“He’ll be huge!” one boy in the group exclaimed.
“He sure will, he’s a mastiff, huge, like this, big as a calf,” several voices were suddenly heard.
“Big as a calf, a real calf,” the captain jumped over to them. “I picked one like that on purpose, the fiercest, and his parents are huge, too, and really fierce, this high off the ground ... Sit down, sir, here on Ilyusha’s bed, or else on the bench here. Welcome, our dear guest, our long-awaited guest ... Did you come with Alexei Fyodorovich, sir?”
Krasotkin sat down on the bed at Ilyusha’s feet. Though he had perhaps prepared a way of casually beginning the conversation while coming there, he had now decidedly lost the thread.
“No ... I came with Perezvon ... I have a dog now, named Perezvon. A Slavic name. He’s waiting outside ... A whistle from me, and he’ll come flying in. I came with a dog, too,” he suddenly turned to Ilyusha. “Do you remember Zhuchka, old man?” he suddenly hit him with the question.
Ilyushechka’s face twisted. He looked with suffering at Kolya. Alyosha, who was standing by the door, frowned and shook his head at Kolya on the sly that he should not begin talking about Zhuchka, but he either did not notice or did not want to notice.
“Where is ... Zhuchka?” Ilyusha asked in a strained voice.
“Well, brother, your Zhuchka—whe-ew! Your Zhuchka’s a goner!”
Ilyusha said nothing, but once more looked very, very attentively at Kolya. Alyosha, catching Kolya’s eye, again shook his head as hard as he could, but again Kolya looked away and pretended not to notice.
“She ran off somewhere and died. How could she not, after such an appetizer,” Kolya slashed mercilessly, at the same time becoming breathless himself for some reason. “But I’ve got Perezvon instead ... A Slavic name ... I’ve brought him for you ...”
“Don’t!” Ilyushechka suddenly said.
“No, no, I will, you must see ... It will amuse you. I brought him on purpose ... he’s as shaggy as she was ... Will you permit me, madame, to call my dog here?” he suddenly addressed Mrs. Snegiryov, now quite inconceivably excited.
“Don’t, don’t!” exclaimed Ilyusha, with a rueful strain in his voice. His eyes burned with reproach.
“Perhaps, sir,” the captain suddenly darted up from the chest by the wall, where he had just sat down, “perhaps, sir ... some other time, sir ... ,”he prattled, but Kolya, persisting unrestrainably and in haste, suddenly shouted to Smurov: “Smurov, open the door!” and the moment Smurov opened it, he blew his whistle. Perezvon dashed headlong into the room.
“Up, Perezvon, on your hind legs! On your hind legs!” Kolya shouted, jumping from his seat, and the dog, getting on its hind legs, stood straight up right in front of Ilyusha’s bed. Something took place that no one expected: Ilyusha started, and suddenly made a great lunge forward, bent down to Perezvon, and, as if frozen, looked at him.
“It’s ... Zhuchka!” he cried out suddenly, his voice cracked with suffering and happiness.
“Who else did you think it was?” Krasotkin shouted with all his might, in a ringing, happy voice, and bending down to the dog, he seized him and lifted him up to Ilyusha.
“Look, old man, you see, he’s lost one eye, and there’s a little nick on his left ear, exactly the marks you described to me. I found him by those marks! I found him right then, very quickly. He didn’t belong to anybody, he didn’t belong to anybody!” he explained, quickly turning to the captain, to his wife, to Alyosha, and then back to Ilyusha. “He lived in the Fedotovs’ backyard, made his home there, but they didn’t feed him, he’s a runaway, he ran away from some village ... So I found him ... You see, old man, it means he didn’t swallow your piece of bread that time. If he had, he’d surely have died, surely! It means he managed to spit it out, since he’s alive now. And you didn’t even notice him spit it out. He spat it out, but it still pricked his tongue, that’s why he squealed then. He was running and squealing, and you thought he’d swallowed it completely. He must really have squealed, because dogs have very tender skin in their mouths ... more tender than a man’s, much more tender!” Kolya exclaimed frenziedly, his face flushed and beaming with rapture.
And Ilyusha could not even speak. White as a sheet, he stared open-mouthed at Kolya, his big eyes somehow bulging terribly. And if the unsuspecting Krasotkin had only known what a tormenting and killing effect such a moment could have on the sick boy’s health, he would never have dared pull such a trick as he just had. But perhaps the only one in the room who did realize it was Alyosha. As for the captain, he seemed to have turned into a very little boy.
“Zhuchka! So it’s Zhuchka?” he kept crying out in a blissful voice. “Ilyushechka, it’s Zhuchka, your Zhuchka! Mama, it’s Zhuchka!” he all but wept.
“And I never guessed!” Smurov exclaimed ruefully. “That’s Krasotkin! I said he’d find Zhuchka, and he did find her!”
“He did find her!” someone else joyfully echoed.
“Bravo, Krasotkin!” a third voice rang out.
“Bravo, bravo!” the boys all cried and began to applaud.
“But wait, wait,” Krasotkin made an effort to outshout them all, “let me tell you how it happened, what counts is how it happened, not anything else! Because I found him, dragged him home and hid him immediately, and locked up the house, and I didn’t show him to anyone till the very last day. Only Smurov found out two weeks ago, but I assured him it was Perezvon and he never suspected, and in the meantime I taught Zhuchka all kinds of clever things, you should see, you should just see what tricks he can do! I taught him so as to bring him to you, old man, already sleek and well-trained, and say: here, old man, look at your Zhuchka now! If you’ve got a little piece of beef, he’ll show you a trick now that will make you fall down laughing—beef, a little piece, have you got any?”
The captain dashed impetuously across the hall to the landlady’s room, where his food was also prepared. And Kolya, not to lose precious time, in a desperate hurry, cried “Play dead!” to Perezvon. Perezvon suddenly spun around, lay on his back, and stayed stock still with all four legs in the air. The boys all laughed, Ilyusha watched with the same suffering smile, but “mama” liked the way Perezvon died more than anyone. She burst out laughing at the dog and began snapping her fingers and calling:
“Perezvon, Perezvon!”
“He won’t get up, not for anything, not for anything,” Kolya shouted, triumphant and justly proud. “The whole world can shout all it wants, but if I shout, he’ll jump up at once! Ici, Perezvon!”
The dog jumped up and began leaping and squealing with joy. The captain ran in with a piece of boiled beef.
“It’s not hot, is it?” Kolya inquired hastily, in a businesslike manner, taking the piece. “No, it’s not—because dogs don’t like hot things. Look, everyone, Ilyushechka, look, come on, look, look, old man, why aren’t you looking? I brought him, and he doesn’t look!”
The new trick consisted in getting the dog to stand motionlessly with his nose held out, and putting the tasty piece of beef right on the tip of it. The unfortunate dog had to stand without moving, with the meat on his nose, for as long as the master ordered, not moving, not budging, even for half an hour. But Perezvon was kept only for a brief moment.
“Fetch!” cried Kolya, and in a second the piece flew from Perezvon’s nose into his mouth. The audience, naturally, expressed rapturous amazement.
“And can it be, can it be that you refused to come all this time only in order to train the dog!” Alyosha exclaimed with involuntary reproach.