyosha laughed, - but when did you manage to do this? After all, you are only thirteen years old, don't you think?

Kolya was twisted.

“Firstly, not thirteen, but fourteen, in two weeks fourteen,” he flushed, “and secondly, I don’t understand at all what my years are for? The point is what my beliefs are, and not what year I am, isn't it?

“When you are older, you will see for yourself how important age is to persuasion. It also seemed to me that you were not speaking your own words, ”Alyosha answered modestly and calmly, but Kolya interrupted him hotly.

– Excuse me, you want obedience and mysticism. Agree that, for example, Christian faith served only the rich and noble to keep the lower class in slavery, didn't it?

“Ah, I know where you read this, and someone must have taught you!” Alyosha exclaimed.

- Excuse me, why did you read it without fail? And no one has ever taught. I myself can ... And if you want, I'm not against Christ. He was a completely humane person, and had he lived in our time, he would have directly joined the revolutionaries and, perhaps, would have played a prominent role ... This is even indispensable.

- Well, where, well, where did you get this! What idiot are you messing with? Alyosha exclaimed.

“Forgive me, you can’t hide the truth. Of course, on one occasion, I often talk with Mr. Rakitin, but ... This is also old Belinsky, they say, he also spoke.

- Belinsky? I do not remember. He didn't write it anywhere.

– If he didn’t write, then, they say, he spoke. I heard this from one ... but the devil ...

- Have you read Belinsky?

“You see… no… I didn’t quite read it, but… I read the passage about Tatyana, why she didn’t go with Onegin.

- Why didn't you go with Onegin? Do you really… understand?

“Excuse me, you seem to take me for the Smurov boy,” Kolya grinned irritably. “But please don’t think that I’m such a revolutionary. I very often disagree with Mr. Rakitin. If I'm talking about Tatyana, then I'm not at all for the emancipation of women. I acknowledge that a woman is a subordinate being and must obey. Les femmes tricottent, as Napoleon said, - Kolya chuckled for some reason, - and at least in this I completely share the conviction of this pseudo-great man. For example, I also think that fleeing to America from the fatherland is meanness, worse than meanness is stupidity. Why go to America, when we can do a lot of good for humanity? Right now. A whole host of fruitful activities. So I answered.

- How did they answer? To whom? Has anyone already invited you to America?

- I confess, I was urged on, but I rejected it. This, of course, is between us, Karamazov, you hear, not a word to anyone. This is me only for you. I don't want to fall into the clutches of the Third Squad and take lessons from the Chain Bridge,

Will you remember the building

At the Chain Bridge!

Remember? Fabulous! What are you laughing at? Don't you think that I lied to you? (And what if he finds out that in my father’s closet I only have this one number of the Bell, and I didn’t read anything else from it? Kolya thought briefly, but with a shudder.)

“Oh, no, I'm not laughing, and I don't think you've lied to me at all. That's just what it is, that I don't think so, because all this, alas, is the sheer truth! Well, tell me, have you read Pushkin, Onegin, then ... So you just talked about Tatyana?

No, I haven't read it yet, but I want to. I have no prejudice, Karamazov. I want to hear both sides. Why did you ask?

“Tell me, Karamazov, do you despise me terribly?” Kolya suddenly snapped, and he straightened himself out in front of Alyosha, as if he were in position. Do me a favor, don't be shy.

- I despise you? Alyosha looked at him in surprise. - Yes, for what? I am only sad that a lovely nature like yours, which has not yet begun to live, is already perverted by all this rude nonsense.

“Don’t worry about my nature,” Kolya interrupted, not without self-satisfaction, “but that I’m suspicious, that’s so. Stupidly suspicious, rudely suspicious. You just smiled, and it seemed to me that you seemed to ...

“Ah, I chuckled quite differently. You see what I chuckled at: I recently read a review by a foreign German who lived in Russia about our current student youth: “Show you—he writes—to a Russian student a map of the starry sky, about which he had no idea until then, and he will return this map to you corrected tomorrow.” No knowledge and selfless conceit - that's what the German wanted to say about the Russian schoolboy.

“Ah, yes, that is absolutely true! Kolya suddenly burst out laughing. Bravo, German! However, the chukhna did not even consider the good side, but what do you think? Self-conceit - let it be, it is from youth, it will be corrected, if only it is necessary that it be corrected, but on the other hand, an independent spirit, from almost childhood, but courage of thought and conviction, and not the spirit of their sausage-like servility to authorities ... But still - the German said well! Bravo, German! Although all the same, the Germans must be strangled. Let them be strong in the sciences there, but they still need to be strangled ...

- Why strangle something? Alyosha smiled.

- Well, maybe I lied, I agree. I am sometimes a terrible child, and when I am happy about something, I can not restrain myself and am ready to lie nonsense. Listen, you and I, however, are chatting about trifles here, and this doctor has been stuck there for a long time. However, he can also examine the “mother” there and this legless Ninochka. You know, I liked this Ninochka. She suddenly whispered to me when I was leaving: “Why didn’t you come earlier?” And in such a voice, with reproach! I think she's awfully kind and pathetic.

- Yes Yes! Here you will walk, you will see what kind of creature it is. It is very useful for you to recognize such creatures in order to be able to appreciate and many other things that you learn precisely from acquaintance with these creatures, Alyosha remarked with fervor. “That will change you the best.

“Oh, how I regret and scold myself for not coming earlier! Kolya exclaimed with a bitter feeling.

- Yes very sorry. You saw for yourself what a joyful impression you made on the poor little one! And how he was killed, waiting for you!

- Do not tell me! You are irritating me. And by the way, it serves me right: I did not come from pride, from egoistic pride and vile autocracy, from which I can’t get rid of all my life, although I break myself all my life. I see it now, I'm a scoundrel in many ways, Karamazov!

“No, you are a charming nature, though perverted, and I understand too well why you could have such an influence on this noble and morbidly susceptible boy!” Alyosha replied warmly.

“And you are telling me!” - exclaimed Kolya, - and I, imagine, I thought, - I have already several times, now that I am here, I thought that you despise me! If you only knew how much I value your opinion!

“But are you really so suspicious? In such years! Well, just imagine, I was just thinking there in the room, looking at you, when you told me that you must be very suspicious.

- Have you thought about it? But what an eye you have, see, see! I bet it was at the place when I told about the goose. It was in this place that I imagined that you deeply despise me for my haste to show off as a fine fellow, and I even suddenly hated you for this and began to talk nonsense. Then I imagined (this is already here) at the place when I said: “If there were no God, then he must be invented,” that I was in too much of a hurry to expose my education, especially since I read this phrase in a book. But I swear to you, I was in a hurry to expose not out of vanity, but so, I don’t know why, out of joy, by God, as if from joy ... although this is a deeply shameful trait when a person climbs on everyone’s neck with joy. I know it. But I am convinced now that you do not despise me, but I invented all this myself. Oh, Karamazov, I am profoundly unhappy. I sometimes imagine, God knows what, that everyone is laughing at me, the whole world, and then I, I'm just ready then to destroy the whole order of things.

“And you are torturing those around you,” Alyosha smiled.

- And I torture others, especially my mother. Karamazov, tell me, am I very ridiculous now?

Don't think about it, don't think about it at all! Alyosha exclaimed. - And what is funny? You never know how many times a person seems or seems ridiculous? At the same time, today almost all people with abilities are terribly afraid of being ridiculous and therefore unhappy. It only surprises me that you began to feel this so early, although, by the way, I have long noticed this and not on you alone. Nowadays, even almost children have begun to suffer from this. It's almost crazy. The devil was embodied in this self-esteem and crawled into the whole generation, precisely the devil, ”Alyosha added, not at all smiling, as Kolya, who was looking at him point-blank, thought. “You are like everyone else,” Alyosha concluded, “that is, like very many, but you don’t have to be like everyone else, that’s what.

“Even though everyone is like that?”

- Yes, despite the fact that everyone is like that. One you and be not such. You really are not like everyone else: now you are not ashamed to admit to being bad and even funny. And now who is aware of this? No one, and even the need, ceased to be found in self-condemnation. Be not like everyone else; even though you alone remain not like that, but still be not like that.

- Fabulous! I didn't mistake you. You are able to comfort. Oh, how I longed for you, Karamazov, how long have I been looking for a meeting with you! Did you think of me too? Did you say the other day that you thought of me too?

“Yes, I heard about you and thought about you too ... and if some pride has forced you to ask this now, then it’s nothing.

“You know, Karamazov, our explanation is like a declaration of love,” Kolya said in some relaxed and bashful voice. - It's not funny, isn't it funny?

“It’s not funny at all, but even if it’s funny, it’s nothing, because it’s good,” Alyosha smiled brightly.

“You know, Karamazov, you must admit that you yourself are now a little ashamed of me… I can see it in your eyes,” Kolya chuckled somehow slyly, but also with some kind of almost happiness.

- Why is it embarrassing?

- Why are you blushing?

- Yes, you did it so that I blushed! Alyosha laughed, and really blushed all over. “Well, yes, a little ashamed, God knows why, I don’t know why ...” he muttered, almost even embarrassed.

“Oh, how I love and appreciate you at this moment, precisely because you, too, are somehow ashamed of me!” Because you are definitely me! Kolya exclaimed in resolute delight. His cheeks burned, his eyes shone.

“Listen, Kolya, by the way, you will be a very unhappy person in life,” Alyosha said suddenly for some reason.

- I know I know. How do you know all this in advance! Kolya immediately confirmed.

“But overall, bless life.

- Exactly! Hurrah! You are a prophet! Oh, we'll get along, Karamazov. You know, what delights me most of all is that you are completely equal to me. And we are no match, no no match, you are higher! But we'll get along. You know, for the last month I have been saying to myself: “Either we will become friends forever with him, or from the very first time we will disperse as enemies to the grave!”

- And speaking so, of course they loved me! Alyosha laughed merrily.

“I loved, I loved terribly, I loved and dreamed of you!” And how do you know everything in advance? Bah, here comes the doctor. Lord, he'll say something, look at his face!

The doctor came out of the hut again already wrapped in a fur coat and with a cap on his head. His face was almost angry and disgusted, as if he was still afraid of getting dirty on something. He glanced briefly at the entrance, and at the same time looked sternly at Alyosha and Kolya. Alyosha waved from the door to the coachman, and the carriage that had brought the doctor drove up to the exit doors. The staff captain rushed out after the doctor and, bending over, almost wriggling before him, stopped him for the last word. The face of the poor man was killed, his eyes were frightened:

“Your Excellency, Your Excellency… is it really?…” he began, and did not finish, but only clasped his hands in despair, although he was still looking at the doctor with his last plea, as if, in fact, the doctor’s now word could change the sentence on the poor boy.

- What to do! I am not a god,” the doctor replied in a careless, though habitually impressive voice.

“Doctor… Your Excellency… and soon it, soon?”

“Get ready for everything,” the doctor rapped out, striking each syllable, and, bowing his gaze, he himself was about to step over the threshold to the carriage.

“Your Excellency, for Christ’s sake! - the staff captain stopped him again in fright, - your excellency! .. so nothing, really nothing, nothing at all will save now? ..

“It doesn’t depend on me now,” the doctor said impatiently, “and yet, um,” he paused suddenly, “if you, for example, could ... direct ... your patient ... now and not less without delay (the words “now and not at all delaying” the doctor uttered not only sternly, but almost angrily, so that the staff captain even shuddered) in Si-ra-ku-zy, then ... due to new blessings pleasant climatic conditions ... it could be possible to-and-go ...

- To Syracuse! cried the staff captain, as if he still did not understand anything.

“Syracuse is in Sicily,” Kolya suddenly snapped loudly, for clarification. The doctor looked at him.

- To Sicily! Father, Your Excellency, - the staff captain was lost, - but you saw it! - he circled with both hands, pointing to his situation, - and mama, and the family?

- N-no, the family is not in Sicily, but your family is in the Caucasus, in early spring ... your daughter is in the Caucasus, and your spouse ... keeping the course of the waters also in the Caucasus in view of her rheumatism ... immediately after that, go right to Paris, to the asylum of Dr. psychiatrist Lepelleletier, I could give you a note to him, and then ... it might happen ...

- Doctor, doctor! Why, you see! the captain suddenly waved his arms again, pointing in desperation at the bare log walls of the entrance hall.

“Ah, it’s none of my business,” the doctor chuckled, “I just said what I could say to your question about last resorts, and the rest ... unfortunately for me ...

“Don’t worry, doctor, my dog ​​won’t bite you,” Kolya snapped loudly, noticing the doctor’s somewhat restless look at Chime, who stood on the threshold. An angry note rang out in Kolya's voice. Instead of a doctor, he said the word "doctor" on purpose and, as he himself later announced, "he said it as an insult."

- What's happened? the doctor tossed his head, staring at Kolya in surprise. - Which one? he suddenly turned to Alyosha, as if asking him for a report.

“This is the owner of Chime, a doctor, don’t worry about my personality,” Kolya minted again.

- Ringing? - the doctor spoke, not understanding what Chime is.

- He doesn't know where he is. Goodbye doctor, see you in Syracuse.

- Who is it? Who, who? the doctor suddenly boiled up terribly.

“He’s a local schoolboy, doctor, he’s a naughty one, don’t pay attention,” Alyosha said, frowning and pattering. - Kolya, shut up! he shouted to Krasotkin. "Don't pay attention, doctor," he repeated, somewhat more impatiently.

- You have to cut it, you have to cut it, you have to cut it! - the doctor, already for some reason already enraged, stamped his feet.

- And you know, doctor, because the Chime seems to bite me! Kolya said in a trembling voice, turning pale and his eyes flashing. – Ici, Chime!

“Kolya, if you say just one more word, then I will break you forever,” Alyosha shouted authoritatively.

- Doctor, there is only one creature in the whole world that can give orders to Nikolai Krasotkin, this is this man (Kolya pointed to Alyosha); I obey him, forgive me!

He jumped up and, opening the door, quickly went into the room. The chime followed him. The doctor stood there for another five seconds, as if in tetanus, looking at Alyosha, then suddenly spat and quickly went to the carriage, repeating loudly: "Etta, etta, etta, I don't know what etta is!" The captain rushed to lift him up. Alyosha followed Kolya into the room. He was already standing by Ilyusha's bed. Ilyusha held his hand and called for dad. A minute later the captain also returned.

“Papa, papa, come here ... we ...” Ilyusha was murmuring in extreme excitement, but apparently unable to continue, he suddenly threw his both emaciated hands forward and hugged them both at once, as tightly as he could, and Kolya and papa , connecting them in one embrace and clinging to them himself. The staff captain suddenly shook all over from silent sobs, and Kolya's lips and chin trembled.

- Dad, dad! I feel sorry for you, dad! Ilyusha groaned bitterly.

"Ilyushechka... darling... the doctor said... you'll be well... we'll be happy... doctor..." the staff captain began to speak.

- Oh, dad! I know what the new doctor told you about me... I saw it! Ilyusha exclaimed, and again firmly, with all his strength, pressed them both to him, hiding his face on his father’s shoulder.

- Dad, don't cry ... but when I die, then take a good boy, another ... choose yourself from all of them, good, call him Ilyusha and love him instead of me ...

- Shut up, old man, get well! Krasotkin suddenly shouted, as if angry.

“And never forget me, dad, never forget me,” continued Ilyusha, “come to my grave ... yes, dad, you bury me near our big stone, to which we went for a walk, and go to me there with Krasotkin, in the evening... And Chime... And I'll be waiting for you... Dad, dad!

- Ilyushechka! Ilyushechka! she exclaimed. Krasotkin suddenly freed himself from Ilyusha's embrace:

- Farewell, old man, my mother is waiting for me for dinner, - he said quickly ... - What a pity that I did not warn her! He will be very worried ... But after dinner I will immediately come to you, for the whole day, for the whole evening, and I will tell you so much, I will tell you so much! And I’ll bring Chime, and now I’ll take it with me, because without me he will start howling and will interfere with you; Goodbye!

And he ran out into the hallway. He did not want to burst into tears, but in the hallway he did weep. Alyosha found him in this state.

“Kolya, you must by all means keep your word and come, otherwise he will be in terrible grief,” Alyosha said insistently.

– Absolutely! Oh, how I swear to myself that I didn’t come earlier, - Kolya muttered crying and no longer embarrassed that he was crying. At that moment, the staff captain suddenly seemed to jump out of the room and immediately shut the door behind him. His face was furious, his lips trembled. He stood before both young men and threw up both hands:

"I don't want a good boy!" I don't want another boy! - he whispered in a wild whisper, gnashing his teeth, - if I forget you, Jerusalem, let him cling ...

He did not finish, as if choking, and sank on his knees in impotence before the wooden bench. Clenching his head with both fists, he began to sob, squealing somehow absurdly, but with all his might, he braced himself so that his squeals would not be heard in the hut. Kolya ran out into the street.

Farewell, Karamazov! Will you come yourself? he shouted sharply and angrily to Alyosha.

- I'll definitely be there tonight.

- What is it about Jerusalem ... What is this?

- This is from the Bible: “If I forget you, Jerusalem,” that is, if I forget everything that I myself have precious, if I exchange it for something, then let it strike ...

- I understand, that's enough! Come yourself! Ici, Chime! he shouted quite ferociously to the dog, and with long, quick steps he walked home.

This article presents a summary of Dostoevsky's Boys. This is not a standalone work, but part of the novel The Brothers Karamazov. The tenth chapter deals with Kolya Krasotkin and Ilyusha, the son of Snegiryov, a man who was once publicly humiliated by Dmitry Karamazov. Of course, one of the main characters, Alexei, is also present here.

What is a summary for?

During school holidays, teachers advise children to keep reading diaries. A summary of Dostoevsky's "Boys" should be included in such a notebook, perhaps, in the first place. It's no secret that the prose of this writer is quite complex. In his books a large number of characters and lengthy discourses. Basic information about the reading, as well as personal opinion about the heroes and events of the work, it is desirable to fix it on paper. And this should be done not for the teacher, but for yourself.

"Boys" by Dostoevsky, a summary of which will be included in reader's diary, the student will remember years later, already as an adult, when he opens one of the most famous novels of Russian literature.

Why do we consider the tenth chapter as a separate work? It tells about the heroes who are also found in the novel, while the events reflected in this part are connected with the main ones only indirectly. The story of Kolya Krasotkin and his friendship with the boy Ilyusha is very touching. It will be of interest even to those who have not read the novel and are not familiar with its summary. "Boys" by Dostoevsky are often published as part of a collection of works for children. The writer often in his books showed the difficult fate of children. Let's remember "Humiliated and Insulted", "Netochka Nezvanov".

In a condensed version of the novel "The Brothers Karamazov" F. M. Dostoevsky the summary of The Boys is only two or three sentences, while the tenth chapter of the book can be considered a full story. There are problems here, and a system of images, and a tragic denouement. Outlined summary"Boys" by F. Dostoevsky can be given very little time, talking only about the main events. But it is better to make a more detailed description of the characters and events.

Plan

Outlining the summary of Dostoevsky's Boys, it is advisable to adhere to a certain plan. To begin the retelling, of course, should be with the characteristics of the protagonist. Namely Kolya Krasotkina. And then talk about the relationship of the high school student with other children, as well as with Alyosha Karamazov. A summary of Dostoevsky's "Boys" chapter by chapter will have the following plan:

• Kolya Krasotkin.
• Kids.
• Pupils.
• Bug.
• At Ilyushin's bed.
• Early development.

So, let's start retelling the summary of the story "Boys" by Dostoevsky.

Kolya Krasotkin

The official Krasotkin died many years ago. His wife was then only 18 years old. She directed all her energy and love to her little son, who was not even a year old when the woman was widowed. Mother's name was Kolya Krasotkina Anna Fedorovna. The widow of the boy passionately loved, but in his short life he caused her more suffering than joy. Every day she went crazy with fear that suddenly he would fall, hurt his knee, or, God forbid, some other misfortune would happen to him. When he grew up and entered the gymnasium, she began to study with him all the sciences in order to help, prompt her son.

Kolya Krasotkin had every chance of gaining a reputation as a mama's son. But that did not happen. It turned out that he was not a timid ten. He knew how to win the respect of his peers, behaved with dignity with teachers, liked to play pranks, but never crossed the permissible limits. Anna Fedorovna was worried, it often seemed to her that her son did not love her enough. She reproached him for coldness, insensibility. But Krasotkin's widow was wrong. Kolya loved her very much, but did not tolerate what in the language of high school students was called "veal tenderness".

Case on the railroad

Kolya was very proud. And he suffered a lot from it. And even more unhappiness was caused by his pride to his mother. One summer, an incident occurred that almost drove her crazy. Kolya bet with the local boys that he could lie on the rails under a speeding train. They were older than him, and they turned up their noses too much. And it was unbearable. Kolya won the argument. But while he was lying on the rails under a speeding train, he lost consciousness for only two minutes. The boys were frightened, then accepted into their company and no longer considered small.

This incident also reached the high school. A scandal could have erupted, possibly leading to the expulsion of Kolya Krasotkin. But a teacher named Dardanelov intervened. This man had a personal interest. For many years Dardanelov was in love with Anna Feodorovna, and perhaps this feeling was mutual. But the widow considered marriage a betrayal of her beloved son. In the evening, a real drama broke out in the Krasotkins' house. The mother sobbed, begged her son not to repeat such acts again. It all ended with the fact that Kolya himself, like a little one, burst into tears and promised his mother that he would never upset her again.

kids

Shortly after the event, which so upset Kolya's mother, but aroused the respect of his peers, the boy brought home a mongrel. He called the dog Chime and apparently dreamed of raising him smart dog, because he spent hours training her. In the chapter "Children", in fact, no events take place. It is told only about how once Kolya was forced to look after the neighbor's children.

The mother of Nastya and Kostya took the maid to the hospital, and Agafya, who looked after her son Krasotkina, went to the market. The schoolboy could not leave the "bubbles", as he affectionately called the kids, until one of them returned. But he had some, in his opinion, very important things. Therefore, without waiting for Agafya, Kolya went out into the street, taking a promise from the children that without him they would neither be naughty nor cry.

Pupils

What urgent business did Kolya Krasotkin have? Going out into the street, he went to meet a boy named Smurov. He was from a wealthy family. His father forbade him to communicate with Kolya, because he had a reputation as a desperate guy. It is worth saying that the boys did not go to the direction of the railway at all, but to Snegiryov's house. The same pitiful man who was taken for a jester in the neighborhood and who was once treated so cruelly by Dmitry Karamazov. But the reader knows about all this only if he is familiar with the content of the entire Dostoevsky novel. However, in the tenth chapter this unpleasant story is also mentioned.

The boys that day were supposed to visit Ilyusha Snegiryov, who was seriously ill for a long time. This desire did not arise spontaneously. Alexey asked them to come to Ilyusha Karamazov is a man, from Kolya's point of view, is rather strange. By that time, the news of the arrest of his older brother had already spread throughout the district. A real drama unfolded in Alexei's family. At the same time, he found time to help completely strangers to him. This surprised and amazed Krasotkin. The boy had long dreamed of meeting Karamazov.

bug

Being an outcast is, apparently, the fate of every member of the Snegirev family. No one took the elder seriously in the district. The youngest - Ilyusha - also had problems with peers. Krasotkin met this boy back when he went to preparatory classes. He drew attention to the fact that Ilyusha was offended by the elders, but he was trying in every possible way to resist this. Kolya liked the independence of the boy, he soon took him under his wing. But one day an incident occurred that quarreled them.

The lackey Karamazov taught Snegirev Jr. cruel trick. Namely: insert a pin into the bread crumb, and then feed this bread to a hungry dog. Ilyusha's victim was the mongrel Zhuchka, who soon after such a breakfast disappeared without a trace. Kolya decided to punish his younger friend for cruelty and stopped communicating with him. And soon Ilyusha fell ill.

At Ilyushin's bed

Housing Snegirev was extremely miserable. In the corner sat a half-mad mother, a father who had recently stopped drinking, occasionally ran out into the hallway, unable to contain his sobs. Snegirev loved his son very much and, it seemed, would finally lose his mind when he died.

Kolya sat down by Ilyusha's bed, and then, a few minutes later, called Chime. He gave the dog for the missing Beetle and assured the boy that she did not appear for so long, because she was subjected to his training lesson.

Early development

After visiting Ilyusha, Kolya went out into the street, where he had a long conversation with Alexei Karamazov. These events had a huge impact on Krasotkin. In just a few days, he became more mature, more merciful, wiser. Ilyusha spent the last days of his life in the house of the Snegirevs. Once a sick boy was examined by a capital doctor who arrived here at the request of Katerina Ivanovna, the failed bride of Dmitry Karamazov. The doctor pronounced a sentence on Ilyusha: he had only a few weeks to live. Hearing this, Krasotkin jumped out into the passage and wept bitterly.

November at the beginning. We had a frost of eleven degrees, and with it sleet. A bit of dry snow fell on the frozen ground during the night, and the “dry and sharp” wind picks it up and sweeps it through the boring streets of our town, and especially through the market square. Cloudy morning, but the snow stopped. Not far from the square, not far from the Plotnikovs' shop, there is a small, very clean house both outside and inside, the house of the widow of the official Krasotkina. The provincial secretary Krasotkin himself died a very long time ago, almost fourteen years ago, but his widow, thirty years old and still a very pretty lady, is alive and lives in her clean house "with her own capital." She lives honestly and timidly, with a gentle but rather cheerful character. She remained after her husband of eighteen years, having lived with him for only about a year and had just given birth to his son. Since then, since his death, she devoted herself entirely to raising this little boy Kolya of hers, and although she loved him all fourteen years without memory, she, of course, endured incomparably more suffering with him than she survived joys, trembling and dying from fear, almost every day, that he would fall ill, catch a cold, catch a cold, climb onto a chair and fall down, and so on and so forth. When Kolya began to go to school and then to our gymnasium, his mother rushed to study all the sciences with him in order to help him and rehearse lessons with him, rushed to get acquainted with teachers and their wives, even caressed Kolya’s comrades, schoolchildren, and foxed before them, so that they would not touch Kolya, would not mock him, would not beat him. She brought it to the point that the boys actually began to mock him through her and began to tease him with the fact that he was a sissy. But the boy managed to defend himself. He was a brave boy, "terribly strong," as the rumor about him in the class swept through and soon established itself, he was dexterous, stubborn in character, audacious and enterprising spirit. He studied well, and there was even a rumor that he, both from arithmetic and from world history, would knock down the teacher Dardanelov himself. But the boy, although he looked down on everyone, turning up his nose, was a good comrade and did not exalt himself. He took the respect of the schoolchildren for granted, but kept himself friendly. The main thing is that he knew the measure, he knew how to restrain himself on occasion, and in relations with his superiors he never crossed some last and cherished line, beyond which a misdemeanor can no longer be tolerated, turning into disorder, rebellion and lawlessness. And yet, he was very, very not averse to fooling around at every opportunity, fooling around like the very last boy, and not so much fooling around as tricking something, doing wonders, giving "extrafefer", chic, showing off. Most importantly, he was very selfish. He even managed to put subordinates in his relationship with his mother, acting on her almost arbitrarily. She obeyed, oh, she had long since obeyed, and only she could not endure the mere thought that the boy “loved her little.” It constantly seemed to her that Kolya was “insensitive” to her, and there were times when, shedding hysterical tears, she began to reproach him for being cold. The boy did not like this, and the more they demanded from him heartfelt outpourings, the more unyielding, as it were on purpose, became. But this happened with him not on purpose, but involuntarily - such was his character. His mother was wrong: he loved his mother very much, and did not love only “calf tenderness,” as he put it in his schoolboy language. After the father left a cupboard in which several books were kept; Kolya loved to read and had already read some of them to himself. The mother was not embarrassed by this, and only sometimes wondered how this boy, instead of going to play, stood by the cupboard for whole hours over some book. And in this way, Kolya read something that he should not have been allowed to read at his age. However, lately, although the boy did not like to cross a certain line in his pranks, pranks began that frightened his mother in earnest - it is true, not some immoral ones, but desperate, cutthroat ones. Just in this summer, in the month of July, during the holidays, it happened that mother and son went to stay for a week in another county, seventy miles away, to a distant relative, whose husband served at the railway station (the very same, nearest from our city, the station from which Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov set off for Moscow a month later). There, Kolya began by looking at the railway in detail, studying the routines, realizing that he could show off his new knowledge when he returned home, among the schoolchildren of his progymnasium. But just at that time there were also several other boys, with whom he made friends; some of them lived at the station, others in the neighborhood - all the young people from twelve to fifteen years old came together about six or seven, and two of them happened from our town. The boys played together, played pranks, and on the fourth or fifth day of their stay at the station, an incredible bet of two rubles took place between the stupid youth, namely: Kolya, almost the youngest of all, and therefore somewhat despised by the elders, out of pride or out of shameless courage, suggested that he, at night, when the eleven o'clock train arrives, lie prone between the rails and lie motionless while the train rushes over him at full speed. True, a preliminary study was made, from which it turned out that it is really possible to stretch out and flatten along between the rails so that the train, of course, will rush through and not touch the one who is lying, but, nevertheless, what a lie! Kolya stood firmly that he would lie down. At first they laughed at him, called him a liar, a fanfare, but they encouraged him all the more. The main thing is that these fifteen-year-olds turned up their noses in front of him too much and at first did not even want to consider him a comrade, as a “little one”, which was already unbearably insulting. And so it was decided to leave in the evening for a verst from the station, so that the train, having left the station, had time to completely scatter. The boys have gathered. The night was moonless, not that dark, but almost black. At the proper hour, Kolya lay down between the rails. The five others who had wagered, with bated breath, and finally in fear and remorse, waited at the bottom of the embankment beside the road in the bushes. Finally, a train rumbled out of the station in the distance. Two red lanterns flashed out of the darkness, an approaching monster rumbled. "Run, run away from the rails!" the boys, who were dying of fear, shouted to Kolya from the bushes, but it was too late: the train galloped up and rushed past. The boys rushed to Kolya: he lay motionless. They began to pull at him, began to lift him up. He suddenly got up and silently descended from the embankment. Going downstairs, he announced that he had purposely been lying unconscious in order to frighten them, but the truth was that he had indeed lost consciousness, as he later admitted, long later, to his mother. Thus the glory of the "desperate" behind him was strengthened forever. He returned home to the station pale as a sheet. The next day he fell ill with a slightly nervous fever, but in spirit he was terribly cheerful, glad and pleased. The incident was announced not now, but already in our city, penetrated into the progymnasium and reached its superiors. But then mother Kolya rushed to pray to the authorities for her boy and ended up defending him and begging for him by the respected and influential teacher Dardanelov, and the matter was left in vain, as if it had never happened at all. This Dardanelov, a bachelor and not an old man, was passionately and for many years already in love with Madame Krasotkina, and already once, about a year ago, most respectfully and dying from fear and delicacy, he ventured to offer her his hand; but she flatly refused, considering consent to be a betrayal of her boy, although Dardanelov, according to some mysterious signs, might even have had some right to dream that he was not completely disgusted by the charming, but already too chaste and tender widow. Kolya's crazy prank, it seems, broke through the ice, and for his intercession a hint of hope was made to Dardanelov for his intercession, though a distant one, but Dardanelov himself was a phenomenon of purity and delicacy, and therefore it was enough for him for the time being to complete his happiness. He loved the boy, although he would have considered it humiliating to curry favor with him, and treated him sternly and demandingly in the classes. But Kolya himself kept him at a respectful distance, prepared his lessons perfectly, was the second student in the class, addressed Dardanelov dryly, and the whole class firmly believed that Kolya was so strong in world history that he would “knock down” Dardanelov himself. And indeed, Kolya once asked him the question: “Who founded Troy?” - to which Dardanelov answered only in general about the peoples, their movements and migrations, about the depth of times, about fables, but he could not answer who exactly founded Troy, that is, what kind of persons, and even found the question for some reason idle and bankrupt. But the boys remained convinced that Dardanelov did not know who founded Troy. Kolya read about the founders of Troy from Smaragdov, who was kept in a closet with books, which was left after his parent. It ended up that everyone, even the boys, finally became interested: who exactly founded Troy, but Krasotkin did not reveal his secret, and the glory of knowledge remained unshakable for him.

After the incident on the railroad, Kolya's attitude towards his mother underwent some change. When Anna Fedorovna (Krasotkin's widow) found out about her son's feat, she almost went crazy with horror. She had such terrible hysterical fits, which lasted intermittently for several days, that Kolya, already seriously frightened, gave her an honest and noble word that such pranks would never happen again. He swore on his knees before the image and swore by the memory of his father, as Madame Krasotkina herself demanded, and the "courageous" Kolya himself burst into tears, like a six-year-old boy, from "feelings", and mother and son all that day threw themselves into each other's arms and cried shaking . The next day, Kolya woke up still “insensitive”, but became more silent, more modest, stricter, more thoughtful. True, after a month and a half he was again caught in one prank, and his name even became known to our justice of the peace, but the prank was already of a completely different kind, even funny and stupid, and it turned out that it was not he himself who committed it, but only found himself involved in it. But more on that later. The mother continued to tremble and suffer, and Dardanelov, in proportion to her worries, perceived hope more and more. It should be noted that Kolya understood and unraveled Dardanelov from this side and, of course, deeply despised him for his "feelings"; before, he even had the indelicacy to show his contempt in front of his mother, remotely hinting to her that he understood what Dardanelov was trying to achieve. But after the incident on the railroad, he changed his behavior on this matter too: he no longer allowed himself hints, even the most distant ones, and he began to speak of Dardanelov more respectfully in his mother’s presence, which the sensitive Anna Feodorovna immediately realized with boundless gratitude in her heart, but but at the slightest, most unexpected word, even from some stranger about Dardanelov, if Kolya was present at the same time, she suddenly flared up with shame, like a rose. Kolya, at those moments, either looked frowningly out the window, or looked to see if he was asking for porridge boots, or fiercely called Chime, a shaggy, rather large and lousy dog, which he had suddenly acquired from somewhere for a month, dragged into the house and kept for some reason something in secret in the rooms, not showing it to any of the comrades. He tyrannized terribly, teaching her all sorts of things and sciences, and brought the poor dog to the point that she howled without him when he went to classes, and when he came, she squealed with delight, jumped like crazy, served, fell to the ground and pretended to be dead and so on. , in a word, she showed all the things that she was taught, no longer on demand, but solely from the ardor of her enthusiastic feelings and a grateful heart.

By the way: I forgot to mention that Kolya Krasotkin was the same boy whom the reader already knew the boy Ilyusha, the son of the retired staff captain Snegirev, stabbed in the thigh with a penknife, standing up for his father, whom schoolchildren teased with a “washcloth”.

II. kids

So, on that frosty and wild November morning, the boy Kolya Krasotkin was sitting at home. It was Sunday and there were no classes. But it was already eleven o'clock, and he certainly had to go from the yard "on one very important matter," and meanwhile he remained alone in the whole house and decidedly as its keeper, because it so happened that all its older inhabitants, for some urgent and original circumstance, they left the yard. In the house of the widow Krasotkina, across the entryway from the apartment she herself occupied, another and the only apartment in the house was given away, consisting of two small rooms for rent, and occupied by her doctor's wife with two young children. This doctor was the same age as Anna Fyodorovna and her great friend, but the doctor himself had been visiting somewhere for a year now, first to Orenburg, and then to Tashkent, and for half a year there was not a word from him, so if If it weren't for the friendship with Madame Krasotkina, which somewhat softened the grief of the abandoned doctor's wife, then she would definitely have shed tears from this grief. And so, to complete all the oppressions of fate, it had to happen that on that same night, from Saturday to Sunday, Katerina, the doctor's only servant, suddenly and quite unexpectedly for her mistress announced to her that she intended to give birth to a baby by morning. How it happened that no one noticed this in advance was almost a miracle for everyone. The amazed doctor's wife decided, while there was still time, to take Katerina to one institution adapted for such cases in our town at the midwife's. Since she valued this servant very much, she immediately fulfilled her project, took her away and, moreover, remained there with her. Then, in the morning, for some reason, all the friendly participation and help of Mrs. Krasotkina herself, who in this case could ask someone for something and provide some protection, were needed. Thus, both ladies were away, the maid of Madame Krasotkina herself, Baba Agafya, went to the market, and Kolya thus found himself for a time the guardian and guardian of the "bubbles", that is, the doctor's boy and girl, left alone. Kolya was not afraid to guard the house, and besides, Chime was with him, who was ordered to lie face down in the anteroom under the bench "without movement" and for this very reason, every time Kolya, who paced around the rooms, entered the anteroom, he shook his head and gave two hard and fawning for a blow with their tail on the floor, but alas, there was no inviting whistle. Kolya looked menacingly at the unfortunate dog, and he again froze in an obedient stupor. But if anything confused Kolya, then only "bubbles". Of course, he looked at the unexpected adventure with Katerina with the deepest contempt, but he loved the orphaned bubbles very much and had already taken them some kind of children's book. Nastya, the eldest girl, already eight years old, knew how to read, and the younger bubble, a seven-year-old boy Kostya, loved to listen when Nastya read to him. Of course, Krasotkin could entertain them more interestingly, that is, put both of them side by side and start playing soldiers with them or hiding all over the house. He had done this more than once before and did not disdain to do it, so that even in the classroom it was once rumored that Krasotkin was playing horses with his little tenants at home, jumping for the harness and bending his head, but Krasotkin proudly retorted this accusation, exposing that with peers, with thirteen-year-olds, it would really be shameful to play horses “in our age”, but that he does this for “bubbles”, because he loves them, and in his feelings no one dares to ask him for an account . But both "bubbles" adored him. But this time there was no time for toys. He had one very important business of his own, and in appearance some kind of almost even mysterious, meanwhile time was running out, and Agafya, for whom one could have left the children, still did not want to return from the market. He had already crossed the passage several times, opened the door to the doctor's office, and anxiously looked around the "bubbles" who, on his orders, were sitting at the book, and every time he opened the door, they silently smiled at him from the bottom of their mouths, expecting that there he was. come in and do something beautiful and funny. But Kolya was in mental anxiety and did not enter. Finally it struck eleven, and he firmly and definitively decided that if in ten minutes the "damned" Agafya did not return, then he would leave the yard without waiting for her, of course, taking the word from the "bubbles" that they would not be afraid without him, they would not be naughty and will not weep for fear. In these thoughts, he dressed himself in his wadded winter coat with a fur collar made of some kind of cat, hung his bag over his shoulder, and, despite his mother’s previous repeated pleas, that he should always put on galoshes when leaving the yard in “such a cold”, only looked at them contemptuously as he passed through the ante-room, and went out in only his boots. The chime, seeing him dressed, began to vigorously tap his tail on the floor, nervously twitching all over, and even let out a plaintive howl, but Kolya, seeing such a passionate impetuosity of his dog, concluded that this was harmful to discipline, and at least a minute, but withstood he was still under the bench and, having already opened only the door to the passage, he suddenly whistled for him. The dog jumped up like crazy and rushed to jump in front of him with delight. Crossing the entrance, Kolya opened the door to the "bubbles". Both were still sitting at the table, but they were no longer reading, but were arguing heatedly about something. These children often argued with each other about various challenging everyday subjects, and Nastya, as the eldest, always prevailed; Kostya, if he did not agree with her, he almost always went to appeal to Kolya Krasotkin, and as he decided, so it remained in the form of an absolute verdict for all parties. This time Krasotkin was somewhat interested in the dispute between the "bubbles", and he stopped at the door to listen. The children saw that he was listening, and they continued their bickering with even greater passion.

“I will never, never believe,” Nastya babbled hotly, “that midwives find little children in the garden, between the beds with cabbage. Now it is winter, and there are no beds, and grandmother could not bring Katerina a daughter.

- Phew! Kolya whistled to himself.

- Or like this: they bring from somewhere, but only to those who get married.

Kostya looked intently at Nastya, listened thoughtfully and thought.

“Nastya, what a fool you are,” he finally said firmly and without getting excited, “how can Katerina have a baby when she is not married?

Nastya got terribly hot.

“You don’t understand anything,” she interrupted irritably, “maybe she had a husband, but only he is in prison, and she gave birth.”

Does she have a husband in prison? positive Kostya inquired importantly.

“Or like this,” Nastya quickly interrupted, completely abandoning and forgetting her first hypothesis, “she doesn’t have a husband, you’re right, but she wants to get married, so she began to think about how she would get married, and she kept thinking, thinking and thinking and Until then, I thought that here he was with her and became not a husband, but a baby.

“Well, isn’t it so,” Kostya, completely defeated, agreed, “but you didn’t say this before, so how could I know.

“Well, kids,” Kolya said, stepping into their room, “you are a dangerous people, I see!”

- And Chime with you? Kostya grinned and began snapping his fingers and calling Chime.

“Bubbles, I’m in trouble,” Krasotkin began importantly, “and you must help me: Agafya, of course, broke her leg, because she still hasn’t appeared, it’s been decided and signed, but I need it from the yard. Will you let me go or not?

The children exchanged worried glances with each other, their grinning faces began to express anxiety. However, they still did not fully understand what they were trying to achieve.

- Will you play pranks without me? Won't you climb on the closet, won't you break your legs? Do not cry from fear alone?

The faces of the children expressed a terrible longing.

- And I could show you one thing for that, a copper cannon, from which you can shoot with real gunpowder.

The children's faces instantly cleared up.

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

Krasotkin put his hand into his bag and, taking out a small bronze cannon, placed it on the table.

- Show me something! Look, on wheels, - he rolled the toy on the table, - and you can shoot. Shot load and shoot.

- And kill?

“He’ll kill everyone, it’s only worth pointing,” and Krasotkin explained where to put the gunpowder, where to roll in the pellet, pointed to a hole in the form of a seed and said that there was a rollback. The children listened with great curiosity. They were especially struck by their imagination that there is a rollback.

- Do you have gunpowder? - Nastya inquired.

“Show me the gunpowder, too,” she drawled with a begging smile.

Krasotkin again climbed into the bag and took out a small vial, in which, indeed, some real gunpowder was poured, and in the folded piece of paper there were several grains of shot. He even uncorked the vial and poured a little gunpowder into his palm.

“Here, but there would be no fire anywhere, otherwise it would blow up and kill us all,” Krasotkin warned for effect.

The children looked at the gunpowder with awe that added to the pleasure. But Kostya liked the fraction more.

- And the shot does not burn? he inquired.

- The shot does not burn.

“Give me some fractions,” he said in an imploring voice.

- I’ll give you a little fraction, here, take it, just don’t show your mother before me until I come back, otherwise she’ll think it’s gunpowder, and she’ll die of fear, and she’ll flog you.

“Mom never flogs us with a rod,” Nastya immediately noticed.

- I know, I just said it for the sake of style. And you never deceive your mother, but this time - until I come. So, bubbles, can I go or not? Won't you cry without me from fear?

“For-crying,” Kostya drawled, already preparing to cry.

We will cry, we will certainly cry! - Nastya also picked up in a timid patter.

“Oh, children, children, how dangerous your years are. Nothing to do, chicks, I'll have to sit with you I don't know how long. And time, time, wow!

“Order Chime to pretend to be dead,” Kostya asked.

- Yes, there is nothing to do, you will have to resort to Chime. Isi, Chime! - And Kolya began to command the dog, and she imagined everything she knew. It was a shaggy dog, the size of an ordinary mongrel, with some kind of gray-lilac hair. Her right eye was crooked, and for some reason her left ear was slit. She squealed and jumped, served, walked on her hind legs, threw herself on her back with all four paws up and lay motionless as if dead. During this last thing, the door opened, and Agafya, Madame Krasotkina's fat maid, a pockmarked woman of about forty, appeared on the threshold, returning from the market with a bag of purchased provisions in her hand. She stood up and, holding a bag on a plumb line in her left hand, began to look at the dog. Kolya, no matter how he waited for Agafya, did not interrupt the performance and, having endured Chime for a certain time dead, finally whistled to him: the dog jumped up and started jumping for joy that he had fulfilled his duty.

- Look, dog! Agafya said instructively.

- What are you, female, late? Krasotkin asked menacingly.

- Female, oh pimple!

- Bubble?

- And a pimple. It doesn’t matter to you that I’m late, it means that it’s necessary if I’m late, ”Agafya muttered, starting to fiddle around the stove, but in no way dissatisfied and not angry, but, on the contrary, very pleased, as if rejoicing at the opportunity to scoff with a cheerful barchon.

“Listen, frivolous old woman,” Krasotkin began, getting up from the sofa, “can you swear to me by everything that is sacred in this world, and moreover by something else, that you will tirelessly watch the bubbles in my absence?” I'm leaving the yard.

“Why would I swear to you?” Agafya laughed, “I’ll keep an eye on it.

- No, not otherwise than by swearing the eternal salvation of your soul. Otherwise, I won't leave.

“And don't leave. What do I care, it's cold outside, stay at home.

“Bubbles,” Kolya turned to the children, “this woman will stay with you until my arrival or until your mother arrives, because she should have come back long ago. Moreover, he will give you breakfast. Will you give them something, Agafya?

– It is possible.

- Goodbye, chicks, I'm leaving with a calm heart. And you, grandma, - he said in an undertone and importantly, passing Agafya, - I hope you won’t lie to them with your usual womanish nonsense about Katerina, you will spare your childhood. Isi, Chime!

- And well, you to God, - Agafya snapped already with a heart. - Funny! To flog himself, that's what, for such words.

III. Schoolboy

But Kolya was no longer listening. Finally, he could leave. Going out the gate, he looked around, shrugged his shoulders and, saying: "Frost!", Headed straight along the street and then to the right along the lane to the market square. Not reaching one house to the square, he stopped at the gate, took a whistle from his pocket and whistled with all his might, as if giving a conventional signal. He had to wait no more than a minute, a ruddy-faced boy, about eleven years old, also dressed in a warm, clean and even smart coat, suddenly jumped out of the gate to him. It was the boy Smurov, who was in the preparatory class (whereas Kolya Krasotkin was already two classes higher), the son of a prosperous official and who, it seems, was not allowed by his parents to associate with Krasotkin, as with the most famous desperate rascal, so Smurov, obviously, jumped out now furtively. This Smurov, if the reader has not forgotten, was one of the group of boys who two months ago threw stones across the ditch at Ilyusha, and who then told Alyosha Karamazov about Ilyusha.

"I've been waiting for you for an hour, Krasotkin," Smurov said with a resolute look, and the boys walked towards the square.

"I'm late," Krasotkin replied. - There are circumstances. They won't flog you, why are you with me?

- Well, come on, do they flog me? And Chime with you?

- And Chime!

- You and him there?

- And him there.

- Oh, if only the Bug!

- You can't Bug. The bug doesn't exist. The bug disappeared into the darkness of the unknown.

“Ah, couldn’t it be like that,” Smurov suddenly paused, “because Ilyusha says that Zhuchka was also shaggy and also the same gray-haired, smoky, like Chime, can’t you say that this is the same Beetle, he, maybe believe?

- Schoolboy, shun lies, this time; even for a good deed, two. And most importantly, I hope you did not announce anything about my arrival there.

“God forbid, I understand. But you can’t console him with Chimes,” Smurov sighed. - You know what: this father, captain, a washcloth, told us that today he would bring a puppy, a real Medelian, with a black nose; he thinks that this will console Ilyusha, but hardly?

- And what is he like, Ilyusha?

- Oh, bad, bad! I think he has tuberculosis. He is all in memory, only he breathes, breathes, he breathes badly. The other day he asked to be led, shod him in boots, he was about to go, and he falls down. “Ah, he says, I told you, dad, that I have bad boots, the old ones, it was embarrassing to walk in them before.” It was he who thought that he was falling down from his boots, but he was simply from weakness. It won't last a week. Herzenstube is driving. Now they are rich again, they have a lot of money.

- Rogues.

- Who are the rogues?

- Doctors, and all medical bastards, speaking in general, and, of course, in particular. I reject medicine. Useless institution. However, I am researching all of this. What kind of sentimentality do you have there, however, wound up? You are there with the whole class, it seems, stay?

“Not everyone, but about ten of ours go there, always, every day. It's nothing.

– The role of Alexei Karamazov surprises me in all this: tomorrow or the day after tomorrow his brother is on trial for such a crime, and he has so much time for sentimentalism with the boys!

“There is absolutely no sentimentality here. You yourself are now going to put up with Ilyusha.

- Reconcile? Funny expression. However, I do not allow anyone to analyze my actions.

- And how Ilyusha will be glad to see you! He does not imagine that you will come. Why, why didn't you want to go for so long? Smurov suddenly exclaimed with warmth.

“Dear boy, this is my business, not yours. I'm going on my own, because that's my will, and Alexei Karamazov dragged you all there, so that's the difference. And how do you know, maybe I'm not going to put up at all? Silly expression.

“Not Karamazov at all, not him at all. It's just that our people themselves began to go there, of course, first with Karamazov. And there was nothing like that, no nonsense. First one, then another. Father was terribly happy for us. You know, he'll just go crazy if Ilyusha dies. He sees that Ilyusha will die. And how glad we are that Ilyusha and I have reconciled. Ilyusha asked about you, but added nothing more. Ask and shut up. And the father will go crazy or hang himself. He had acted like a lunatic before. You know, he's a noble man, and then there was a mistake. All this parricide is to blame for beating him then.

– Still, Karamazov is a mystery to me. I could have known him long ago, but I like to be proud otherwise. Moreover, I formed an opinion about him, which still needs to be verified and explained.

Kolya importantly fell silent; Smurov too. Smurov, of course, was in awe of Kolya Krasotkin and did not even dare to think of equaling him. Now he was terribly interested, because Kolya explained that he was going “on his own”, and there was, therefore, certainly some kind of mystery in that Kolya suddenly took it into his head to go now and just today. They walked along the market square, where this time there were many visiting carts and a lot of imported birds. City women traded bagels, threads and so on under their sheds. Such Sunday conventions are naively called fairs in our town, and there are many such fairs a year. The chime ran in the most cheerful mood, constantly evading to the right and left to sniff something somewhere. Meeting with other little dogs, he sniffed with them with unusual eagerness according to all dog rules.

“I like to observe realism, Smurov,” Kolya suddenly spoke up.

Have you noticed how dogs meet and sniff? There is a common law of nature between them.

- Yes, it's kind of funny.

- That is, not funny, you're wrong. There is nothing funny in nature, no matter how it may seem to a person with his prejudices. If dogs could reason and criticize, they would probably find just as much, if not much more, in the social relations between people, their masters, if not much more; I repeat this because I am firmly convinced that we have much more stupidity. This is Rakitin's idea, a wonderful idea. I am a socialist, Smurov.

- What is a socialist? Smurov asked.

- This is if everyone is equal, everyone has one common property, there are no marriages, and religion and all laws are as anyone likes, well, everything else is there. You haven't grown up yet, it's too early for you. Cold, however.

- Yes. Twelve degrees. The other day my father looked at the thermometer.

“And you noticed, Smurov, that in the middle of winter, if it’s fifteen or even eighteen degrees, it doesn’t seem as cold as it is now, for example, at the beginning of winter, when suddenly the frost suddenly hits, as now, at twelve degrees, and even when the snow few. This means people are not used to it yet. People have a habit, in everything, even in state and political relations. Habit is the main driver. What a funny guy though.

Kolya pointed to a tall peasant in a sheepskin coat, with a good-natured physiognomy, who at his cart was clapping his mittened hands in the cold. His long blond beard was frosted all over.

- The man's beard is frozen! - Kolya shouted loudly and cockily, passing by him.

“It’s cold for many,” the peasant said calmly and sententiously in response.

"Don't bully him," Smurov remarked.

- Don't get angry, he's good. Farewell, Matthew.

- Goodbye.

- Are you Matthew?

- Matthew. You didn `t know?

- Did not know; I randomly said.

- Look, after all. Perhaps in schoolchildren?

- In schoolchildren.

- What are you, flogged?

- Not really, but yes.

- Painfully?

- Not without that!

- Oh, life! The man sighed from the bottom of his heart.

- Farewell, Matthew.

- Goodbye. Boy, you're cute, that's what.

"He's a good man," Kolya spoke to Smurov. “I love talking to people and am always happy to do justice to them.

“Why did you lie to him that they were whipping us?” Smurov asked.

Should I have consoled him?

– What is it?

“You see, Smurov, I don’t like it when they ask again if they don’t understand from the first word. Otherwise, it is impossible to interpret. According to the idea of ​​a peasant, a schoolboy is flogged and should be flogged: what, they say, is a schoolboy if he is not flogged? And suddenly I will tell him that we do not flog, because he will be upset by this. And yet, you don't understand it. You have to be able to speak with the people.

- Just don’t bully, please, otherwise the story will come out again, as then with this goose.

– Are you afraid?

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

Don't worry, nothing will happen this time. Hello, Natasha, - he shouted to one of the merchants under a canopy.

“What kind of Natasha am I to you, I’m Marya,” the merchant, far from being an old woman, answered yellingly.

- It's good that Marya, goodbye.

- Oh, you shooter, you can’t see from the ground, but there too!

- Once, once I'm with you, next Sunday you will tell, - Kolya waved his hands, as if she was molesting him, and not he was molesting her.

What should I tell you on Sunday? I myself became attached, and not I to you, mischievous one, - Marya shouted, - to flog you, that's what, you are a well-known offender, that's what!

Laughter rang out among the other merchants trading on their stalls next to Marya, when suddenly from under the arcade of the city shops jumped out for no reason at all an irritated person like a merchant clerk and not our merchant, but from visitors, in a long blue caftan, in a cap with a visor, still young, in dark blond curls and with a long, pale, pockmarked face. He was in some kind of stupid excitement and immediately began to threaten Kolya with his fist.

“I know you,” he exclaimed irritably, “I know you!”

Kolya looked at him intently. He could not remember anything when he could have had any kind of fight with this man. But you never know he had fights in the streets, it was impossible to remember all of them.

- You know? he asked ironically.

- Do I know you! Do I know you! - the tradesman ran like a fool.

- You're better off. Well, no time for me, goodbye!

- What are you arguing about? shouted the tradesman. – Are you being naughty again? Do I know you! Are you being naughty again?

“It’s none of your business now, brother, that I’m being naughty,” Kolya said, stopping and continuing to look at him.

- How not mine?

Yes, not yours.

- And whose is it? Whose? Well, whose is it?

- This, brother, is now Trifon Nikitich's business, and not yours.

- What kind of Trifon Nikitich? - with stupid surprise, although still getting excited, the guy stared at Kolya. Kolya gave him an important look.

- Did you go to Ascension? he suddenly asked sternly and insistently.

- To what Ascension? What for? No, I didn’t go, - the guy was taken aback a little.

Do you know Sabaneev? Kolya went on even more insistently and even more sternly.

- What are those Sabaneeva? No, I do not know.

- Well, to hell with you after that! Kolya suddenly snapped and, turning sharply to the right, quickly walked on his way, as if he despised talking to such an idiot that Sabaneeva does not even know.

- Stop, hey! What are those Sabaneeva? - the guy came to his senses, all excited again. - What was he saying? he suddenly turned to the merchants, looking at them stupidly.

The grandmothers laughed.

“Wise boy,” said one.

- What, what kind of Sabaneeva is he? the guy kept repeating furiously, waving his right hand.

“And this must be Sabaneeva, who served with the Kuzmichevs, that’s how it must be,” one woman suddenly guessed.

The boy glared at her wildly.

- Kuz-mi-cheva? - another woman spoke up, - but what kind of Tryphon is he? That Kuzma, not Trifon, but the boy called Trifon Nikitich, it became, not he.

“This, you see, is not Trifon and not Sabaneev, this is Chizhov,” suddenly picked up the third woman, who until now had been silent and seriously listening, “Alexey Ivanovich is his name.” Chizhov, Alexey I.

“It is true that Chizhov,” the fourth woman insistently confirmed.

The stunned guy looked first at one, then at the other.

Why did he ask, why did he ask, good people? he exclaimed almost in despair, “do you know Sabaneev?” And the devil knows what kind of Sabaneev he is!

- You are a stupid person, they say - not Sabaneev, but Chizhov, Alexei Ivanovich Chizhov, that's who! one woman shouted impressively to him.

- Which Chizhov? Well, what? Speak if you know.

- A long, hoary, flying in the bazaar was sitting.

- And why the hell do I need your Chizhov, good people, huh?

- And how do I know what the fuck Chizhov is for.

“And who knows what you need him for,” another one picked up, “he himself should know what you need him for, if you are making a noise. After all, he told you, not us, you stupid man. Do you not know the truth?

- Chizhov.

- And the devil take it, Chizhova, together with you! I'll cut him off, that's what! He laughed at me!

- Will you beat Chizhov off? Either he you! You're a fool, that's what!

- Not Chizhov, not Chizhov, you are an evil, harmful woman, I’ll beat the boy, that’s what! Give it, give it here, he laughed at me!

The grandmothers laughed. And Kolya was already walking far away with a victorious expression on his face. Smurov walked beside him, looking back at the group shouting in the distance. He also had a lot of fun, although he was still afraid of how not to get into history with Kolya.

- What did you ask Sabaneev about? he asked Kolya, anticipating the answer.

- And how do I know about what? Now they will cry until the evening. I love to stir up fools in all walks of life. Here and there is still a dolt, here is this guy. Note to yourself, they say: "There is nothing more stupid than a stupid Frenchman," but the Russian physiognomy also betrays itself. Well, isn't it written on this guy's face that he's a fool, this guy, huh?

- Leave him, Kolya, let's pass by.

“I won’t leave you, I’m on my way now.” Hey! hello man!

A hefty peasant, who was slowly passing by and must have already drunk, with a round, rustic face and a beard with gray hair, raised his head and looked at the boy.

“Well, hello, if you’re not joking,” he said leisurely in response.

- And if I'm kidding? Kolya laughed.

- And you joke, so joke, God is with you. Nothing, it's possible. It's always possible to joke around.

- I'm sorry, brother, I was joking.

- Well, God forgive you.

- Do you forgive?

- I really forgive you. Go.

- You see, you are, perhaps, a smart man.

“Smarter than you,” the man answered unexpectedly and still importantly.

- Hardly, - Kolya was somewhat taken aback.

- I'm telling the truth.

- And perhaps so.

- That's it, brother.

- Farewell, man.

- Goodbye.

“Guys are different,” Kolya remarked to Smurov after some silence. - How did I know that I would run into a smart guy. I am always ready to recognize the mind in the people.

In the distance, the cathedral clock struck half-past eleven. The boys hurried, and the rest of the rather long way to the dwelling of Staff Captain Snegirev went quickly and almost without speaking. Twenty paces from the house, Kolya stopped and ordered Smurov to go ahead and call Karamazov here for him.

“We must sniff first,” he remarked to Smurov.

“But why call,” Smurov began to object, “come in anyway, you will be terribly delighted.” And what about getting to know each other in the cold?

“I already know why I need him here in the cold,” Kolya snapped despotically (which he loved to do with these “little ones”), and Smurov ran to fulfill the order.

IV. bug

Kolya, with an important air in his face, leaned against the fence and began to wait for Alyosha to appear. Yes, he had long wanted to meet him. He had heard a great deal about him from the boys, but until now he had always outwardly shown a contemptuously indifferent air when they spoke of him, he even "criticized" Alyosha, listening to what they told him about him. But about himself he really, really wanted to get to know him: there was something in all the stories he heard about Alyosha that was sympathetic and enticing. Thus, the present minute was important; firstly, it was necessary not to hit oneself in the dirt, to show independence: “Otherwise, he will think that I am thirteen years old, and he will take me for the same boy as these. And what are these boys to him? I'll ask him when I get there. It's bad, though, that I'm so short. Tuzikov is younger than me, but half a head taller. My face, however, is intelligent; I'm not good, I know that my face is ugly, but my face is smart. It’s also necessary not to speak out too much, otherwise he’ll immediately think with hugs ... Ugh, what an abomination it will be if he thinks! .. ”

Kolya was so worried, trying with all his might to assume the most independent air. Most importantly, he was tormented by his small stature, not so much by his "vile" face as by his height. At his house, in the corner on the wall, since last year a dash was made with a pencil, with which he marked his height, and since then every two months he excitedly approached again to measure himself: how much did he grow? But alas! he grew terribly small, and this sometimes led him simply to despair. As for the face, it was not at all "nasty", on the contrary, rather pretty, white, pale, with freckles. Gray, small, but lively eyes looked boldly and often lit up with feeling. The cheekbones were somewhat broad, the lips small, not very thick, but very red; the nose is small and resolutely upturned: "Quite snub-nosed, completely snub-nosed!" Kolya muttered to himself when he looked in the mirror, and he always walked away from the mirror indignantly. “Yes, and hardly a smart face?” he sometimes thought, even doubting it. However, it is not necessary to assume that concern for his face and growth absorbed his whole soul. On the contrary, no matter how caustic the minutes in front of the mirror were, he quickly forgot about them, and even for a long time, "giving himself all over to ideas and real life," as he himself defined his activity.

Alyosha appeared soon and hurriedly went up to Kolya; after a few steps he could see that Alyosha had some kind of completely joyful face. "Are you so happy for me?" Kolya thought with pleasure. Here, by the way, we note that Alyosha has changed a lot since we left him: he threw off his cassock and now wore a beautifully tailored frock coat, a soft round hat and short-cropped hair. All this greatly brightened him up, and he looked quite handsome. His pretty face always had a cheerful look, but this gaiety was somehow quiet and calm. To Kolya's surprise, Alyosha came out to him in the clothes he was wearing in the room, without a coat, it was obvious that he was in a hurry. He held out his hand directly to Kolya.

- Here you are at last, as we all have been waiting for you.

There were reasons that you will now learn about. Anyway, nice to meet you. I've been waiting for a chance for a long time and heard a lot, - Kolya muttered, a little breathless.

- Yes, we would have met without that, I myself have heard a lot about you, but here, here, you are late.

- Tell me, how is it here?

- Ilyusha is very bad, he will certainly die.

- What do you! Agree that medicine is vile, Karamazov,” Kolya exclaimed with fervor.

- Ilyusha often, very often mentioned you, even, you know, in a dream, in delirium. It can be seen that you were very, very dear to him before ... before that incident ... with a knife. There is another reason… Tell me, is this your dog?

- My. Chime.

- And not the Bug? Alyosha looked pitifully into Kolya's eyes. - Has she disappeared yet?

“I know that you would like all the Bug, I heard everything,” Kolya grinned enigmatically. “Listen, Karamazov, I will explain the whole matter to you, the main thing is that I have come with this, and for this I have summoned you to explain the whole passage to you in advance before we enter,” he began animatedly. - You see, Karamazov, in the spring Ilyusha enters the preparatory class. Well, you know, our preparatory class: boys, kids. Ilyusha immediately began to bully. I am two classes higher and, of course, I look from afar, from the side. I see the boy is small, weak, but does not obey, he even fights with them, proud, his eyes are burning. I love these. And they are bigger than him. The main thing is that he then had a bad dress, his pants climb up, and his boots ask for porridge. They are his and for it. Humiliate. No, I don’t like it, I immediately interceded and asked the extrafefer. I beat them, and they adore me, do you know that, Karamazov? Kolya boasted expansively. “Yes, I do love kids. I still have two chicks sitting on my neck at home, even today I was detained. Thus, they stopped beating Ilyusha, and I took him under my protection. I see that the boy is proud, I tell you that he is proud, but ended up surrendering to me slavishly, fulfilling my slightest commands, listening to me like God, trying to imitate me. In the intermissions between classes now to me, and we go with him. Sundays too. In our gymnasium, they laugh when the elder converges on such a leg with the little one, but this is a prejudice. This is my fantasy, and that's it, isn't it? I teach him, develop him - why, tell me, can't I develop him if I like him? After all, you, Karamazov, agreed with all these chicks, so you want to act on the younger generation, develop, be useful? And I confess that this trait in your character, which I learned by hearsay, interested me most of all. However, to the point: I note that some kind of sensitivity, sentimentality develops in the boy, and, you know, I am a resolute enemy of all calf tenderness, from my very birth. And besides, there are contradictions: he is proud, but slavishly devoted to me, - slavishly devoted, and suddenly his eyes sparkle and he doesn’t even want to agree with me, he argues, he climbs the wall. I sometimes put forward different ideas: it’s not that he doesn’t agree with the ideas, but I simply see that he personally rebels against me, because I respond to his tenderness with composure. And so, in order to endure it, I, the more tender it is, the more cold-blooded I become, I do it on purpose, such is my conviction. I meant to train the character, level, create a person ... well, there ... you, of course, understand me perfectly. Suddenly I notice that for a day or two, he is embarrassed, mourns, but not about tenderness, but about something else, stronger, higher. What do you think is a tragedy? I step on him and find out a thing: somehow he got along with the footman of your late father (who was still alive then) Smerdyakov, and he teach him, fool, a stupid joke, that is, a brutal joke, a vile joke - to take a piece of bread , crumb, stick a pin into it and throw it to some yard dog, one of those who, from hunger, swallow a piece without chewing, and see what comes of it. So they made such a piece and threw it to this very shaggy Beetle, about which such a story is now, to one yard dog from such a yard where they simply did not feed it, but it barks into the wind all day. (Do you love that stupid barking, Karamazov? I can't stand it.) And so she rushed, swallowed and squealed, spun and started to run, she ran and squealed, and disappeared - that's how Ilyusha himself described it to me. He confesses to me, but he cries, cries, hugs me, shakes: “Running and squealing, running and squealing” - this is all he repeats, this picture struck him. Well, I see remorse. I took it seriously. Most importantly, I also wanted to scold him for the past, so, I confess, I cheated here, pretended that in such indignation, which, perhaps, I didn’t have at all: “You, I say, did a low deed, you scoundrel, Of course, I will not divulge, but for the time being I am interrupting relations with you. I’ll think over this matter and let you know through Smurov (this very boy who has now come with me and who has always been devoted to me): will I continue my relationship with you in the future, or will I leave you forever, like a scoundrel. This shocked him terribly. I confess, at the same time I felt that, perhaps, I was too strict, but what to do, that was my then thought. A day later, I send Smurov to him and through him tell him that I no longer “talk” to him, that is, that is what we call it when two comrades break off relations with each other. The secret is that I wanted to keep him on ferbant for only a few days, and then, seeing repentance, again stretch out my hand to him. This was my firm intention. But what do you think: he listened to Smurov, and suddenly his eyes sparkled. “Tell,” he shouted, “from me to Krasotkin that I will now throw pieces with pins to all the dogs, to everyone, to everyone!” “Ah, I think the free spirit has wound up, it needs to be smoked out,” and I began to show him complete contempt, at every meeting I turn away or smile ironically. And suddenly this incident happens with his father, remember, a washcloth? Understand that in this way he was already prepared for a terrible irritation. The boys, seeing that I had left him, pounced on him, teasing: "Washcloth, washcloth." It was then that they began to fight, which I terribly regret, because it seems that he was beaten very painfully then. That time he rushes at everyone in the yard when they were leaving the classrooms, and I was just standing ten steps away and looking at him. And I swear I don't remember laughing then, on the contrary, I felt very, very sorry for him then, and another moment and I would have rushed to defend him. But he suddenly met my gaze: I don’t know what it seemed to him, but he grabbed a penknife, rushed at me and poked it in my thigh, right here, near my right leg. I did not move, I confess, sometimes I am brave, Karamazov, I only looked with contempt, as if saying with a glance: “Would you like more, they say, for all my friendship, so I am at your service.” But he did not stab another time, he could not stand it, he himself was frightened, threw down the knife, burst into tears and started to run. Of course, I did not fiscally and ordered everyone to be silent so that it would not reach the authorities, I even told my mother only when everything had healed, and the wound was empty, a scratch. Then I hear that on the same day he threw stones and bit your finger - but, you understand, what a state he was in! Well, what to do, I did something stupid: when he fell ill, I did not go to forgive him, that is, to make peace, now I repent. But here I have special goals. Well, that's the whole story ... only, it seems, I did stupidly ...

“Oh, what a pity,” Alyosha exclaimed with emotion, “that I did not know your relations with him before, otherwise I myself would have come to you long ago to ask you to go to him with me. Believe me, in the heat, in the disease, he raved about you. I didn't know how much you love him! And really, didn't you find this Beetle? Father and all the boys around the city were looking for. Believe me, he, sick, in tears, repeated to my father three times in front of me: “It’s because I’m sick, dad, that I killed Zhuchka then, it was God who punished me,” you won’t lead him away from this thought! And if only they would now take out this Bug and show that she was not dead, but alive, then it seems that he would be resurrected with joy. We all hoped for you.

- Tell me, why on earth did they hope that I would find the Beetle, that is, what exactly would I find? - Kolya asked with extreme curiosity, - why did they count on me, and not on another?

- There was some rumor that you were looking for her and that when you find her, you will bring her. Smurov said something along these lines. We, most importantly, are trying to assure that the Bug is alive, that she was seen somewhere. The boys got him a live bunny from somewhere, only he looked, smiled a little and asked to be released into the field. So we did. That very minute his father came back and brought him a Medelian puppy, also got it from somewhere, thought to console him with this, only it seemed to get worse ...

“Tell me again, Karamazov: what is this father?” I know him, but what is he according to your definition: a jester, a clown?

- Oh, no, there are people who feel deeply, but are somehow crushed. Their buffoonery is like a malicious irony towards those to whom they do not dare to tell the truth in their eyes because of long-term humiliating timidity in front of them. Believe me, Krasotkin, that such buffoonery is sometimes extremely tragic. He has everything now, everything on earth is united in Ilyusha, and if Ilyusha dies, he will either go crazy with grief, or take his own life. I'm almost convinced of it when I look at it now!

“I understand you, Karamazov, I see you know the man,” Kolya added heartily.

- And when I saw you with a dog, I thought that you had brought that same Beetle.

“Wait, Karamazov, maybe we will find her, and this one is Chime. I'll let her into the room now and maybe amuse Ilyusha more than with a Medelian puppy. Wait, Karamazov, you will learn something now. Oh, my God, why am I holding you! Kolya suddenly exclaimed swiftly. - You are in one frock coat in such a cold, and I detain you; see, see what an egoist I am! Oh, we are all egoists, Karamazov!

- Do not worry; True, it's cold, but I'm not cold. Come on, however. By the way: what's your name, I know it's Kolya, what's next?

“Nikolai, Nikolai Ivanov Krasotkin, or, as they say in official language, son Krasotkin,” Kolya laughed at something, but suddenly added: “Of course, I hate my name Nikolai.

Why not?

- Trivial, official ...

Are you thirteen years old? Alyosha asked.

- That is, the fourteenth, in two weeks fourteen, very soon. I confess to you in advance in one weakness, Karamazov, this is so before you, for the first acquaintance, so that you can immediately see my whole nature: I hate it when people ask me about my years, I more than hate ... and finally ... about me, for example, there is a slander that I played robbers with the preparatory last week. What I played is reality, but what I played for myself, for my own pleasure, is decidedly slander. I have reason to think that this has reached you, but I didn’t play for myself, but for the children, because they couldn’t invent anything without me. And here we always dissolve nonsense. It's a city of gossip, I assure you.

- And even if they played for their own pleasure, what's wrong with that?

- Well, for yourself ... You won’t play horses, will you?

“But you talk like this,” Alyosha smiled, “for example, adults go to the theater, and in the theater they also present the adventures of all kinds of heroes, sometimes also with robbers and with war - isn’t it the same thing, in its own, of course, kind? And playing war for young people, during recreational time, or playing robbers there - this is also an emerging art, an emerging need for art in a young soul, and these games are sometimes even composed more smoothly than theater performances, only the difference is that in the theater go to see the actors, and here the youth themselves are the actors. But it's only natural.

- You think so? Is that your belief? Kolya looked at him intently. - You know, you said a rather curious thought; I will now come home and use my brains on this matter. I confess, I was expecting that I could learn something from you. I came to study with you, Karamazov,” Kolya concluded in a penetrating and expansive voice.

“And I’m with you,” Alyosha smiled, shaking his hand.

Kolya was extremely pleased with Alyosha. He was struck by the fact that with him he was on an equal footing to the highest degree and that he spoke to him as to "the biggest."

“I’ll show you one trick now, Karamazov, also one theatrical performance,” he laughed nervously, “I came with that.

- Let's go first to the left to the owners, there they leave all your coats, because the room is cramped and hot.

- Oh, I'm just for a moment, I'll come in and sit in my coat. The chime will remain here in the hallway and die: "Isi, Chime, kush and die!" You see, he died. And first I will go in, look out for the situation, and then, when necessary, I will whistle: “Isi, Chime!” - and you will see, he will immediately fly in like mad. Only it is necessary that Smurov does not forget to open the door at that moment. I’ll make arrangements, and you will see the trick ...

V. At Ilyushin's bed

In the room already familiar to us, in which the family of the retired staff captain Snegirev, known to us, lived, it was at that moment both stuffy and cramped from the large crowd that had gathered. This time several boys were sitting with Ilyusha, and although they were all ready, like Smurov, to deny that Alyosha had reconciled and brought them together with Ilyusha, but it was so. All his skill in this case consisted in bringing them together with Ilyusha, one after the other, without "veal tenderness", but not at all on purpose and by accident. This brought Ilyusha great relief in his suffering. Seeing the almost tender friendship and participation of all these boys, his former enemies, he was very touched. Only Krasotkin was missing, and this lay on his heart as a terrible oppression. If there was anything bitterest in Ilyushechka's bitter reminiscences, then it was precisely this whole episode with Krasotkin, his former only friend and defender, on whom he then rushed with a knife. So did the clever little boy Smurov (the first to come to make peace with Ilyusha). But Krasotkin himself, when Smurov remotely informed him that Alyosha wanted to come to him "on one matter," immediately broke off and cut off the approach, instructing Smurov to immediately inform "Karamazov" that he himself knew how to act, that advice from no one he does not ask, and that if he goes to the patient, he himself knows when to go, because he has "his own calculation." It was still two weeks before this Sunday. That is why Alyosha did not go to him himself, as he had intended. However, although he waited, he nevertheless sent Smurov to Krasotkin again and again. But on both these occasions, Krasotkin responded with the most impatient and sharp refusal, conveying to Alyosha that if he came for him himself, he would never go to Ilyusha for this, and that he would not be bothered again. Even until that last day, Smurov himself did not know that Kolya had decided to go to Ilyusha that morning, and only the night before, saying goodbye to Smurov, Kolya suddenly announced to him sharply that he was waiting for him at home tomorrow morning, because he would go with him to the Snegirevs, but not to dare, however, notify anyone of his arrival, since he wants to come by accident. Smurov obeyed. The dream that he would bring the missing Zhuchka came to Smurov on the basis of Krasotkin’s words thrown in a glimpse that “they are all donkeys if they cannot find the dog, if only it is alive.” When Smurov timidly, after waiting for a while, hinted about his guess about the dog to Krasotkin, he suddenly became terribly angry: “What kind of donkey am I to look for other people's dogs all over the city when I have my own chime? And is it possible to dream that a dog that swallowed a pin would remain alive? Veal tenderness, nothing else!

Meanwhile, Ilyusha had hardly left his bed for two weeks now, in the corner, by the icons. He had not gone to classes since the very moment when he met Alyosha and bit his finger. However, from the same day he fell ill, although for another month he could somehow walk around the room and in the hallway, occasionally getting up from his bed. Finally, he was completely exhausted, so that without the help of his father he could not move. His father trembled over him, he even stopped drinking completely, almost went mad with fear that his boy would die, and often, especially after he would lead him around the room by the arm and put him back into bed, he would suddenly run out into the hallway, into a dark corner, and, leaning his forehead against the wall, he began to sob with some kind of flooded, shaking weeping, suppressing his voice so that his sobs could not be heard from Ilyushechka.

Returning to the room, he usually began to entertain and console his dear boy with something, told him fairy tales, funny anecdotes, or pretended to be various funny people whom he managed to meet, even imitated animals, how funny they howl or scream. But Ilyusha did not like very much when his father distorted himself and pretended to be a jester. Although the boy tried not to show that this was unpleasant for him, he realized with pain of his heart that his father was humiliated in society, and always, persistently, recalled the “washcloth” and that “terrible day”. Ninochka, Ilyushechka's legless, meek and quiet sister, also did not like it when her father distorted himself (as for Varvara Nikolaevna, she had long gone to St. used to present something or make some funny gestures. This was the only thing that could console her, but all the rest of the time she was constantly grumbling and crying that now everyone had forgotten her, that no one respected her, that they offended her, and so on and so forth. But in the very last days, she suddenly seemed to have completely changed. She often began to look into the corner at Ilyusha and began to think. She became much more silent, quieted down, and if she began to cry, then quietly so that they would not hear. The staff captain noticed this change in her with bitter bewilderment. At first she did not like the visits of the boys and only made her angry, but then the cheerful cries and stories of the children began to amuse her, and she liked them so much in the end that if these boys stopped coming, she would be terribly bored. When the children told something or started to play, she laughed and clapped her hands. She called others to her and kissed them. Smurova especially fell in love with the boy. As for the staff captain, the appearance in his apartment of children who came to amuse Ilyusha filled his soul from the very beginning with enthusiastic joy and even hope that Ilyusha would now cease to yearn and, perhaps, would soon recover. He did not doubt for a single minute, until very recently, despite all his fear for Ilyusha, that his boy would suddenly recover. He met the little guests with reverence, walked around them, waited, was ready to carry them on himself, and even really began to carry them, but Ilyusha did not like these games and were left. He began to buy gifts, gingerbread, nuts for them, arranged tea, spread sandwiches. It should be noted that during all this time no money was transferred from him. He accepted the then two hundred rubles from Katerina Ivanovna exactly as Alyosha had predicted. And then Katerina Ivanovna, having found out more about their circumstances and about Ilyusha's illness, visited their apartment herself, got acquainted with the whole family and even managed to charm the half-witted staff captain. Since then, her hand has not failed, and the staff captain himself, crushed by horror at the thought that his boy would die, forgot his former ambition and humbly accepted alms. All this time, Dr. Herzenshtube, at the invitation of Katerina Ivanovna, went constantly and carefully every other day to the patient, but there was little use from his visits, and he stuffed him with medicines terribly. But on the other hand, on that day, that is, on this Sunday morning, a new doctor was expected at the staff captain's, who had come from Moscow and was considered a celebrity in Moscow. He was specially discharged and invited from Moscow by Katerina Ivanovna for a lot of money - not for Ilyushechka, but for another one purpose, which will be discussed below and in its place, but since he arrived, she asked him to visit Ilyushechka, about which The staff captain was forewarned. He had no foreboding about the arrival of Kolya Krasotkin, although he had long wished that this boy, for whom his Ilyushechka was so tormented, would finally come. At the very moment when Krasotkin opened the door and appeared in the room, everyone, the staff captain and the boys, crowded around the patient’s bed and examined the tiny Medelian puppy that had just been brought in, which had just been born yesterday, but had been ordered by the staff captain a week before to entertain and console Ilyushechka, who was always yearning for the disappeared and, of course, already dead Zhuchka. But Ilyusha, who had already heard and knew three days before that he would be presented with a small dog, and not a simple one, but a real Medelian dog (which, of course, was terribly important), although he showed from a subtle and delicate feeling that he was pleased with the gift, but that’s all. , and the father and the boys, clearly saw that the new dog, perhaps, only stirred the memory of the unfortunate, tortured by him Beetle even more strongly in his heart. The puppy lay and scurried about beside him, and he, smiling painfully, stroked him with his thin, pale, withered hand; it was even evident that he liked the dog, but ... Bugs were still not there, after all, this is not a Beetle, but if the Beetle and the puppy were together, then there would be complete happiness!

- Krasotkin! one of the boys suddenly shouted, the first to see Kolya come in. There was a visible excitement, the boys parted and stood on both sides of the bed, so that all of a sudden Ilyushechka was revealed. The captain quickly rushed towards Kolya.

- Please, please ... dear guest! he whispered to him. - Ilyushechka, Mr. Krasotkin came to you ...

But Krasotkin, hastily giving him his hand, instantly showed his extraordinary knowledge of social decorum. He immediately and first of all turned to the captain's wife, who was sitting in her armchair (who at that very moment was terribly displeased and grumbled that the boys covered Ilyusha's bed with them and did not allow her to look at the new dog) and extremely politely he shuffled his foot in front of her, and then, turning to Ninochka, gave her the same bow as a lady. This polite act made an unusually pleasant impression on the sick lady.

“Now you can see a well-bred young man,” she said loudly, spreading her arms, “but the fact that our other guests are coming one on the other.

- How, mommy, one on top of the other, how is it? - although affectionately, but fearing a little for the "mommy", the staff captain murmured.

- And they're coming in. He will sit in the entryway one to the other astride the shoulders and into a noble family and ride in, sitting on horseback. What kind of guest is this?

- But who, who, mommy, drove in like that, who?

- Yes, this boy rode in on this boy today, but that one on that ...

But Kolya was already standing by Ilyusha's bed. The patient appears to have turned pale. He sat up in his bed and looked intently at Kolya. He had not seen his former little friend for two months now, and suddenly stopped in front of him completely amazed: he could not even imagine that he would see such a thinner and yellowed face, such burning in a feverish heat and as if terribly enlarged eyes, such thin hands. He peered with woeful surprise that Ilyusha was breathing so deeply and often, and that his lips were so dry. He took a step toward him, offered his hand, and, almost at a loss, said:

“Well, old man… how are you?”

But his voice was cut off, there was not enough swagger, his face somehow suddenly twitched, and something quivered around his lips. Ilyusha smiled painfully at him, still unable to say a word. Kolya suddenly raised his hand and for some reason ran his palm through Ilyusha's hair.

- Nothing! he murmured to him quietly, half encouraging him, half not knowing why he said it. They were silent again for a minute.

- What is it with you, a new puppy? Kolya suddenly asked in the most insensitive voice.

- Yeees! Ilyusha answered in a long whisper, out of breath.

“A black nose means one of the evil ones, one of the chain ones,” Kolya remarked importantly and firmly, as if it was all about the puppy and its black nose. But the main thing was that he was still struggling to overcome the feeling in himself, so as not to cry like a "little one", and still could not overcome it. - When he grows up, he will have to be put on a chain, I know.

- It will be huge! exclaimed one boy from the crowd.

- It is known, Medelyansky, huge, like this, from a calf, - several voices suddenly rang out.

“From a calf, from a real calf, sir,” the staff captain jumped up, “I purposely found such a very, very furious one, and his parents are also huge and the most furious, like that, from half the height ... Sit down, sir, right here on the bed at Ilyusha's, or else here on the bench. You are welcome, dear guest, long-awaited guest... Did you deign to come with Alexei Fyodorovich, sir?

Krasotkin sat down on the bed, at Ilyusha's feet. Although he may have prepared on the way, where to start the conversation in a cheeky way, but now he has decidedly lost the thread.

- No ... I'm with Chime ... I have such a dog now, Chime. Slavic name. Waiting there... whistle, and fly in. I, too, with the dog, - he suddenly turned to Ilyusha, - do you remember, old man, Zhuchka? – he suddenly warmed him with a question.

Ilyushechka's face twisted. He looked painfully at Kolya. Alyosha, who was standing at the door, frowned and nodded furtively to Kolya so that he would not talk about the Beetle, but he did not notice or did not want to notice.

- Well, brother, your Bug - wow! Your bug is gone!

Ilyusha was silent, but intently, intently looked once more at Kolya. Alyosha, catching Kolya's eye, again nodded to him with all his might, but he again averted his eyes, pretending that he did not notice even now.

- Ran somewhere and disappeared. How not to disappear after such an appetizer, - Kolya cut mercilessly, and meanwhile he himself seemed to be suffocating from something. - But I have a Chime ... Slavic name ... I brought you ...

- No need! Ilyushechka said suddenly.

- No, no, you must, by all means look ... You will have fun. I purposely brought ... the same shaggy as that one ... Will you allow me, madam, to call my dog ​​here? he suddenly turned to Mrs. Snegireva in some quite incomprehensible excitement.

- Don't, don't! Ilyusha exclaimed with a bitter strain in his voice. Reproach lit up in his eyes.

“You sir…” the staff captain suddenly rushed from the chest by the wall on which he was sitting down, “you sir… at another time, sir…” he murmured, but Kolya, urgently insisting and hurrying, suddenly shouted to Smurov: "Smurov, open the door!" - and as soon as he opened it, he whistled into his whistle. The chime quickly flew into the room.

- Jump, Chime, serve! Serve! yelled Kolya, jumping up from his seat, and the dog, standing on its hind legs, stretched out right in front of Ilyusha's bed. Something happened that no one expected: Ilyusha shuddered and suddenly moved forward with force, bent down to Chime and, as if fading, looked at him.

- This is ... a bug! he shouted in a voice cracked with suffering and happiness.

- Look, old man, you see, the eye is crooked and the left ear is notched, exactly the same signs as you told me. I tracked him down according to these signs! Then he sought out, soon. She was a draw, she was a draw! - he explained, quickly turning to the staff captain, to his wife, to Alyosha and then back to Ilyusha, - she was in the backyards of the Fedotovs, took root there, but they did not feed her, and she is a runaway, she is a runaway from the village ... I found her... You see, old man, then she didn't swallow your piece. If she had swallowed it, she would certainly have died, because of course! So, she managed to spit it out, if she is now alive. And you didn't notice that she spat out. She spat out, but nevertheless pricked her tongue, which is why she squealed then. She ran and squealed, and you thought that she completely swallowed it. She must have been very squealing because a dog has very delicate skin in its mouth... softer than a human, much softer! Kolya exclaimed furiously, his face flushed and beaming with delight.

Ilyusha couldn't even speak. He looked at Kolya with his large and somehow terribly protruding eyes, with his mouth open and turning as pale as a sheet. And if only Krasotkin, who did not suspect anything, knew how painfully and deadly such a minute could affect the health of a sick boy, then he would never have decided to throw out such a thing as he threw out. But in the room only Alyosha, perhaps, understood this. As for the staff captain, he seemed to have completely turned into the smallest boy.

- Bug! So this is a bug? he shouted in a blissful voice. - Ilyushechka, it's a Bug, your Bug! Mom, it's a Bug! - He almost cried.

- I didn't even know! Smurov exclaimed sadly. - Oh yes, Krasotkin, I said that he would find the Bug, so he found it!

- I found it! Someone else cheered.

- Well done, well done! all the boys shouted and began to applaud.

- Yes, wait, wait, - Krasotkin tried to shout down everyone, - I'll tell you how it was, the thing is how it was, and not in anything else! After all, I found him, dragged him to me and immediately hid him, and locked the house, and did not show it to anyone until the very last day. Only Smurov found out two weeks ago, but I assured him that it was Chime, and he did not guess, and during the intermission I taught Zhuchka all the sciences, you look, just look what things he knows! That's why he taught, to bring to you, old man, trained, smooth: here, they say, old man, what is your Bug now! But don't you have some piece of beef, he will show you one such thing that you will fall with laughter - beef, a piece, well, don't you?

The staff captain quickly rushed across the entry to the hut to the owners, where the staff captain's food was also cooked. Kolya, in order not to lose precious time, in a desperate hurry, shouted to Chime: “Die!” And he suddenly spun, lay on his back and stood motionless with all four of his paws up. The boys laughed, Ilyusha looked with his former pained smile, but they all liked it better that Chime, “mother,” had died. She burst out laughing at the dog and began to snap her fingers and call:

- Chime, Chime!

“It won’t rise for anything, for nothing,” Kolya shouted victoriously and justly proud, “even if the whole world screams, but I’ll shout, and in an instant he will jump up!” Isi, Chime!

The dog jumped up and began to jump, squealing with joy. The captain ran in with a piece of boiled beef.

- Not hot? Kolya inquired hurriedly and businesslike, accepting a piece. Look, everyone, Ilyushechka, look, but look, look, old man, why aren’t you looking? I brought it, but he does not look!

The new thing was to put a tidbit of beef on the very nose of the dog, standing still and stretching its nose. The unfortunate dog, not moving, had to stand with a piece on his nose as long as the owner orders, not to move, not to move, even for half an hour. But Chime lasted only the smallest minute.

- Peel! Kolya shouted, and in an instant a piece flew from Chime's nose into his mouth. The audience, of course, expressed enthusiastic surprise.

- And really, really, just to train the dog, you didn’t come all the time! Alyosha exclaimed with involuntary reproach.

“Exactly for this,” Kolya shouted in the most ingenuous way. - I wanted to show it in all its splendor!

- Chime! Chime! Ilyusha suddenly snapped his thin fingers, beckoning the dog.

- What do you want! Let him jump on your bed himself. Isi, Chime! - Kolya slammed his palm on the bed, and Chime flew like an arrow to Ilyusha. He promptly hugged his head with both hands, and Chime instantly licked his cheek for it. Ilyushechka clung to him, stretched out on the bed and hid his face from everyone in his shaggy fur.

- Lord, Lord! exclaimed the captain.

Kolya sat down again on the bed next to Ilyusha.

- Ilyusha, I can show you one more thing. I brought you a cannon. Do you remember, I told you about this cannon back then, and you said: “Oh, how I would like to see it!” Well, now I brought it.

And Kolya, in a hurry, pulled out his bronze cannon from his bag. He was in a hurry because he himself was very happy: at another time he would have waited so long for the effect produced by the Chime to pass, but now he hurried, despising any restraint: “We are already so happy, so here you have more happiness!” He himself was very drunk.

- I have seen this little thing for a long time at the official Morozov - for you, old man, for you. He had it for free, he got it from his brother, and I traded it for him for a book from my father's closet: "A Relative of Mohammed, or Healing Tomfoolery." A hundred years old book, tambourine, came out in Moscow when there was still no censorship, and Morozov is a hunter for these things. Also thanked...

Kolya held the cannon in his hand in front of everyone, so that everyone could see and enjoy. Ilyusha got up and, continuing to hug Chime with his right hand, looked at the toy with admiration. The effect reached a high degree when Kolya announced that he also had gunpowder and that he could shoot right away, "if it doesn't bother the ladies." "Mama" immediately asked to be given a closer look at the toy, which was immediately done. She liked the bronze cannon on wheels very much, and she began to roll it on her knees. To the request for permission to shoot, she answered with the most complete consent, not understanding, however, what she was being asked about. Kolya showed gunpowder and shot. The staff captain, as a former military man, himself disposed of the charge, pouring in the smallest portion of gunpowder, but asked the shot to be postponed until another time. The cannon was placed on the floor, with the muzzle in an empty place, three powders of powder were squeezed into the seed and lit with a match. The most brilliant shot was fired. Mamma shuddered, but immediately laughed with joy. The boys watched with silent triumph, but most of all, looking at Ilyusha, the staff captain was blissful. Kolya picked up the cannon and immediately presented it to Ilyusha, along with shot and gunpowder.

- It's me for you, for you! I cooked it a long time ago,” he repeated again, in the fullness of happiness.

- Oh, give it to me! No, give me a cannon better! - suddenly, like a little one, mother began to ask. Her face depicted sorrowful anxiety from fear that she would not be given. Kolya was confused. The staff captain became restless.

- Mommy, mommy! - he jumped up to her, - the cannon is yours, yours, but let Ilyusha have it, because it was given to him, but it’s all the same as yours, Ilyushechka will always let you play, let it be common, common ...

“No, I don’t want a common one, no, to be completely mine, and not Ilyushina,” continued mother, preparing to cry completely.

- Mom, take it, take it! Ilyusha suddenly shouted. - Krasotkin, can I give it to my mother? he suddenly turned to Krasotkin with a pleading look, as if afraid that he would not be offended that he was giving his gift to another.

– Absolutely possible! Krasotkin immediately agreed and, taking the cannon from Ilyusha's hands, he himself handed it over to his mother with the most polite bow. She even burst into tears of emotion.

- Ilyushechka, dear, that's who loves his mother! she exclaimed tenderly, and immediately began to roll the cannon on her knees again.

“Mother, let me kiss your hand,” her husband jumped up to her and immediately fulfilled his intention.

- And who else is the sweetest young man, so this kind boy! said the grateful lady, pointing to Krasotkin.

- And I’ll carry gunpowder for you, Ilyusha, now I’ll carry as much as I like. We now make our own gunpowder. Borovikov recognized the composition: twenty-four parts of saltpeter, ten sulfur and six birch charcoal, crush everything together, pour in water, mix into the pulp and rub through the drum skin - that's gunpowder.

“Smurov already told me about your gunpowder, but only dad says that it’s not real gunpowder,” Ilyusha replied.

How not real? - Kolya blushed, - we are on fire. However, I don't know...

“No, sir, I’m fine,” the staff captain suddenly jumped up with a guilty air. - True, I said that real gunpowder is not made up like that, but it's okay, sir, it can be done like that.

I don't know, you know better. We lit it in a fondant stone jar, it burned gloriously, everything burned down, the smallest soot remained. But it’s only pulp, and if you rub it through the skin ... But, by the way, you know better, I don’t know ... And Bulkin’s father tore for our gunpowder, did you hear? he suddenly turned to Ilyusha.

“I heard,” Ilyusha replied. He listened to Kolya with infinite interest and pleasure.

- We prepared a whole bottle of gunpowder, he kept it under the bed. Father saw. Blow up, he says, maybe. Yes, cut it out right away. He wanted to complain about me to the gymnasium. Now they won't let him in with me, now they won't let anyone in with me. Smurov is also not allowed in, he has become famous among everyone; they say that I am “desperate,” Kolya chuckled contemptuously. “It all started with the railroad here.

“Ah, we heard about that passage of yours too! - exclaimed the staff captain, - how did you lie there? And weren't you so afraid of nothing at all when you were lying under the train. Were you scared?

The staff captain was terribly foxed in front of Kolya.

“N-not especially! Kolya replied casually. “My reputation is best here this damned goose podkuzmil,” he turned again to Ilyusha. But although he made a careless air as he talked, he still could not control himself and continued, as it were, to lose his tone.

- Oh, I heard about the goose! - Ilyusha laughed, beaming all over, - they told me, but I didn’t understand, were you really tried by the judge?

- The most brainless thing, the most insignificant, from which, as usual, we composed a whole elephant, - Kolya began cheekily. - It was me who was walking along the square here, but the geese were just brought in. I stopped and looked at the geese. Suddenly one local guy, Vishnyakov, he now serves as a messenger for the Plotnikovs, looks at me and says: “Why are you looking at geese?” I look at him: a stupid, round mug, a guy of twenty years old, you know, I never reject the people. I love with the people... We are lagging behind the people - it's an axiom - you seem to want to laugh, Karamazov?

“No, God forbid, I am listening to you very much,” Alyosha replied with the most ingenuous air, and the suspicious Kolya instantly cheered up.

"My theory, Karamazov, is clear and simple," he hurried on again joyfully. “I believe in the people and am always happy to do justice to them, but by no means spoiling them, this is sine qua. Yes, I'm talking about the goose. So I turn to this fool and answer him: "But I think what the goose is thinking about." He looks at me completely stupidly: “And what does the goose think about?” “But you see, I say, a cart with oats is standing. The oats are pouring out of the sack, and the goose stretched its neck under the very wheel and pecks at the grain - see? “I see it very clearly,” he says. “Well, I say, if this very cart is now moved forward a little bit, will it cut the goose’s neck with a wheel or not?” - "Certainly, he says, he will cut it," - and he himself is already grinning from ear to ear, so he melted all over. "Well, let's go, I say, boy, come on." “Come on, he says.” And we didn’t have to do it for long: he stood so inconspicuously near the bridle, and I on the side, in order to direct the goose. And the peasant at that time gaped, talked with someone, so that I didn’t have to direct at all: right by itself, the goose stretched its neck behind the oats, under the cart, under the very wheel. I blinked at the guy, he twitched and - k-crack, and moved the goose's neck in half! And now it must be so that at that very second all the peasants saw us, well, and shouted at once: “You did it on purpose!” “No, not on purpose.” “No, on purpose!” Well, they are shouting: "To the world!" They also captured me: “And you, they say, were here, you helped, the whole market knows you!” And for some reason, the whole bazaar really knows me, ”Kolya added proudly. - We all reached out to the world, and they carry a goose. I look, and my boyfriend got scared and roared, really, roars like a woman. And the driver shouts: “In this manner, you can crush them, geese, as much as you like!” Well, of course, the witnesses. The world officer finished in an instant: give the driver a ruble for the goose, and let the guy take the goose for himself. Yes, henceforth, so that such jokes are by no means allowed. And the guy keeps roaring like a woman: “It’s not me, he says, he’s the one who set me up,” and he points at me. I answer with complete composure that I did not teach at all, that I only expressed the main idea and spoke only in the draft. The world Nefedov chuckled, and was now angry with himself for having chuckled: “I’ll certify you,” he says to me, “I’m now certifying your superiors so that you don’t start such projects in the future, instead of sitting behind books and teaching your lessons ". He did not attest me to the authorities, these are jokes, but the matter really spread and reached the ears of the authorities: our ears are long! The classic Kolbasnikov especially rose, but Dardanelov again defended. And now Kolbasnikov is angry with us all, like a green donkey. You, Ilyusha, have heard that he got married, took a thousand rubles dowry from the Mikhailovs, and the bride is a snout of the first hand and the last degree. The third-graders immediately composed an epigram:

I was struck by the news of the third graders,

That the slut Kolbasnikov married.

“However, you brought him down on the one who founded Troy!” Smurov suddenly added, resolutely proud of Krasotkin at that moment. He really liked the story about the goose.

- Is that really how they shot down, sir? - flatteringly picked up the staff captain. “Is it about who founded Troy, sir?” We already heard that they shot down, sir. Ilyushechka told me at the same time, sir ...

- He, dad, knows everything, knows better than anyone among us! - Ilyushechka also picked up, - after all, he only pretends that he is like that, and he is our first student in all subjects ...

Ilyusha looked at Kolya with boundless happiness.

- Well, this is nonsense about Troy, nothing. I myself consider this question empty, ”Kolya replied with proud modesty. He had already managed to quite get into the tone, although, however, he was also in some uneasiness: he felt that he was in great agitation and that, for example, he spoke too wholeheartedly about the goose, but meanwhile Alyosha was silent all the time of the story and was is serious, and little by little the proud boy began to scratch his heart: “Isn't he silent because he despises me, thinking that I'm looking for his praise? In that case, if he dares to think that, then I…”

“I consider this question decidedly empty,” he snapped once more proudly.

“But I know who founded Troy,” suddenly, quite unexpectedly, one boy who had hardly said anything until now, silent and apparently shy, very handsome, about eleven years old, by the name of Kartashov, suddenly spoke. He was sitting at the very door. Kolya looked at him with surprise and importance. The fact is that the question: “Who exactly founded Troy?” - resolutely turned into a secret in all classes, and in order to penetrate it, one had to read Smaragdov. But no one except Kolya had Smaragdov. And once the boy Kartashov slowly, when Kolya turned away, quickly unfolded Smaragdov, who was lying between his books, and went straight to the place where it was said about the founders of Troy. This happened quite a long time ago, but he was somehow embarrassed and did not dare to open publicly that he also knew who founded Troy, fearing that something would not come out and that Kolya would somehow embarrass him for this. And now, for some reason, he could not resist and said. Yes, he wanted to for a long time.

- Well, who founded it? Kolya turned to him arrogantly and condescendingly, already guessing from his face that he really knew, and, of course, immediately preparing for all the consequences. There was what is called a dissonance in the general mood.

- Troy was founded by Teucer, Dardanus, Illus and Tros, - the boy minted at once and in an instant blushed all over, so reddened that it became a pity to look at him. But the boys kept looking at him point-blank, staring for a full minute, and then suddenly all those point-blank eyes turned at once to Kolya. The other, with contemptuous composure, still continued to measure the insolent boy with his eyes.

So how did they set it up? he finally deigned to say, “and what does it mean to found a city or a state at all? Well, they came and laid bricks, or what?

There was laughter. The guilty boy went from pink to crimson. He was silent, he was ready to cry. Kolya held it like that for another minute.

“In order to talk about such historical events as the founding of a nationality, one must first of all understand what this means,” he sternly minted out as a warning. “However, I don’t attach any importance to all these women’s tales, and in general I don’t have much respect for world history,” he added suddenly casually, addressing everyone in general.

“Is this world history, sir?” the staff captain inquired with a sort of fright.

Yes, world history. The study of a number of human stupidities, and nothing more. I respect only mathematics and the natural sciences, - Kolya forcefully and glanced at Alyosha: he was afraid of his only opinion here.

But Alyosha remained silent and was as serious as ever. If Alyosha had said something now, it would have ended there, but Alyosha was silent, and "his silence could be contemptuous," and Kolya was already completely irritated.

“Again those classical languages ​​we now have: nothing but madness, and nothing more… You seem to disagree with me again, Karamazov?”

“I don’t agree,” Alyosha smiled restrainedly.

“Classical languages, if you want all my opinion about them, are a police measure, that’s the only reason they were brought up,” Kolya began to suddenly gasp again, little by little, “they are wound up because they are boring, and because they dull one’s abilities. It was boring, so here's how to make it even more boring? It was stupid, so how to make it even more stupid? This is how classical languages ​​were invented. Here is my full opinion about them, and I hope that I will never change it, - Kolya finished sharply. There was a red dot of blush on both cheeks.

- And he is the first in Latin! one boy suddenly shouted from the crowd.

“Yes, dad, he speaks himself, and he himself is the first in Latin in the class,” Ilyusha also responded.

– What is it? - Kolya considered it necessary to defend himself, although praise was also very pleasant to him. “I am cramming Latin because I have to, because I promised my mother to finish my course, and in my opinion, what I have undertaken is good to do, but in my heart I deeply despise classicism and all this meanness ... Do not agree, Karamazov?

- Well, why the "meanness"? Alyosha chuckled again.

- Yes, for mercy, after all, the classics have all been translated into all languages, therefore, it was not at all for studying the classics that they needed Latin, but solely for police measures and to dull their abilities. How then is it not meanness?

- Well, who taught you all this? exclaimed Alyosha, surprised at last.

- Firstly, I myself can understand, without learning, and secondly, you know, this is the same thing that I just explained to you about the translated classics, the teacher Kolbasnikov himself said aloud to the entire third grade ...

The doctor has arrived! exclaimed Ninochka, who had been silent the whole time.

Indeed, a carriage belonging to Mrs. Khokhlakov drove up to the gates of the house. The captain, who had been waiting all morning for the doctor, rushed headlong to the gate to meet him. Mommy got up and put on airs of importance. Alyosha went up to Ilyusha and began straightening his pillow. Ninochka, from her armchair, watched anxiously as he straightened the bed. The boys hurriedly began to say goodbye, some of them promised to come back in the evening. Kolya called out Chime, and he jumped out of bed.

“I won’t leave, I won’t leave!” Kolya said in a hurry to Ilyusha.

But the doctor was already entering, an important figure in a bearskin coat, with long dark sideburns and a slickly shaven chin. Stepping over the threshold, he suddenly stopped, as if taken aback: it must have seemed to him that he had gone in the wrong place: “What is this? Where I am?" he muttered, without taking off his fur coat from his shoulders and without taking off his seal cap with a seal peak from his head. The crowd, the poverty of the room, the laundry hanging on a line in the corner confused him. The staff captain bent before him in three deaths.

“You are here, sir, here, sir,” he muttered servilely, “you are here, sir, at my place, you come to me sir ...

- Snow-gi-roar? - said the doctor importantly and loudly. - Mr. Snegirev - is that you?

- It's me!

The doctor looked around the room with disgust once more and threw off his fur coat. An important order on the neck flashed into everyone's eyes. The captain picked up his fur coat on the fly, and the doctor took off his cap.

- Where is the patient? he asked loudly and urgently.

VI. Early development

What do you think the doctor will say to him? - Kolya said quickly, - what a disgusting, however, mug, isn't it? I can't stand medicine!

- Ilyusha will die. That, it seems to me, is quite certain,” Alyosha replied sadly.

- Rogues! Rogue medicine! I am glad, however, that I recognized you, Karamazov. I have long wanted to know you. It's just a pity that we met so sadly ...

Kolya would very much like to say something even hotter, even more expansive, but something seemed to jar him. Alyosha noticed this, smiled and shook hands with him.

“I learned a long time ago to respect a rare being in you,” Kolya muttered again, confused and confused. “I heard you are a mystic and you were in a monastery. I know you're a mystic, but... that didn't stop me. A touch of reality will heal you ... With natures like you, it does not happen otherwise.

What do you call a mystic? What will it heal? Alyosha was a little surprised.

- Well, there is God and so on.

“How, don’t you believe in God?”

On the contrary, I have nothing against God. Of course, God is only a hypothesis ... but ... I admit that he is needed for order ... for world order and so on ... and if he did not exist, then we would have to invent him, ”Kolya added, starting to blush. He suddenly imagined that Alyosha would now think that he wanted to show off his knowledge and show how "great" he was. “But I don’t want to expose my knowledge to him at all,” Kolya thought indignantly. And he suddenly became terribly annoyed.

“I confess, I hate to enter into all these bickerings,” he snapped, “it’s possible to love humanity without believing in God, what do you think? Voltaire did not believe in God, but loved humanity? (“Again, again!” he thought to himself.)

“Voltaire believed in God, but it seems he had little and, it seems, little love for humanity either,” Alyosha said quietly, restrainedly and completely naturally, as if talking to a person equal in age or even to an older person. It was Kolya who was struck by this, as it were, Alyosha's uncertainty about his opinion about Voltaire, and that it was as if he, little Kolya, were giving this question to be decided.

Have you read Voltaire? Alyosha concluded.

- No, not that I read ... I, however, read Candide, in Russian translation ... in an old, ugly translation, funny ... (Again, again!)

– Did you understand?

“Oh yes, that’s all… that is… why do you think I wouldn’t understand?” There are, of course, a lot of smut... Of course, I am able to understand that this is a philosophical novel and was written to convey the idea... - Kolya was already completely confused. “I am a socialist, Karamazov, I am an incorrigible socialist,” he suddenly interrupted for no apparent reason.

- A socialist? - Alyosha laughed, - but when did you manage to do this? After all, you are only thirteen years old, don't you think?

Kolya was twisted.

“Firstly, not thirteen, but fourteen, in two weeks fourteen,” he flushed, “and secondly, I don’t understand at all what my years are for? It's about what my beliefs are, not what year I'm in, isn't it?

“When you are older, you will see for yourself how important age is to persuasion. It also seemed to me that you were not speaking your own words, ”Alyosha answered modestly and calmly, but Kolya interrupted him hotly.

– Excuse me, you want obedience and mysticism. Agree that, for example, the Christian faith served only the rich and noble in order to keep the lower class in slavery, isn't it?

“Ah, I know where you read this, and someone must have taught you!” Alyosha exclaimed.

- Excuse me, why did you read it without fail? And no one has ever taught. I myself can ... And if you want, I'm not against Christ. He was a completely humane person, and had he lived in our time, he would have directly joined the revolutionaries and, perhaps, would have played a prominent role ... This is even indispensable.

- Well, where, well, where did you get this! What idiot are you messing with? Alyosha exclaimed.

“Forgive me, you can’t hide the truth. Of course, on one occasion, I often talk with Mr. Rakitin, but ... This is old Belinsky, too, they say, he spoke.

- Belinsky? I do not remember. He didn't write it anywhere.

– If he didn’t write, then, they say, he spoke. I heard this from one ... but damn ...

- Have you read Belinsky?

“You see… no… I didn’t quite read it, but… I read the passage about Tatyana, why she didn’t go with Onegin.

- Why didn't you go with Onegin? Do you really… understand?

“Excuse me, you seem to take me for the Smurov boy,” Kolya grinned irritably. “However, please don’t think that I’m such a revolutionary. I very often disagree with Mr. Rakitin. If I'm talking about Tatyana, then I'm not at all for the emancipation of women. I acknowledge that a woman is a subordinate being and must obey. Les femmes tricottent, as Napoleon said, - Kolya chuckled for some reason, - and at least in this I completely share the conviction of this pseudo-great man. For example, I also think that fleeing to America from the fatherland is meanness, worse than meanness is stupidity. Why go to America, when we can do a lot of good for humanity? Right now. A whole host of fruitful activities. So I answered.

- How did they answer? To whom? Has anyone already invited you to America?

- I confess, I was urged on, but I rejected it. This, of course, is between us, Karamazov, you hear, not a word to anyone. This is me only for you. I do not want to fall into the clutches of the Third Section and take lessons at the Chain Bridge,

Will you remember the building

At the Chain Bridge!

Remember? Fabulous! What are you laughing at? Don't you think that I lied to you all? (“But what if he finds out that in my father’s closet there is only this one issue of The Bells, and I didn’t read anything else from it?” thought Kolya briefly, but with a shudder.)

“Oh no, I'm not laughing, and I don't think you've lied to me at all. That's just it, I don't think so, because all this, alas, is the absolute truth! Well, tell me, have you read Pushkin, Onegin, then ... So you just talked about Tatyana?

No, I haven't read it yet, but I want to. I have no prejudice, Karamazov. I want to hear both sides. Why did you ask?

“Tell me, Karamazov, do you despise me terribly?” Kolya suddenly snapped, and he straightened himself out in front of Alyosha, as if he were in position. Do me a favor, don't be shy.

- I despise you? Alyosha looked at him in surprise. - Yes, for what? I am only sad that a lovely nature like yours, which has not yet begun to live, has already been perverted by all this rude nonsense.

“Don’t worry about my nature,” Kolya interrupted, not without self-satisfaction, “but that I’m suspicious, that’s so. Stupidly suspicious, rudely suspicious. You just smiled, and it seemed to me that you seemed to ...

“Ah, I chuckled quite differently. You see what I chuckled at: I recently read a review by a foreign German who lived in Russia about our current student youth: “Show you,” he writes, “a map of the starry sky to a Russian student, about which he had no idea until then. and he will return this card to you corrected tomorrow.” No knowledge and selfless conceit - that's what the German wanted to say about the Russian schoolboy.

“Ah, yes, that is absolutely true! Kolya suddenly burst out laughing. Bravo, German! However, the chukhna did not even consider the good side, but what do you think? Self-conceit - let it be, it is from youth, it will be corrected if it is only necessary that it be corrected, but on the other hand, an independent spirit, from almost childhood, but courage of thought and conviction, and not the spirit of their sausage-like servility to authorities ... But all- the German said well! Bravo, German! Although all the same, the Germans must be strangled. Let them be strong in the sciences there, but they still need to be strangled ...

- Why strangle something? Alyosha smiled.

- Well, I lied, maybe I agree. I am sometimes a terrible child, and when I am happy about something, I can not restrain myself and am ready to lie nonsense. Listen, you and I, however, are chatting about trifles here, and this doctor has been stuck there for a long time. However, he, maybe, will examine the “mother” there and this legless Ninochka. You know, I liked this Ninochka. She suddenly whispered to me when I was leaving: “Why didn’t you come earlier?” And in such a voice, with reproach! I think she's awfully kind and pathetic.

- Yes Yes! Here you will walk, you will see what kind of creature it is. It is very useful for you to recognize such creatures in order to be able to appreciate and many other things that you learn precisely from acquaintance with these creatures, Alyosha remarked with fervor. “That will change you the best.

“Oh, how I regret and scold myself for not coming earlier! Kolya exclaimed with a bitter feeling.

- Yes very sorry. You saw for yourself what a joyful impression you made on the poor little one! And how he was killed, waiting for you!

- Do not tell me! You are irritating me. And by the way, it serves me right: I did not come from pride, from egoistic pride and vile autocracy, from which I cannot get rid of all my life, although I break myself all my life. I see it now, I'm a scoundrel in many ways, Karamazov!

“No, you are a charming nature, though perverted, and I understand too well why you could have such an influence on this noble and morbidly susceptible boy!” Alyosha replied warmly.

“And you are telling me!” - exclaimed Kolya, - and I, imagine, I thought - I already several times, now that I'm here, I thought that you despise me! If you only knew how much I value your opinion!

“But are you really so suspicious? In such years! Well, just imagine, I was just thinking there in the room, looking at you, when you told me that you must be very suspicious.

- Have you thought about it? What, however, you have an eye, see, see! I bet it was at the place when I told about the goose. It was in this place that I imagined that you deeply despise me for my haste to show off as a fine fellow, and I even suddenly hated you for this and began to talk nonsense. Then I imagined (this is already now, here) at the place when I said: “If there were no God, then it would have to be invented,” that I was in too much of a hurry to expose my education, especially since I read this phrase in a book. But I swear to you, I was in a hurry to expose not out of vanity, but so, I don’t know why, out of joy, by God, as if out of joy ... although this is a deeply shameful trait when a person climbs on everyone’s neck with joy. I know it. But I am convinced now that you do not despise me, but I invented all this myself. Oh, Karamazov, I am profoundly unhappy. I sometimes imagine, God knows what, that everyone is laughing at me, the whole world, and then I, I'm just ready then to destroy the whole order of things.

“And you are torturing those around you,” Alyosha smiled.

- And I torture others, especially my mother. Karamazov, tell me, am I very ridiculous now?

Don't think about it, don't think about it at all! Alyosha exclaimed. - And what is funny? You never know how many times a person seems or seems ridiculous? Moreover, today almost all people with abilities are terribly afraid of being ridiculous and therefore unhappy. It only surprises me that you began to feel this so early, although, by the way, I have noticed this for a long time and not on you alone. Nowadays, even almost children have begun to suffer from this. It's almost crazy. The devil was embodied in this self-love and crawled into the whole generation, the devil, ”added Alyosha, not at all grinning, as Kolya, who was looking at him point-blank, thought. “You are like everyone else,” Alyosha concluded, “that is, like very many, but you don’t have to be like everyone else, that’s what.

“Even though everyone is like that?”

- Yes, despite the fact that everyone is like that. One you and be not such. You really are not like everyone else: now you are not ashamed to admit to being bad and even funny. And now who is aware of this? No one, and even the need, ceased to be found in self-condemnation. Be not like everyone else; even though you alone remain not like that, but still be not like that.

- Fabulous! I didn't mistake you. You are able to comfort. Oh, how I longed for you, Karamazov, how long have I been looking for a meeting with you! Did you think of me too? Did you say the other day that you thought of me too?

“Yes, I heard about you and thought about you too ... and if some pride has forced you to ask this now, then it’s nothing.

“You know, Karamazov, our explanation is like a declaration of love,” Kolya said in some relaxed and bashful voice. - It's not funny, isn't it funny?

“It’s not funny at all, but even if it’s funny, it’s nothing, because it’s good,” Alyosha smiled brightly.

“You know, Karamazov, you must admit that you yourself are now a little ashamed of me… I can see it in your eyes,” Kolya chuckled somehow slyly, but also with some kind of almost happiness.

- Why is it embarrassing?

- Why are you blushing?

- Yes, you did it so that I blushed! Alyosha laughed and really blushed all over. “Well, yes, a little ashamed, God knows why, I don’t know why ...” he muttered, almost even embarrassed.

“Oh, how I love and appreciate you at this moment, precisely because you, too, are somehow ashamed of me!” Because you are definitely me! Kolya exclaimed in resolute delight. His cheeks burned, his eyes shone.

“Listen, Kolya, you, by the way, will be a very unhappy person in life,” Alyosha said suddenly for some reason.

- I know I know. How do you know all this in advance! Kolya immediately confirmed.

“But on the whole, bless life.

- Exactly! Hooray! You are a prophet! Oh, we'll get along, Karamazov. You know, what delights me most of all is that you are completely equal to me. And we are no match, no, no match, you are higher! But we'll get along. You know, for the last month I have been saying to myself: “Either we will become friends forever with him, or from the very first time we will disperse as enemies to the grave!”

- And speaking so, of course, they loved me! Alyosha laughed merrily.

“I loved, I loved terribly, I loved and dreamed of you!” And how do you know everything in advance? Bah, here comes the doctor. Lord, he will say something, look at his face!

VII. Ilyusha

The doctor came out of the hut again already wrapped in a fur coat and with a cap on his head. His face was almost angry and disgusted, as if he was always afraid of getting dirty on something. He glanced briefly at the entrance, and at the same time looked sternly at Alyosha and Kolya. Alyosha waved from the door to the coachman, and the carriage that had brought the doctor drove up to the exit doors. The staff captain rushed out after the doctor and, bending over, almost wriggling before him, stopped him for the last word. The face of the poor man was killed, his eyes were frightened:

“Your Excellency, Your Excellency… really?…” he began and did not finish, but only clasped his hands in despair, although he was still looking at the doctor with his last entreaty, as if the sentence on the poor boy could have changed from the doctor’s word now. .

- What to do! I am not God,” the doctor answered in a casual, though habitually impressive voice.

“Doctor… Your Excellency… and soon it, soon?”

“Get ready for everything,” the doctor rapped out, striking each syllable, and, bowing his gaze, he himself was about to step over the threshold to the carriage.

“Your Excellency, for Christ’s sake! - the staff captain stopped him again in fright, - your excellency! .. so nothing, really nothing, nothing at all will save now? ..

“It doesn’t depend on me now,” the doctor said impatiently, “and, nevertheless, um,” he paused suddenly, “if you could, for example, ... guide ... your patient ... now and not at all without delay (the words "now and without any delay" the doctor uttered not only sternly, but almost angrily, so that the staff captain even shuddered) in Si-ra-ku-zy, then ... as a result of new b-go-pleasant kli- ma-ti-cal conditions ... could, perhaps, happen ...

- To Sicaruza! cried the staff captain, as if he still did not understand anything.

“Syracuse is in Sicily,” Kolya suddenly snapped loudly, for clarification. The doctor looked at him.

- To Sicily! Father, Your Excellency, - the staff captain was lost, - but you saw it! - he circled with both hands, pointing to his situation, - and mama, and the family?

- N-no, the family is not in Sicily, but your family is in the Caucasus, in early spring ... your daughter is in the Caucasus, and your spouse ... having kept the course of the waters also in the Caucasus due to her rheumatism ... immediately after that, go right to Paris, to the hospital of the psychiatrist Dr. Lepelleletier, I could give you a note to him, and then ... it could, perhaps, happen ...

- Doctor, doctor! Why, you see! the captain suddenly waved his arms again, pointing in desperation at the bare log walls of the entrance hall.

“Ah, it’s none of my business,” the doctor chuckled, “I just said what I could say to your question about last resorts, and the rest ... unfortunately for me ...

“Don’t worry, doctor, my dog ​​won’t bite you,” Kolya snapped loudly, noticing the doctor’s somewhat restless look at Chime, who stood on the threshold. An angry note rang out in Kolya's voice. The word "healer", instead of a doctor, he said on purpose and, as he himself later announced, "he said it as an insult."

- What's happened? the doctor tossed his head, staring at Kolya in surprise. - Which one? he suddenly turned to Alyosha, as if asking him for a report.

“This is the owner of Chime, a doctor, don’t worry about my personality,” Kolya minted again.

- Ringing? the doctor said, not understanding what Chime was.

- He doesn't know where he is. Goodbye doctor, see you in Syracuse.

- Who is it? Who, who? the doctor suddenly boiled up terribly.

“He’s a local schoolboy, doctor, he’s a naughty one, don’t pay attention,” Alyosha said, frowning and pattering. - Kolya, shut up! he shouted to Krasotkin. "Don't pay attention, doctor," he repeated, somewhat more impatiently.

- You have to cut it, you have to cut it, you have to cut it! - the doctor, already for some reason already enraged, stamped his feet.

- And you know, doctor, because the Chime seems to bite me! Kolya said in a trembling voice, turning pale and his eyes flashing. - Ishi, Chime!

- Kolya, if you say only one more word, then I will break with you forever! Alyosha shouted authoritatively.

“Healer, there is only one creature in the whole world that can order Nikolai Krasotkin, this is this man,” Kolya pointed to Alyosha, “I obey him, goodbye!”

He jumped up and, opening the door, quickly went into the room. The chime followed him. The doctor stood for another five seconds, as if in tetanus, looking at Alyosha, then suddenly spat and quickly went to the carriage, repeating loudly: "Etta, etta, etta, I don't know what etta is!" The captain rushed to lift him up. Alyosha followed Kolya into the room. He was already standing by Ilyusha's bed. Ilyusha held his hand and called for dad. A minute later the captain also returned.

“Papa, papa, come here ... we ...” Ilyusha was murmuring in extreme excitement, but, apparently unable to continue, he suddenly threw his both emaciated arms forward and hugged them both at once, as tightly as he could, and Kolya and papa, joining them in one embrace and clinging to them himself. The staff captain suddenly shook all over from silent sobs, and Kolya's lips and chin trembled.

- Dad, dad! I feel sorry for you, dad! Ilyusha groaned bitterly.

"Ilyushechka... darling... the doctor said... you'll be well... we'll be happy... doctor..." the staff captain began to speak.

- Oh, dad! I know what the new doctor told you about me... I saw it! Ilyusha exclaimed, and again firmly, with all his strength, pressed them both to him, hiding his face on his father’s shoulder.

- Dad, don't cry ... but when I die, then take a good boy, another ... choose yourself from all of them, good, call him Ilyusha and love him instead of me ...

- Shut up, old man, get well! Krasotkin suddenly shouted, as if angry.

“And never forget me, dad, never forget me,” continued Ilyusha, “come to my grave ... yes, dad, you bury me near our big stone, to which we went for a walk, and go to me there with Krasotkin, in the evening... And Chime... And I'll be waiting for you... Dad, dad!

- Ilyushechka! Ilyushechka! she exclaimed.

Krasotkin suddenly freed himself from Ilyusha's embrace.

“Goodbye, old man, my mother is waiting for me for dinner,” he said quickly. What a pity I didn't warn her! He will be very worried ... But after dinner I will immediately come to you, for the whole day, for the whole evening, and I will tell you so much, I will tell you so much! And I’ll bring Chime, and now I’ll take it with me, because without me he will start howling and will interfere with you; Goodbye!

And he ran out into the hallway. He did not want to burst into tears, but in the passage he did cry. Alyosha found him in this state.

“Kolya, you must certainly keep your word and come, otherwise he will be in terrible grief,” Alyosha said insistently.

– Absolutely! Oh, how I swear to myself that I didn’t come earlier, - Kolya muttered crying and no longer embarrassed that he was crying. At that moment, the staff captain suddenly seemed to jump out of the room and immediately shut the door behind him. His face was furious, his lips trembled. He stood in front of both young men and threw up both hands.

"I don't want a good boy!" I don't want another boy! he whispered in a wild whisper, grinding his teeth. - If I forget you, Jerusalem, let it cling ...

He did not finish, as if choking, and sank on his knees in impotence before the wooden bench. Clenching his head with both fists, he began to sob, squealing somehow absurdly, bracing himself with all his strength, however, so that they would not hear his screams in the hut. Kolya ran out into the street.

Farewell, Karamazov! Will you come yourself? he shouted sharply and angrily to Alyosha.

- I'll definitely be there tonight.

- What is it about Jerusalem ... What is this?

- This is from the Bible: “If I forget you, Jerusalem,” that is, if I forget everything that I myself have precious, if I exchange it for something, then let it strike ...

- I understand, that's enough! Come yourself! Isi, Chime! he shouted quite ferociously to the dog, and with long, quick steps he walked home.

An indispensable condition (lat.).

The business of a woman is knitting (fr.).

Fedor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky

BROTHERS KARAMAZOV

Dedicated to Anna Grigoryevna Dostoevskaya

Truly, truly, I say to you, if a grain of wheat, falling into the ground, does not die, it will remain alone; and if he dies, he will bear much fruit.

Gospel of John, Chapter XII, 24.

Starting the biography of my hero, Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov, I am in some bewilderment. Namely: although I call Alexei Fyodorovich my hero, I myself know that he is by no means a great man, and therefore I foresee inevitable questions like these: why is your Alexei Fyodorovich remarkable that you chose him as your hero? What did he do? To whom and what is known? Why should I, the reader, take the time to study the facts of his life?

The last question is the most fatal, because I can only answer it: "Perhaps you will see for yourself from the novel." But what if they read the novel and don't see it, don't agree with my Aleksei Fyodorovich's remarkableness? I say this because I regret it. For me it is remarkable, but I strongly doubt whether I will have time to prove it to the reader. The fact is that this is perhaps an actor, but an indefinite actor, not found out. However, it would be strange to demand clarity from people at a time like ours. One thing, perhaps, is quite certain: this is a strange man, even an eccentric. But strangeness and eccentricity harm rather than give the right to attention, especially when everyone is striving to unite particulars and find at least some common sense in the general nonsense. An eccentric in most cases is particularity and isolation. Is not it?

Now, if you do not agree with this last thesis, and answer: “Not so” or “not always so,” then I will perhaps take heart at the expense of the significance of my hero Alexei Fedorovich. For not only is an eccentric "not always" particular and isolated, but on the contrary, it happens that he, perhaps, sometimes carries in himself the core of the whole, and the rest of the people of his era - everything, by some influx of wind, for some reason pulled away from him...

However, I would not indulge in these very incurious and vague explanations and would start simply-for-simply without a preface: like it, they will read it that way; but the trouble is that I have one biography, but two novels. Main novel the second is the activity of my hero already in our time, precisely in our present this moment. The first novel took place thirteen years ago, and there is almost not even a novel, but only one moment from the first youth of my hero. It is impossible for me to do without this first novel, because much in the second novel would become incomprehensible. But in this way my initial difficulty is further complicated: if I, that is, the biographer myself, find that even one novel might be superfluous for such a modest and indefinite hero, then what is it like to appear with two and how to explain such a situation? my hand arrogance?

Lost in the solution of these questions, I decide to bypass them without any permission. Of course, the perspicacious reader has long guessed that from the very beginning I was driving towards this, and only got annoyed with me, why I waste fruitless words and precious time for nothing. I’ll answer this exactly: I wasted fruitless words and precious time, firstly, out of politeness, and secondly, out of cunning: “after all, they say, I warned you in advance about something.” However, I am even glad that my novel broke up by itself into two stories “with the essential unity of the whole”: having become acquainted with the first story, the reader will already decide for himself: should he take on the second? Of course, no one is bound by anything, you can drop the book from two pages of the first story, so as not to reveal more. But after all, there are such delicate readers who will certainly want to read to the end, so as not to err in an impartial judgment, such, for example, are all Russian critics. So, it’s still easier for the heart before such and such: in spite of all their accuracy and conscientiousness, I still give them the most legitimate excuse to drop the story in the first episode of the novel. Well, that's all the preface. I completely agree that it is superfluous, but since it is already written, then let it remain.

And now to business.

PART ONE

BOOK ONE

"HISTORY OF ONE FAMILY"

I. Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov.

Alexei Fyodorovich Karamazov was the third son of the landowner of our district, Fyodor Pavlovich Karamazov, so famous in his time (and still remembered among us) for his tragic and dark death, which happened exactly thirteen years ago and which I will report in its place. Now I will say about this "landowner" (as we called him, although he almost never lived on his estate all his life) only that he was a strange type, but quite often encountered, namely the type of a person not only trashy and depraved, but at the same time, stupid, - but one of those, however, stupid, who know how to perfectly manage their property deals, and it only seems to be one of them. Fyodor Pavlovich, for example, started with almost nothing, he was the smallest landowner, ran to dine at other people's tables, strove to be a hanger-on, and yet at the time of his death he had up to a hundred thousand rubles in pure money. And at the same time, all the same, he continued all his life to be one of the most stupid madcaps in our whole district. I repeat again: this is not stupidity; Most of these madcaps are quite clever and cunning - namely, stupidity, and even some kind of special, national one.

He was married twice and had three sons - the eldest, Dmitry Fedorovich, from the first wife, and the other two, Ivan and Alexei, from the second. The first wife of Fyodor Pavlovich was from a rather rich and noble family of the Miusov nobles, also landowners of our district. How exactly did it happen that a girl with a dowry, and even more beautiful and, moreover, one of the lively clever girls, so not rare among us in the present generation, but who appeared already in the past, could marry such an insignificant "brain", as everyone then called him I won't explain too much. After all, I knew a girl, back in the previous “romantic” generation, who, after several years of mysterious love for one gentleman, whom, incidentally, she could always marry in the most calm way, ended up, however, by inventing insurmountable obstacles for herself and into a stormy the night rushed from a high bank like a cliff into a rather deep and fast river and perished in it decisively from its own whims, solely because of being like Shakespeare's Ophelia, and even so that if this cliff, so long ago outlined and loved by her , is not so picturesque, and if in its place there was only a prosaic flat coast, then suicide might not have happened at all. This fact is true, and one must think that in our Russian life, in the last two or three generations, there have been quite a few such or similar facts. Similarly, the act of Adelaida Ivanovna Miusova was no doubt an echo of other people's trends and also a captive thought of irritation. She may have wanted to declare women's independence, to go against social conditions, against the despotism of her kinship and family, but an obliging fantasy convinced her, let us assume for a moment, that Fyodor Pavlovich, despite his rank as a hanger-on, is still one of the bravest and most mocking people of that era, transitional to everything better, while he was only an evil jester and nothing more. The piquant thing was also in the fact that the matter was taken away, and this greatly seduced Adelaida Ivanovna. Fyodor Pavlovich, however, was quite well prepared for all such passages, even in his social position, for he passionately desired to arrange his career, at least in whatever it was; to cling to good relatives and take a dowry was very tempting. As for mutual love, it seems that there was none at all - neither on the part of the bride, nor on his part, despite even the beauty of Adelaide Ivanovna. So this incident was perhaps the only one of its kind in the life of Fyodor Pavlovich, the most voluptuous man in his whole life, in an instant ready to cling to any skirt, if only it beckoned him. Meanwhile, this woman alone did not make any special impression on him from the passionate side.

Adelaida Ivanovna, immediately after being taken away, saw at once that she only despised her husband and nothing more. Thus, the consequences of marriage were marked out with extreme speed. Despite the fact that the family even soon came to terms with the event and allocated a dowry to the fugitive, the most disorderly life and eternal scenes began between the spouses. It was said that the young wife, at the same time, showed incomparably more nobility and loftiness than Fyodor Pavlovich, who, as is now known, robbed her all her money at the same time, at once, up to twenty-five thousand, she had just received them, so thousands Since then, these have resolutely seemed to have sunk into the water for her. He tried for a long time and with all his might to transfer the village and a fairly good town house, which also went to her as a dowry, to his name through the commission of some suitable act, and probably would have achieved that out of one, so to speak, contempt and disgust for himself. , which he aroused in his wife every minute with his shameless extortions and begging, from her mental fatigue alone, only to get rid of it. But fortunately the family of Adelaida Ivanovna stood up and curbed the grabber. It is positively known that frequent fights took place between the spouses, but according to legend, it was not Fyodor Pavlovich who beat, but Adelaida Ivanovna, a hot, bold, swarthy, impatient lady, gifted with remarkable physical strength. Finally, she left the house and ran away from Fyodor Pavlovich with one seminarian teacher who was dying of poverty, leaving Fyodor Pavlovich in the arms of three-year-old Mitya. Fyodor Pavlovich instantly started a whole harem in the house and the most tambourine drunkenness, and during the intermissions he traveled almost all over the province and tearfully complained to everyone and everyone about Adelaida Ivanovna who had left him, and at the same time reported such details that it would be too embarrassing to tell her husband about her marriage. life. The main thing was that he seemed to be pleased and even flattered to play his ridiculous role of an offended spouse in front of everyone and even to paint details about his offense with embellishments. “Just think that you, Fyodor Pavlovich, have received the rank, you are so pleased despite all your grief,” scoffers told him. Many even added that he was glad to appear in a renewed form of a jester and that on purpose, to increase laughter, he pretended not to notice his comic position. Who knows, however, maybe it was in him and naive. Finally, he managed to discover the traces of his fugitive. The poor thing ended up in Petersburg, where she moved with her seminarian and where she selflessly embarked on the most complete emancipation. Fyodor Pavlovich immediately got busy and began to get ready for Petersburg - for what? He didn't know, of course. Really, perhaps he would have gone then; but having taken such a decision, he immediately considered himself in a special right, for courage, before the road, to embark again on the most boundless drunkenness. And at that time, the family of his wife received news of her death in St. Petersburg. She somehow suddenly died, somewhere in the attic, according to some legends from typhus, and according to others, as if from hunger. Fyodor Pavlovich found out about the death of his wife drunk, they say, he ran down the street and began to shout, raising his hands to heaven in joy: “now you let go”, and for others he wept bitterly like a small child and to the point that, they say, it was even a pity to look against him, in spite of all his disgust. It is very possible that it was both, that is, that he rejoiced at his liberation and wept for the liberator, all together. In most cases, people, even villains, are much more naive and simple-minded than we generally conclude about them. Yes, and so are we.

Book Ten
boys

I
Kolya Krasotkin

November at the beginning. We had a frost of eleven degrees, and with it sleet. A bit of dry snow fell on the frozen ground during the night, and the “dry and sharp” wind picks it up and sweeps it through the boring streets of our town, and especially through the market square. Cloudy morning, but the snow stopped. Not far from the square, not far from the Plotnikovs' shop, there is a small, very clean house both outside and inside, the house of the widow of the official Krasotkina. The provincial secretary Krasotkin himself died a very long time ago, almost fourteen years ago, but his widow, thirty years old and still a very pretty lady, is alive and lives in her clean house "with her own capital." She lives honestly and timidly, with a gentle but rather cheerful character. She remained after her husband of eighteen years, having lived with him for only about a year and had just given birth to his son. Since then, since his death, she devoted herself entirely to raising this little boy Kolya of hers, and although she loved him all fourteen years without memory, she, of course, endured incomparably more suffering with him than she survived joys, trembling and dying from fear, almost every day, that he would fall ill, catch a cold, catch a cold, climb onto a chair and fall down, and so on and so forth. When Kolya began to go to school and then to our gymnasium, his mother rushed to study all the sciences with him in order to help him and rehearse lessons with him, rushed to get acquainted with teachers and their wives, even caressed Kolya’s comrades, schoolchildren, and foxed before them, so that they would not touch Kolya, would not mock him, would not beat him. She brought it to the point that the boys actually began to mock him through her and began to tease him with the fact that he was a sissy. But the boy managed to defend himself. He was a brave boy, "terribly strong," as the rumor about him in the class swept through and soon established itself, he was dexterous, stubborn in character, audacious and enterprising spirit. He studied well, and there was even a rumor that he, both from arithmetic and from world history, would knock down the teacher Dardanelov himself. But the boy, although he looked down on everyone, turning up his nose, was a good comrade and did not exalt himself. He took the respect of the schoolchildren for granted, but kept himself friendly. The main thing is that he knew the measure, he knew how to restrain himself on occasion, and in relations with his superiors he never crossed some last and cherished line, beyond which a misdemeanor can no longer be tolerated, turning into disorder, rebellion and lawlessness. And yet, he was very, very not averse to fooling around at every opportunity, fooling around like the very last boy, and not so much fooling around as tricking something, doing wonders, giving "extrafefer", chic, showing off. Most importantly, he was very selfish. He even managed to put subordinates in his relationship with his mother, acting on her almost arbitrarily. She obeyed, oh, she had long since obeyed, and only she could not endure the mere thought that the boy “loved her little.” It constantly seemed to her that Kolya was “insensitive” to her, and there were times when, shedding hysterical tears, she began to reproach him for being cold. The boy did not like this, and the more they demanded from him heartfelt outpourings, the more unyielding, as it were on purpose, became. But this happened with him not on purpose, but involuntarily - such was his character. His mother was wrong: he loved his mother very much, and did not love only “calf tenderness,” as he put it in his schoolboy language. After the father left a cupboard in which several books were kept; Kolya loved to read and had already read some of them to himself. The mother was not embarrassed by this, and only sometimes wondered how this boy, instead of going to play, stood by the cupboard for whole hours over some book. And in this way, Kolya read something that he should not have been allowed to read at his age. However, lately, although the boy did not like to cross a certain line in his pranks, pranks began that frightened his mother in earnest - it is true, not some immoral ones, but desperate, cutthroat ones. Just in this summer, in the month of July, during the holidays, it happened that mother and son went to stay for a week in another county, seventy miles away, to a distant relative, whose husband served at the railway station (the very same, nearest from our city, the station from which Ivan Fyodorovich Karamazov set off for Moscow a month later). There, Kolya began by looking at the railway in detail, studying the routines, realizing that he could show off his new knowledge when he returned home, among the schoolchildren of his progymnasium. But just at that time there were also several other boys, with whom he made friends; some of them lived at the station, others in the neighborhood - all the young people from twelve to fifteen years old came together about six or seven, and two of them happened from our town. The boys played together, played pranks, and on the fourth or fifth day of their stay at the station, an incredible bet of two rubles took place between the stupid youth, namely: Kolya, almost the youngest of all, and therefore somewhat despised by the elders, out of pride or out of shameless courage, suggested that he, at night, when the eleven o'clock train arrives, lie prone between the rails and lie motionless while the train rushes over him at full speed. True, a preliminary study was made, from which it turned out that it is really possible to stretch out and flatten along between the rails so that the train, of course, will rush through and not touch the one who is lying, but, nevertheless, what a lie! Kolya stood firmly that he would lie down. At first they laughed at him, called him a liar, a fanfare, but they encouraged him all the more. The main thing is that these fifteen-year-olds turned up their noses in front of him too much and at first did not even want to consider him a comrade, as a “little one”, which was already unbearably insulting. And so it was decided to leave in the evening for a verst from the station, so that the train, having left the station, had time to completely scatter. The boys have gathered. The night was moonless, not that dark, but almost black. At the proper hour, Kolya lay down between the rails. The five others who had wagered, with bated breath, and finally in fear and remorse, waited at the bottom of the embankment beside the road in the bushes. Finally, a train rumbled out of the station in the distance. Two red lanterns flashed out of the darkness, an approaching monster rumbled. "Run, run away from the rails!" the boys, who were dying of fear, shouted to Kolya from the bushes, but it was too late: the train galloped up and rushed past. The boys rushed to Kolya: he lay motionless. They began to pull at him, began to lift him up. He suddenly got up and silently descended from the embankment. Going downstairs, he announced that he had purposely been lying unconscious in order to frighten them, but the truth was that he had indeed lost consciousness, as he later admitted, long later, to his mother. Thus the glory of the "desperate" behind him was strengthened forever. He returned home to the station pale as a sheet. The next day he fell ill with a slightly nervous fever, but in spirit he was terribly cheerful, glad and pleased. The incident was announced not now, but already in our city, penetrated into the progymnasium and reached its superiors. But then mother Kolya rushed to pray to the authorities for her boy and ended up defending him and begging for him by the respected and influential teacher Dardanelov, and the matter was left in vain, as if it had never happened at all. This Dardanelov, a bachelor and not an old man, was passionately and for many years already in love with Madame Krasotkina, and already once, about a year ago, most respectfully and dying from fear and delicacy, he ventured to offer her his hand; but she flatly refused, considering consent to be a betrayal of her boy, although Dardanelov, according to some mysterious signs, might even have had some right to dream that he was not completely disgusted by the charming, but already too chaste and tender widow. Kolya's crazy prank, it seems, broke through the ice, and for his intercession a hint of hope was made to Dardanelov for his intercession, though a distant one, but Dardanelov himself was a phenomenon of purity and delicacy, and therefore it was enough for him for the time being to complete his happiness. He loved the boy, although he would have considered it humiliating to curry favor with him, and treated him sternly and demandingly in the classes. But Kolya himself kept him at a respectful distance, prepared his lessons perfectly, was the second student in the class, addressed Dardanelov dryly, and the whole class firmly believed that Kolya was so strong in world history that he would “knock down” Dardanelov himself. And indeed, Kolya once asked him the question: “Who founded Troy?” - to which Dardanelov answered only in general about the peoples, their movements and migrations, about the depth of times, about fables, but he could not answer who exactly founded Troy, that is, what kind of persons, and even found the question for some reason idle and bankrupt. But the boys remained convinced that Dardanelov did not know who founded Troy. Kolya read about the founders of Troy from Smaragdov, who was kept in a closet with books, which was left after his parent. It ended up that everyone, even the boys, finally became interested: who exactly founded Troy, but Krasotkin did not reveal his secret, and the glory of knowledge remained unshakable for him. After the incident on the railroad, Kolya's attitude towards his mother underwent some change. When Anna Fedorovna (Krasotkin's widow) found out about her son's feat, she almost went crazy with horror. She had such terrible hysterical fits, which lasted intermittently for several days, that Kolya, already seriously frightened, gave her an honest and noble word that such pranks would never happen again. He swore on his knees before the image and swore by the memory of his father, as Madame Krasotkina herself demanded, and the "courageous" Kolya himself burst into tears, like a six-year-old boy, from "feelings", and mother and son all that day threw themselves into each other's arms and cried shaking . The next day, Kolya woke up still “insensitive”, but became more silent, more modest, stricter, more thoughtful. True, after a month and a half he was again caught in one prank, and his name even became known to our justice of the peace, but the prank was already of a completely different kind, even funny and stupid, and it turned out that it was not he himself who committed it, but only found himself involved in it. But more on that later. The mother continued to tremble and suffer, and Dardanelov, as her worries, more and more perceived hope. It should be noted that Kolya understood and unraveled Dardanelov from this side and, of course, deeply despised him for his "feelings"; before, he even had the indelicacy to show his contempt in front of his mother, remotely hinting to her that he understood what Dardanelov was trying to achieve. But after the incident on the railroad, he changed his behavior on this matter too: he no longer allowed himself hints, even the most distant ones, and he began to speak of Dardanelov more respectfully in his mother’s presence, which the sensitive Anna Feodorovna immediately realized with boundless gratitude in her heart, but but at the slightest, most unexpected word, even from some stranger about Dardanelov, if Kolya was present at the same time, she suddenly flared up with shame, like a rose. Kolya, at those moments, either looked frowningly out the window, or looked to see if he was asking for porridge boots, or fiercely called Chime, a shaggy, rather large and lousy dog, which he had suddenly acquired from somewhere for a month, dragged into the house and kept for some reason something in secret in the rooms, not showing it to any of the comrades. He tyrannized terribly, teaching her all sorts of things and sciences, and brought the poor dog to the point that she howled without him when he went to classes, and when he came, she squealed with delight, jumped like crazy, served, fell to the ground and pretended to be dead and so on. , in a word, she showed all the things that she was taught, no longer on demand, but solely from the ardor of her enthusiastic feelings and a grateful heart. By the way: I forgot to mention that Kolya Krasotkin was the same boy whom the reader already knew the boy Ilyusha, the son of the retired staff captain Snegirev, stabbed in the thigh with a penknife, standing up for his father, whom schoolchildren teased with a “washcloth”.