“No, not unless you swear by the eternal salvation of your soul. Otherwise I won’t go.”
“Don’t go, then. I don’t care. It’s freezing out; stay home.”
“Squirts,” Kolya turned to the children, “this woman will stay with you till I come back, or till your mama comes, because she, too, should have been back long ago. And furthermore she will give you lunch. Will you fix them something, Agafya?”
“Could be.”
“Good-bye, chicks, I’m going with an easy heart. And you, granny,” he said, imposingly and in a low voice, as he passed by Agafya, “spare their young years, don’t go telling them all your old wives’ nonsense about Katerina. Ici, Perezvon!”
“And you know where you can go!” Agafya snarled, this time in earnest. “Funny boy! Ought to be whipped yourself for such talk, that’s what.”
Chapter 3: A Schoolboy
But Kolya was no longer listening. At last he was able to leave. He walked out the gate, looked around, hunched his shoulders, and having said “Freezing!” set off straight down the street and then turned right down a lane to the mar- , ket square. When he reached the next to the last house before the square, he stopped at the gate, pulled a whistle out of his pocket, and whistled with all his might, as if giving a prearranged signal. He did not have to wait more than a minute—a ruddy-cheeked boy of about eleven years old suddenly ran out to him through the gate, also wearing a warm, clean, and even stylish coat. This was the Smurov boy, who was in the preparatory class (whereas Kolya Krasotkin was two years ahead), the son of a well-to-do official, whose parents evidently would not allow him to go around with Krasotkin, a notoriously desperate prankster, so that this time Smurov obviously had escaped on the sly. This Smurov, if the reader has not forgotten, was one of the group of boys who were throwing stones at Ilyusha across the ditch two months before, and had told Alyosha Karamazov then about Ilyusha.
“I’ve been waiting a whole hour for you, Krasotkin,” Smurov said with a determined look, and the boys strode off towards the square.
“I’m late,” Krasotkin replied. “Circumstances arose. They won’t whip you for being with me?”
“Lord, no, they never whip me! So you’ve brought Perezvon?”
“Perezvon, too!”
“He’s going there, too?”
“He’s going, too.”
“Ah, if only it was Zhuchka!”
“Impossible. Zhuchka does not exist. Zhuchka has vanished in the darkness of the unknown.”
“Ah, couldn’t we do it?” Smurov suddenly stopped for a moment. “Ilyusha did say that Zhuchka was shaggy, and gray and smoky, just like Perezvon— couldn’t we tell him it’s really Zhuchka? Maybe he’ll even believe it?”
“Schoolboy, do not stoop to lying, first; and second, not even for a good cause. And above all, I hope you didn’t tell them anything about my coming.”
“God forbid, I know what I’m doing. But you won’t comfort him with Perezvon,” sighed Smurov. “You know, his father, the captain, I mean, the whiskbroom, told us he was going to bring him a puppy today, a real mastiff, with a black nose; he thinks he can comfort Ilyusha with it, only it’s not likely.”
“And Ilyusha himself—how is he?”
“Ah, he’s bad, bad! I think he has consumption. He’s quite conscious, only he keeps breathing, breathing, it’s not healthy the way he breathes. The other day he asked to be walked around the room, they put his boots on, he tried to walk but kept falling down. Ah,’ he said, ‘I told you my old boots were no good, papa, even before I had trouble walking in them.’ He thought he was stumbling because of his boots, but it was simply weakness. He won’t live another week. Herzenstube keeps coming. They’re rich again now, they’ve got a lot of money.”
“Swindlers.”
“Who are swindlers?”
“Doctors, and all medical scum, generally speaking, and, naturally, in particular as well. I reject medicine. A useless institution. But I’m still looking into all that. Anyway, what are these sentimentalities you’ve got going? Seems like your whole class is sitting there.”
“Not the whole class, but about ten of us always go there, every day. It’s all right.”
“What surprises me in all this is the role of Alexei Karamazov: his brother is going on trial tomorrow or the day after for such a crime, and he still finds so much time for sentimentalizing with boys!”
“There isn’t any sentimentalizing in it. You yourself are going now to make peace with Ilyusha.”
“To make peace? A funny expression. Incidentally, I allow no one to analyze my actions.”
“And Ilyusha will be so glad to see you! He doesn’t even dream that you’re coming. Why, why wouldn’t you come for such a long time?” Smurov exclaimed with sudden ardor.
“That’s my business, my dear boy, not yours. I am going on my own, because such is my will, while you were all dragged there by Alexei Karamazov, so there’s a difference. And how do you know, maybe I’m not going to make peace at all? Silly expression!”
“It wasn’t Karamazov at all, not him at all. Some of us just started going there by ourselves, of course with Karamazov at first. And there was never anything like that, nothing silly. First one of us went, then another. His father was terribly glad to see us. You know, he’ll just go out of his mind if Ilyusha dies. He can see Ilyusha’s going to die. But he’s so glad about us, that we made peace with Ilyusha. Ilyusha asked about you, but he didn’t add anything more. He just asks, and that’s all. His father will go out of his mind, or hang himself. He’s acted crazy before. You know, he’s a noble man, and that was all a mistake. It was the fault of that murderer, the one who gave him the beating.”
“Still, Karamazov is a riddle to me. I could have made his acquaintance long ago, but I like to be proud in certain cases. Besides, I’ve formed an opinion of him that still has to be verified and explained.”
Kolya fell imposingly silent; so did Smurov. Smurov, of course, stood in awe of Kolya Krasotkin and did not dare even think of rivaling him. And now he was terribly curious, because Kolya had explained that he was going “on his own,” and so there must be some riddle in the fact that Kolya had suddenly decided to go, and precisely on that day. They were crossing the market square, which at that hour was filled with farm wagons and lots of live fowl. Town women were selling rolls, thread, and so forth, under their shed roofs. In our town, such Sunday markets are naively called fairs, and there are many such fairs during the year. Perezvon ran along in the merriest spirits, constantly straying to right and left to smell something here and there. When he met other dogs, he sniffed them with remarkable zeal, according to all canine rules.
“I like observing realism, Smurov,” Kolya suddenly spoke. “Have you noticed how dogs sniff each other when they meet? It must be some general law of their nature.”
“Yes, and a funny one, too.”
“In fact, it is not a funny one, you’re wrong there. Nothing is funny in nature, however it may seem to man with his prejudices. If dogs could reason and criticize, they would undoubtedly find as much that is funny to them in the social relations of humans, their masters—if not far more; I repeat, because I am convinced of it, that there is far more foolishness in us. That is Rakitin’s thought, a remarkable thought. I am a socialist, Smurov.”
“And what is a socialist?” asked Smurov.
“It’s when everyone is equal, everyone has property in common, there are no marriages, and each one has whatever religion and laws he likes, and all the rest. You’re not grown up enough for that yet, you’re too young. It is cold, by the way.”
“Yes. Twelve degrees of frost. My father just looked at the thermometer.”
“And have you noticed, Smurov, that in the middle of winter, when there are fifteen or even eighteen degrees of frost, it doesn’t seem as cold as it does now, for example, in the beginning of winter, if there’s suddenly an unexpected cold snap, like now, of twelve degrees, especially when there isn’t much snow. It means people aren’t used to it yet. Everything is habit with people, everything, even state and political relations. Habit is the chief motive force. What a funny peasant, by the way.”