“How do I know? They’ll go on shouting till nighttime now. I like stirring up fools in all strata of society. There stands another dolt, that peasant there. People say, ‘There’s no one stupider than a stupid Frenchman,’ but note how the Russian physiognomy betrays itself. Isn’t it written all over that peasant’s face that he’s a fool, eh?”
“Leave him alone, Kolya. Let’s keep going.”
“No, now that I’ve gotten started, I wouldn’t stop for the world. Hey! Good morning, peasant!”
A burly peasant, who was slowly passing by and seemed to have had a drop to drink already, with a round, simple face and a beard streaked with gray, raised his head and looked at the lad.
“Well, good morning, if you’re not joking,” he answered unhurriedly.
“And if I am joking?” laughed Kolya.
“Joke then, if you’re joking, and God be with you. Never mind, it’s allowed. A man can always have his joke.”
“Sorry, brother, I was joking.”
“So, God will forgive you.”
“But you, do you forgive me?”
“That I do. Run along now.”
“Look here, you seem to be a smart peasant.”
“Smarter than you,” the peasant replied unexpectedly, and with the same air of importance.
“That’s unlikely,” Kolya was somewhat taken aback.
“It’s the truth I’m telling you.”
“Well, maybe it is.”
“So there, brother.”
“Good-bye, peasant.”
“Good-bye.”
“Peasants differ,” Kolya observed to Smurov after some silence. “How was I to know I’d run into a smart one? I’m always prepared to recognize intelligence in the people.” Far away the cathedral clock struck half past eleven. The boys began to hurry, and covered the rest of the still quite long way to Captain Snegiryov’s house quickly and now almost without speaking. Twenty paces from the house, Kolya stopped and told Smurov to go on ahead and call Karamazov out to meet him there.
“For some preliminary sniffing,” he observed to Smurov.
“But why call him out?” Smurov tried to object. “Just go in, they’ll be terribly glad to see you. Why do you want to get acquainted in the freezing cold?”
“It’s for me to know why I need him here, in the freezing cold,” Kolya snapped despotically (as he was terribly fond of doing with these “little boys”), and Smurov ran to carry out the order.
Chapter 4: Zhuchka
Kolya leaned against the fence with an important look on his face and began waiting for Alyosha to appear. Yes, he had long been wanting to meet him. He had heard a lot about him from the boys, but so far had always ostensibly displayed an air of scornful indifference whenever anyone spoke to him about Alyosha, and even “criticized” him as he listened to what was told about him. But within himself he wanted very, very much to make his acquaintance; there was something sympathetic and attractive in all the stories he had heard about Alyosha. Thus, the present moment was an important one; first of all he must not disgrace himself, he must show his independence: “Otherwise he’ll think I’m thirteen, and take me for the same sort as those boys. What does he find in those boys anyway? I’ll ask him once we’ve become friends. Too bad I’m so short, though. Tuzikov is younger than I am, but he’s half a head taller. Still, I have an intelligent face; I’m not good-looking, I know my face is disgusting, but it’s an intelligent face. I also mustn’t give myself away too much, otherwise, if I start right out with embraces, maybe he’ll think ... Pfui, how disgusting if he was to think ...”
Such were Kolya’s worries, while he did his best to assume the most independent look. Above all, what tormented him was his small stature, not so much his “disgusting” face as his stature. At home, on the wall in one corner, there was a little pencil mark showing his height, which he had put there a year before, and since then, every two months, he would go excitedly to measure himself and see how much he had grown. But, alas, he grew terribly little, and that at times would bring him simply to despair. As for his face, it was not “disgusting” at all; on the contrary, it was quite comely, fair, pale, and freckled. His small but lively gray eyes had a brave look and would often light up with emotion. His cheekbones were somewhat broad, his lips were small, not too thick, but very red; his nose was small and decidedly upturned: “Quite snub-nosed, quite snub-nosed!” Kolya muttered to himself whenever he looked in the mirror, and he always went away from the mirror with indignation. “And it’s not much of an intelligent face either,” he sometimes thought, doubting even that. Still, it must not be thought that worrying about his face and height absorbed his whole soul. On the contrary, however painful those moments before the mirror were, he would quickly forget them, and for a long time, “giving himself wholly to ideas and to real life,” as he himself defined his activity.
Alyosha soon appeared and hurriedly came up to Kolya; Kolya could see even from several paces away that Alyosha’s face was somehow quite joyful. “Can it be he’s so glad to see me?” Kolya thought with pleasure. Here, incidentally, we must note that Alyosha had changed very much since we last saw him: he had thrown off his cassock and was now wearing a finely tailored coat and a soft, round hat, and his hair was cut short. All of this lent him charm, and, indeed, he looked very handsome. His comely face always had a cheerful look, but this cheerfulness was somehow quiet and calm. To Kolya’s surprise, Alyosha came out to him dressed just as he was, without an overcoat; obviously he had rushed to meet him. He held out his hand to Kolya at once.
“Here you are at last, we’ve been waiting for you so!”
“There were reasons, which you will learn of in a moment. In any case, I am glad to make your acquaintance. I have long been waiting for an opportunity, and have heard a lot,” Kolya mumbled, slightly out of breath.
“But you and I would have become acquainted anyway, I’ve heard a lot about you myself; it’s here, to this place, you’ve been slow in coming.”
“Tell me, how are things here?”
“Ilyusha is very bad, he will certainly die.”
“Really? You must agree, Karamazov, that medicine is vile,” Kolya exclaimed ardently.
“Ilyusha has mentioned you often, very often, you know, even in his sleep, in delirium. Evidently you were very, very dear to him before ... that incident ... with the penknife. There’s another reason besides ... Tell me, is this your dog?”
“Yes. Perezvon.”
“Not Zhuchka?” Alyosha looked pitifully into Kolya’s eyes. “She just vanished like that?”
“I know you’d all like to have Zhuchka, I’ve heard all about it,” Kolya smiled mysteriously. “Listen, Karamazov, I’ll explain the whole business to you, I came mainly for that purpose, that was why I called you outside, to explain the whole affair to you ahead of time, before we go in,” he began animatedly. “You see, Karamazov, Ilyusha entered the preparatory class last spring. Well, everybody knows the preparatory class—little boys, kids. They immediately started picking on Ilyusha. I’m two classes ahead, and naturally looked on from a distance, as an outsider. I saw that the boy was small, weak, but he didn’t submit, he even fought with them—a proud boy, his eyes flashing. I like that kind. And they went after him worse than ever. The main thing was that he had such shabby clothes then, and his pants were riding up, and his boots had holes in them. They picked on that, too. Humiliated him. No, that I didn’t like, I stepped in and made it hot for them. I beat them up—and they adore me, do you know that, Karamazov?” Kolya boasted effusively. “And I like kids generally. I’ve got two chicks on my neck at home now, in fact they made me late today. So, after that they stopped beating Ilyusha, and I took him under my protection. I saw he was a proud boy, I can tell you how proud he is, but in the end he gave himself up to me like a slave, obeyed my every order, listened to me as though I were God, tried to copy me. In the breaks between classes he would come running to me at once and we would walk together. On Sundays, too. In our school they laugh when an older boy makes friends with a little one on such footing, but that is a prejudice. It suits my fancy, and that’s enough, don’t you think? I was teaching him, developing him—tell me, why shouldn’t I develop him, if I like him? And you did befriend all these kids, Karamazov, which means you want to influence the young generation, develop them, be useful, no? And I admit, this trait of your character, which I knew only from hearsay, interested me most of all. But to business: I noticed that a sort of tenderness, sensitivity, was developing in the boy, and, you know, I am decidedly the enemy of all sentimental slop, and have been since the day I was born. Moreover, there were contradictions: he was proud, but devoted to me like a slave—devoted to me like a slave, yet suddenly his eyes would flash and he wouldn’t even want to agree with me, he’d argue, beat on the wall. I used to put forward various ideas sometimes: it wasn’t that he disagreed with the ideas, I could see that he was simply rebelling against me personally, because I responded coldly to his sentimentalities. And so, the more sentimental he became, the colder I was, in order to season him; I did it on purpose, because it’s my conviction. I had in mind to discipline his character, to shape him up, to create a person ... well, and so ... you’ll understand me, naturally, from half a word. Suddenly I noticed he was troubled for a day, for two, three days, that he was grieving, not over sentiments now, but something else, something stronger, higher. What’s the tragedy, I wondered. I pressed him and found out this: he had somehow managed to make friends with Smerdyakov, your late father’s lackey (your father was still alive then), and he had taught the little fool a silly trick—that is, a beastly trick, a vile trick—to take a piece of bread, the soft part, stick a pin in it, and toss it to some yard dog, the kind that’s so hungry it will swallow whatever it gets without chewing it, and then watch what happens. And so they fixed up such a morsel and threw it to that very same shaggy Zhuchka that so much fuss is being made over now, a yard dog from the sort of house where they simply never fed her and she just barked at the wind all day long. (Do you like that silly barking, Karamazov? I can’t stand it.) She rushed for it, swallowed it, and started squealing, turning round and round, then broke into a run, still squealing as she ran, and disappeared—so Ilyusha described it to me himself. He was crying as he told me, crying, clinging to me, shaking: ‘She squealed and ran, she squealed and ran,’ he just kept repeating it, the picture really struck him. Well, I could see he felt remorse. I took it seriously. Above all I wanted to discipline him for the previous things, so that, I confess, I cheated here, I pretended to be more indignant than maybe I really was: ‘You have committed a base deed,’ I said, ‘you are a scoundrel. Of course, I will not give you away, but for the time being I am breaking relations with you. I will think it over and let you know through Smurov’ (the same boy who came with me today; he’s always been devoted to me) ‘whether I will continue relations with you hereafter, or will drop you forever as a scoundrel.’ That struck him terribly. I’ll admit I felt right then that I might be treating him too harshly, but what could I do, it was how I thought at the time. A day later I sent Smurov to him with the message from me that I was ‘not talking’ with him any more, that’s what we say when two friends break relations with each other. Secretly I just meant to give him the silent treatment for a few days, and then, seeing his repentance, to offer him my hand again. That was my firm intention. But what do you think: he listened to Smurov, and suddenly his eyes flashed. ‘Tell Krasotkin from me,’ he shouted, ‘that now I’m going to throw bread with pins in it to all the dogs, all of them, all!’ ‘Aha,’ I thought, ‘he’s got a free little spirit in him, this will have to be smoked out,’ and I began showing complete contempt for him, turning away whenever I met him, or smiling ironically. And then suddenly that incident with his father took place—the whiskbroom, I mean—remember? You should understand that he was already prepared beforehand to be terribly vexed. Seeing that I had dropped him, the boys all fell on him, taunting him: ‘Whiskbroom! Whiskbroom! ‘ It was then that the battles started between them, which I’m terribly sorry about, because it seems they beat him badly once. Then once he attacked them all in the street as they were coming out of school, and I happened to be standing ten steps away, looking at him. And, I swear, I don’t remember laughing then; on the contrary, I was feeling very, very sorry for him; another moment and I’d have rushed to defend him. But then he suddenly met my eyes: what he imagined I don’t know, but he pulled out a penknife, rushed at me, and stuck it into my thigh, here, on my right leg. I didn’t move, I must admit I can be brave sometimes, Karamazov, I just looked at him with contempt, as if to say: ‘Wouldn’t you like to do it again, in return for all my friendship? I’m at your service.’ But he didn’t stab me a second time, he couldn’t stand it, got scared himself, dropped the knife, burst into sobs, and ran away. Naturally, I did not go and squeal on him, and I told everybody to keep quiet about it so that the authorities wouldn’t find out; even my mother I told only after it was all healed—and the wound was a trifling one, just a scratch. Then I heard he’d been throwing stones that same day, and bit your finger—but you understand what state he was in! Well, what can I say, I acted foolishly: when he got sick, I didn’t go to forgive him—that is, to make peace—and now I regret it. But I had special reasons then. Well, that’s the whole story ... only I guess I did act foolishly...”