“That’s precisely the reason,” Kolya shouted in the most naive way. “I wanted to show him in all his glory!”
“Perezvon! Perezvon!” Ilyusha suddenly began snapping his thin fingers, calling the dog.
“What do you want? Let him jump up on the bed himself. Ici, Perezvon!” Kolya patted the bed, and Perezvon flew like an arrow up to Ilyusha. The boy impetuously hugged his head with both arms, and in return Perezvon immediately gave him a lick on the cheek. Ilyusha pressed himself to the dog, stretched out on his bed, and hid his face from them all in its shaggy fur.
“Lord, Lord!” the captain kept exclaiming.
Kolya sat down again on Ilyusha’s bed.
“Ilyusha, there’s something else I can show you. I’ve brought you a little cannon. Remember, I told you one time about this cannon, and you said: ‘Ah, I wish I could see it! ‘ So, now I’ve brought it.”
And Kolya hurriedly pulled the little bronze cannon out of his bag. He was hurrying because he himself was very happy: another time he would have waited until the effect produced by Perezvon had worn off, but now he hastened on, heedless of all self-controclass="underline" “You’re already happy as it is, well, here’s some more happiness for you!” He himself was in complete ecstasy.
“I spotted this thing for you long ago at the official Morozov’s—for you, old man, for you. It was just sitting there uselessly, he got it from his brother, so I traded him a book for it, A Kinsman of Mahomet, or Healing Folly,[279] that was in my papa’s bookcase. It’s a dirty book, published in Moscow a hundred years ago, even before there was any censorship, and just the sort of thing Morozov loves. He even thanked me...”
Kolya held the cannon up in his hand before them all, so that they could all see and delight in it. Ilyusha rose a little, and, still hugging Perezvon with his right arm, studied the toy with admiration. The effect reached its peak when Kolya announced that he had powder as well, and that it would be possible to fire the cannon right then, “if it wouldn’t be too upsetting for the ladies.” “Mama” immediately asked to have a closer look at the cannon, which was granted at once. She liked the little bronze cannon on wheels terribly much and began rolling it across her knees. To the request for permission to fire it, she responded with full consent, having no notion, however, of what she had been asked. Kolya produced the powder and the shot. The captain, as a former military man, saw to the loading himself, poured in a very small quantity of powder, and asked to save the shot for some other time. The cannon was put on the floor, the barrel aimed into empty space, three grains of powder were squeezed into the touch-hole, and it was set off with a match. There was a most spectacular bang. Mama jumped at first, but immediately laughed with joy. The boys gazed in speechless triumph, but most blissfully happy was the captain as he looked at Ilyusha. Kolya took the little cannon and at once presented it to Ilyusha, together with the powder and shot.
“It’s for you, for you! I got it for you long ago,” he repeated once more, in the fullness of happiness. “Ah, give it to me! No, you’d better give the little cannon to me!” mama suddenly began begging like a little girl. Her face wore an expression of sad anxiety for fear they would not give it to her. Kolya was embarrassed. The captain became anxiously worried.
“Mama, mama!” he jumped over to her, “the cannon is yours, yours, but let Ilyusha keep it, because it’s his present, but it’s the same as if it was yours, Ilyushechka will always let you play with it, it can belong to both of you, both...”
“No, I don’t want it to be both of ours, no, I want it to be just mine and not Ilyusha’s,” mama went on, getting ready to cry in earnest.
“Take it, mama, here, take it!” Ilyusha suddenly cried. “Krasotkin, may I give it to mama?” he suddenly turned to Krasotkin with a pleading look, as if he were afraid Krasotkin might be offended if he gave his present to someone else.
“Perfectly possible!” Krasotkin agreed at once, and, taking the little cannon from Ilyusha, he himself handed it to mama with a most polite bow. She even burst into tears, she was so moved.
“Ilyushechka, dear, he loves his dear mama!” she exclaimed tenderly, and immediately began rolling the cannon across her knees again.
“Mama, let me kiss your hand,” her husband jumped close to her and at once carried out his intention.
“And if anyone is the nicest young man of all, it’s this kind boy!” the grateful lady said, pointing to Krasotkin.
“And I’ll bring you as much powder as you want, Ilyusha. We make our own powder now. Borovikov found out the ingredients: twenty-four parts saltpeter, ten parts sulphur, and six of birch charcoal; grind it all together, add some water, mix it into a paste, and rub it through a sieve—and you’ve got powder.”
“Smurov already told me about your powder, only papa says it’s not real powder,” Ilyusha replied.
“What do you mean, not real?” Kolya blushed. “It burns all right. However, I don’t know ...”
“No, sir, it’s nothing, sir,” the captain suddenly jumped over to them with a guilty look. “I did say that real powder is not made like that, but it’s nothing, you can do it like that, sir.”
“I don’t know, you know better. We burned it in a stone pomade jar, it burned well, it all burned away, there was only a little soot left. And that was just the paste, but if you rub it through a sieve ... However, you know better, I don’t know ... And Bulkin got a whipping from his father because of our powder, did you hear?” he suddenly addressed Ilyusha. “I did,” Ilyusha replied. He was listening to Kolya with infinite curiosity and delight.
“We made a whole bottle of powder, he kept it under his bed. His father saw it. It might explode, he said. And he whipped him right then and there. He wanted to make a complaint about me to the school. Now they won’t let him have anything to do with me, no one is allowed to have anything to do with me now. Smurov isn’t allowed either, I’ve become notorious with everybody; they say I’m a ‘desperado,’ “ Kolya grinned scornfully. “It all started with the railway.”
“Ah, we’ve also heard about that exploit of yours!” exclaimed the captain. “How did you manage to lie there through it? And can it be that you weren’t afraid at all while you were lying under the train? Weren’t you scared, sir?”
The captain was fawning terribly on Kolya.
“N-not particularly!” Kolya replied nonchalantly. “What really botched my reputation around here was that cursed goose,” he again turned to Ilyusha. But though he put on a nonchalant air while he was talking, he still could not control himself and was continually thrown off pitch, as it were.
“Ah, I’ve heard about the goose, too!” Ilyusha laughed, beaming all over. “They told me about it, but I didn’t understand, did they really take you in front of the judge?”
“It was the most brainless, the most insignificant thing, from which, as usual here, they concocted a whole mountain,” Kolya began casually. “I was going across the market square one day, and they’d just driven in some geese. I stopped and looked at the geese. Suddenly a local fellow, Vishnyakov, he’s working as an errand boy for Plotnikov’s now, looked at me and said. ‘What are you looking at the geese for?’ I looked at him: the fellow was no more than twenty, a stupid, round mug, I never reject the people, you know. I like to be with the people ... We lag behind the people—that is an axiom—you seem to be laughing, Karamazov?”
“No, God forbid, I’m listening carefully,” Alyosha replied with a most guileless look, and the insecure Kolya was immediately reassured.
“My theory, Karamazov, is clear and simple,” he at once hurried joyfully on again, “I believe in the people and am always glad to do them justice, but I’m by no means for spoiling them, that is a sine qua ... Yes, about the goose. So I turned to the fool and answered him: I’m thinking about what the goose might be thinking about. ‘ He gave me a completely stupid look: And what,’ he said, ‘is the goose thinking about?’ ‘Do you see that cart full of oats?’ I said. ‘The oats are spilling from the sack, and the goose has stretched his neck out right under the wheel and is pecking up the grains—do you see?’ ‘I see all right,’ he said. ‘Well,’ I said, if the cart rolled forward a bit now —would it break the goose’s neck or not?’ ‘Sure it would,’ he said, and he was already grinning from ear to ear, he was melting all over. ‘So let’s do it, man, come on.’ ‘Yeah, let’s do it,’ he said. And it was easy enough to set up: he stood near the bridle on the sly, and I stood beside the cart to direct the goose. And the peasant got distracted just then, he was talking with someone, so that I didn’t even have to direct: the goose stretched his neck out to get the oats, under the cart, right under the wheel. I winked at the fellow, he gave a tug, and—cr-r-ack, the wheel rolled right across the middle of the goose’s neck. But it just so happened that at that very second all the peasants saw us, and they all started squawking at once: ‘You did it on purpose!”No, I didn’t. ‘ ‘Yes, you did! ‘ Then they squawked: ‘To the justice of the peace with him!’ They took me along, too: ‘You were there, you helped him, the whole marketplace knows you!’ And indeed, for some reason the whole marketplace does know me,” Kolya added vainly. “We all went to the justice of the peace, and they brought the goose along, too. I could see that my fellow was afraid; he started howling, really, howling like a woman. And the poultryman was shouting: ‘You could run over all the geese in the market that way! ‘ Well, of course there were witnesses. The justice wrapped it up in no time: the poultryman got a rouble for the goose, and the fellow got the goose. And he was never to allow himself such jokes in the future. And the fellow kept howling like a woman: It wasn’t me, he made me do it,’ and he pointed at me. I answered with complete equanimity that I had by no means made him do it, that I had merely stated the basic idea and was speaking only hypothetically. Judge Nefedov chuckled, and was immediately angry with himself for having chuckled: ‘I shall send a report to your authorities at once,’ he said to me, ‘so that in future you will not fall into such hypotheses instead of sitting over your books and learning your lessons.’ He didn’t report to the authorities, it was a joke, but the thing got around and reached the ears of the authorities anyway, we have long ears here! The classics teacher, Kolbasnikov, was particularly incensed, but Dardanelov stood up for me again. And Kolbasnikov is mad at everybody now, like a green ass. You must have heard he got married, Ilyusha, picked up a thousand roubles in dowry from the Mikhailovs, and the bride is a real eyesore, first-rate and to the last degree. The boys in the third class immediately wrote an epigram: