Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 70 страниц)
“Ivan left,” he said suddenly. “He’s doing his best to win over Mitka’s fiancée, that’s why he’s staying here,” he added maliciously, and, twisting his mouth, looked at Alyosha.
“Can he have told you so himself?” asked Alyosha.
“Yes, he told me long ago. Three weeks ago, in fact. It can’t be that he’s come here to put a knife in me, too, can it? So he must have some reason!”
“What? How can you say such things?” Alyosha was terribly dismayed.
“It’s true he’s never asked for money, and he won’t get a fig out of me anyway. I, my dearest Alexei Fyodorovich, plan to live on this earth as long as possible, let it be known to you, and therefore I need every kopeck, and the longer I live, the more I’ll need it,” he continued, pacing from one corner of the room to the other, keeping his hands in the pockets of his loose, greasy, yellow cotton coat. “At the moment I’m still a man, only fifty-five years old, but I want to occupy that position for about twenty years longer; I’ll get old and disgusting and they won’t come to me then of their own free will, and that’s when I’ll need my dear money. So now I’m saving up more and more, for myself alone, sir, my dear son, Alexei Fyodorovich, let it be known to you, because let it be known to you that I want to live in my wickedness to the very end. Wickedness is sweet: everyone denounces it, but everyone lives in it, only they all do it on the sly and I do it openly. And for this ingenuousness of mine, the wicked ones all attack me. And I don’t want your paradise, Alexei Fyodorovich, let it be known to you; it’s even unfitting for a decent man to go to your paradise, if there really is such a place. I say a man falls asleep and doesn’t wake up, and that’s all; remember me in your prayers if you want to, and if not, the devil take you. That’s my philosophy. Ivan spoke well here yesterday, though we were all drunk. Ivan’s a braggart, and he doesn’t have so much learning ... or any special education either; he’s silent, and he grins at you silently—that’s how he gets by.”
Alyosha listened to him in silence.
“He won’t even speak to me! And when he does, it’s all put on; he’s a scoundrel, your Ivan! I could marry Grushka right now if I wanted to. Because with money one only needs to want, Alexei Fyodorovich, sir, and one gets everything. That’s just what Ivan is afraid of, and he’s keeping an eye on me to see that I don’t get married, and that’s why he’s pushing Mitka to marry Grushka: he wants to keep me from Grushka that way (as if I’d leave him any money even if I don’t marry Grushka!), and on the other hand, if Mitka marries Grushka, then Ivan can take his rich fiancée for himself—that’s how he figures! He’s a scoundrel, your Ivan!”
“How irritable you are. It’s because of yesterday. Why don’t you go and lie down?” said Alyosha.
“You say that,” the old man suddenly remarked, as if it had just entered his head for the first time, “you say that, and it doesn’t make me angry, but if Ivan said the same thing to me, I’d get angry. With you alone I have kind moments, otherwise I’m an evil man.”
“You’re not an evil man, you’re just twisted,” Alyosha smiled.
“Listen, I was about to have that robber Mitka locked up today, and I still haven’t made up my mind. Of course, in these fashionable times it’s customary to count fathers and mothers as a prejudice, but the law, it seems, even in our time, does not allow people to pull their old fathers by the hair and kick them in the mug with their heels, on the floor, in their own house, and boast about coming back and killing them completely—and all in the presence of witnesses, sir! I could break him if I wanted, I could have him put away right now for what he did yesterday!”
“But you’re not going to make a complaint, are you?”
“Ivan talked me out of it. To hell with Ivan, but one thing I do know ...” And bending close to Alyosha, he went on in a confidential half-whisper: “If I had him put away, the scoundrel, she’d hear that I had him put away and go running to him at once. But if she hears today that he beat me, a weak old man, within an inch of my life, then maybe she’ll drop him and come to visit me ... We’re like that—we do everything contrary. I know her through and through. Say, how about a little cognac? Have some cold coffee and I’ll add a little shot of cognac—it improves the taste, my friend.”
“No, no, thank you. But I’ll take this bread with me, if I may,” said Alyosha, and picking up the three-kopeck French loaf, he put it in the pocket of his cassock. “And you’d better not have any cognac either,” he advised cautiously, looking intently into the old man’s face.
“True enough; the truth hurts, but there it is. Still, maybe just one little glass. From the little cupboard...”
He opened the “little cupboard” with a key, poured a glass, drank it off, then locked the cupboard and put the key back in his pocket.
“That’s enough. One glass won’t do me in.”
“You see, you’re feeling kinder now,” Alyosha smiled.
“Hm. I love you even without cognac, but with scoundrels I’m a scoundrel. Vanka won’t go to Chermashnya—why? He’s got to spy on me, to see how much I’ll give Grushenka when she comes. They’re all scoundrels! I refuse to acknowledge Ivan. Where did he come from? He’s not our kind at all. Why should I leave him anything? I won’t even leave a will, let it be known to you. And Mitka I’ll squash like a cockroach. I squash black cockroaches at night with my slipper: they make a little pop when you step on them. And your Mitka will make a little pop, too. YourMitka, because you love him. You see, you love him, and I’m not afraid that you love him. If Ivan loved him, I’d fear for myself because he loved him. But Ivan loves nobody, Ivan is not one of us; people like Ivan are not our people, my friend, they’re a puff of dust ... The wind blows, and the dust is gone ... Some foolishness almost came into my head yesterday, when I told you to come today: I wanted to find out through you about Mitka—what if I counted him out a thousand, or maybe two, right now: would he agree, beggar and scoundrel that he is, to clear out altogether, for about five years, or better for thirty-five, without Grushka, and give her up completely, eh, what?”
“I ... I’ll ask him,”Alyosha murmured. “I fit were all three thousand, then maybe he...”
“Lies! There’s no need to ask him now, no need at all! I’ve changed my mind. It was yesterday that this foolishness crept into my noddle, out of foolishness. I’ll give him nothing, not a jot, I need my dear money myself,” the old man began waving his arm. “I’ll squash him like a cockroach even without that. Tell him nothing, or he’ll get his hopes up. And you can go, there’s absolutely nothing for you to do here. This fiancée, Katerina Ivanovna, that he’s been hiding from me so carefully all this time, is she going to marry him or not? You saw her yesterday, didn’t you?”
“She won’t leave him for anything.”
“These delicate young ladies love just his sort, rakes and scoundrels! They’re trash, let me tell you, these pale young ladies; a far cry from ... Ah! With his youth and the looks I had then (I was much better looking than he is at twenty-eight), I’d have just as many conquests. Canaille!But he still won’t get Grushenka, sir, no, he won’t ... I’ll make mud out of him!”
With the last words he got into a rage again.
“And you can go, too, there’s nothing for you to do here today,” he snapped abruptly.
Alyosha went up to him to say good-bye and kissed him on the shoulder.
“What are you doing?” the old man was slightly astonished. “We’ll still see each other. Or do you think we won’t?”
“Not at all, I just did it for no reason.”
“And me, too, I just did it. . . ,” the old man looked at him. “Listen,” he called after him, “come sometime soon, do you hear? For fish soup, I’ll make fish soup, a special one, not like today. You must come! Listen, come tomorrow, I’ll see you tomorrow!”
And as soon as Alyosha stepped out the door, he again went to the little cupboard and tossed off another half-glass.
“No more!” he muttered, granting, and again locked the cupboard, and again put the key in his pocket. Then he went to the bedroom, lay exhausted on the bed, and the next moment was asleep.
Chapter 3: He Gets Involved with Schoolboys
“Thank God he didn’t ask me about Grushenka,” Alyosha thought for his part, as he left his father’s and headed for Madame Khokhlakov’s house, “otherwise I might have had to tell him about meeting Grushenka yesterday.” Alyosha felt painfully that the combatants had gathered fresh strength overnight and their hearts had hardened again with the new day: “Father is angry and irritated, he’s come up with something and he’s sticking to it. And Dmitri? He, too, has gained strength overnight; he, too, must be angry and irritated; and of course he, too, has thought up something ... Oh, I must find him today at all costs...”
But Alyosha did not have a chance to think for long: on the way something suddenly happened to him that, while it did not seem very important, greatly struck him. As soon as he had crossed the square and turned down the lane leading to Mikhailovsky Street, which runs parallel to Main Street but is separated from it by a ditch (the whole town is crisscrossed by ditches), he saw down at the foot of the little bridge a small gang of schoolboys, all young children, from nine to twelve years old, not more. They were going home from school with satchels on their backs, or with leather bags on straps over their shoulders, some wearing jackets, others coats, some even in high leather boots creased around the ankles, in which little boys spoiled by their well-to-do fathers especially like to parade around. The whole group was talking animatedly about something, apparently holding a council. Alyosha could never pass children by with indifference; it had been the same when he was in Moscow, and though he loved children of three or so most of all, he also very much liked tenor eleven-year-old schoolboys. And so, preoccupied though he was at the moment, he suddenly felt like going over and talking with them. As he came up, he peered into their rosy, animated faces and suddenly saw that each boy had a stone in his hand, and some had two. Across the ditch, about thirty paces away from the group, near a fence, stood another boy, also a schoolboy with a bag at his side, no more than ten years old, or even less, judging by his height—pale, sickly, with flashing black eyes. He was attentively and keenly watching the group of six schoolboys, obviously his comrades who had just left school with him but with whom he was apparently at odds. Alyosha came up and, addressing one curly, blond, ruddy-cheeked boy in a black jacket, looked him up and down and remarked:
“I used to carry a bag just like yours, but we always wore it on the left side, so that you could get to it quickly with your right hand; if you wear yours on the right like that, it won’t be so easy to get to.”
Alyosha began with this practical remark, without any premeditated guile, which, incidentally, is the only way for an adult to begin if he wants to gain the immediate confidence of a child, and especially of a whole group of children. One must begin precisely in a serious and practical way so as to be altogether on an equal footing. Alyosha instinctively understood this.
“But he’s left-handed,” another boy, a cocky and healthy eleven-year-old, answered at once. The other five boys all fixed their eyes on Alyosha.
“He throws stones with his left hand, too,” remarked a third. Just then a stone flew into the group, grazed the left-handed boy, and flew by, though it was thrown deftly and forcefully. The boy across the ditch had thrown it.
“Go on, Smurov, give it to him!” they all shouted. But Smurov (the left-handed boy) did not need any encouragement; he retaliated at once and threw a stone at the boy across the ditch, but unsuccessfully. It landed in the dirt. The boy across the ditch immediately threw another stone at the group, this time directly at Alyosha, and hit him rather painfully on the shoulder. The boy across the ditch had a whole pocket full of stones ready. The bulging of his pockets could be seen even from thirty paces away.
“He was aiming at you, he did it on purpose. You’re Karamazov, Karamazov, aren’t you?” the boys shouted, laughing. “Hey, everybody, fire at once!”
And six stones shot out of the group. One caught the boy on the head and he fell, but he jumped up immediately and in a rage began flinging stones back at them. A steady exchange of fire came from both sides, and many in the group turned out to have stones ready in their pockets.
“What are you doing! Aren’t you ashamed, gentlemen? Six against one! Why, you’ll kill him!” Alyosha cried.
He leaped forward and faced the flying stones, trying to shield the boy across the ditch with himself. Three or four of them stopped for a moment.
“He started it!” a boy in a red shirt cried in an angry child’s voice. “He’s a scoundrel, he just stabbed Krasotkin in class with a penknife, he was bleeding. Only Krasotkin didn’t want to squeal on him, but he needs to get beaten up...”
“But why? I’ll bet you tease him.”
“Look, he threw another stone at your back! He knows who you are!” the boys shouted. “It’s you he’s throwing at now, not us. Hey, everybody, at him again! Don’t miss, Smurov!”
And another exchange of fire began, this time a very savage one. The boy across the ditch was hit in the chest by a stone; he cried out, burst into tears, and ran up the hill towards Mikhailovsky Street. A clamor came from the group: “Aha, coward! He ran away! Whiskbroom!”
“You still don’t know what a scoundrel he is, Karamazov. Killing’s too good for him,” a boy in a jacket, who seemed to be the oldest of them, repeated with burning eyes.
“What’s wrong with him?” asked Alyosha. “Is he a squealer?”
The boys glanced knowingly at one another.
“You’re going the same way, to Mikhailovsky?” the boy went on. “Catch up with him, then ... You see, he’s stopped again, he’s waiting and looking at you.”
“Looking at you, looking at you!” the other boys chimed in.
“Ask him how he likes the whiskbroom, the ratty old whiskbroom. Just go and ask him that!”
They all burst out laughing. Alyosha looked at them and they at him.
“Don’t go, he’ll hurt you,” Smurov cried warningly.
“I will not ask him about the whiskbroom, gentlemen, because I’m sure you tease him with that somehow, but I will find out from him why you hate him so much ...”
“Go on, find out, find out!” the boys laughed.
Alyosha crossed the bridge and went up the hill, past the fence, straight to the banished boy.
“Watch out,” they shouted after him warningly, “he won’t be afraid of you, he’ll stab you suddenly, on the sly, like he did Krasotkin.”
The boy waited for him without moving from the spot. Coming close, Alyosha saw facing him a child not more than nine years old, weak and undersized, with a pale, thin, oblong little face, and large, dark eyes that looked at him angrily. He was dressed in a very threadbare old coat, which he had awkwardly outgrown. His bare arms stuck out of the sleeves. On the right knee of his trousers there was a large patch, and on his right boot, over the big toe, there was a big hole, and one could see that it had been heavily daubed with ink. There were stones in both bulging pockets of his coat. Alyosha stood facing him, two paces away, looking at him questioningly. The boy, guessing at once from Alyosha’s eyes that he was not going to beat him, dropped his guard a little and even began speaking first.
“There’s one of me and six of them ... I’ll beat them all by myself,” he said suddenly, his eyes flashing.
“One of those stones must have hurt you very badly,” Alyosha remarked.
“And I got Smurov in the head!” exclaimed the boy.
“They told me that you know me and threw a stone at me for some reason?” Alyosha asked.
The boy gave Alyosha a dark look.
“I don’t know you. Do you really know me?” Alyosha kept asking.
“Leave me alone!” the boy suddenly cried irritably, not moving from the spot, however, as if he were waiting for something, and again his eyes flashed angrily.
“Well, then, I’ll go,” said Alyosha. “Only I don’t know you, and I’m not teasing you. They told me how they tease you, but I don’t want to tease you. Goodbye!”
“Fancy pants, the monk can dance!” cried the boy, following Alyosha with the same angry and defiant look, and readying himself, besides, expecting that now Alyosha would certainly attack. But Alyosha turned, looked at him, and walked away. He had not gone three steps when he was hit painfully in the back by the biggest stone the boy had in his pocket.
“From behind, eh? So you do attack people on the sly, like they say!” Alyosha turned around to him, but this time the boy, in a rage, threw a stone right at his face. Alyosha had just time to shield himself, and the stone hit him on the elbow.
“Shame on you! What have I done to you?” he cried.
The boy stood silently and defiantly, waiting for one thing only—that now Alyosha would certainly attack him. But, seeing that he did not attack him even now, the boy went wild, like a little beast: he tore from his place and threw himself at Alyosha, and before Alyosha could make a move, the wicked boy bent down, seized his left hand in both hands, and bit his middle finger badly. He sank his teeth into it and would not let go for about ten seconds. Alyosha howled in pain, pulling his finger away with all his might. The boy finally let go and jumped back to his former distance. The finger was badly bitten, near the nail, deeply, to the bone; blood began to flow. Alyosha took his handkerchief and tightly wrapped his wounded hand. He spent almost a whole minute bandaging it. All the while the boy stood waiting. At last Alyosha raised his quiet eyes to him.
“All right,” he said, “you see how badly you’ve bitten me. That’s enough, isn’t it? Now tell me what I’ve done to you.” The boy looked at him in surprise.
“Though I don’t know you at all, and it’s the first time I’ve seen you,” Alyosha went on in the same gentle way, “it must be that I did something to you—you wouldn’t have hurt me like this for nothing. What was it that I did, and how have I wronged you, tell me?”
Instead of answering, the boy suddenly burst into loud sobs, and suddenly ran from Alyosha. Alyosha slowly walked after him towards Mikhailovsky Street, and for a long time saw the boy running far ahead, without slowing down, without turning around, and no doubt still crying loudly. He resolved that he must seek the boy out, as soon as he could find time, and clear up this mystery, which greatly struck him. But he had no time now.
Chapter 4: At the Khokhlakovs’
He soon reached the house of Madame Khokhlakov, a stone house, privately owned, two-storied, beautiful, one of the best houses in our town. Although Madame Khokhlakov spent most of her time in another district, where she had an estate, or in Moscow, where she had her own house, she still kept her house in our town, which she had inherited from her fathers and grandfathers . The estate she owned in our district was the largest of her three estates, yet until now she had come to our district quite rarely. She ran out to Alyosha while he was still in the front hall.
“Did you get it, did you get it, my letter about the new miracle?” she began nervously, quickly.
“Yes, I got it.”
“Did you spread it around? Did you show everyone? He restored the son to his mother!”
“He will die today,” said Alyosha.
“I know, I’ve heard, oh, how I long to talk with you! With you or with someone about it all. No, with you, with you! And what a pity there’s no way I can see him! The whole town is excited, everyone is expecting something. But now ... do you know that Katerina Ivanovna is here with us now ... ?”
“Ah, that’s lucky!” Alyosha exclaimed. “I can see her here, then. She asked me yesterday to be sure to come and see her today.” “I know everything, everything. I’ve heard all the details of what happened there yesterday ... and of all those horrors with that. . . creature. C’est tragique,and in her place, I—I don’t know what I’d have done in her place! But your brother, too, your Dmitri Fyodorovich is a fine one—oh, God! Alexei Fyodorovich, I’m getting confused, imagine: right now your brother, I mean, not that one, the terrible one yesterday, but the other one, Ivan Fyodorovich, is sitting and talking with her: they’re having a solemn conversation ... And you wouldn’t believe what’s happening between them now—it’s terrible, it’s a strain, I’m telling you, it’s such a terrible tale that one simply cannot believe it: they’re destroying themselves, who knows why, and they know they’re doing it, and they’re both reveling in it. I’ve been waiting for you! I’ve been thirsting for you! The main thing is, I cannot bear it. I’ll tell you everything now; but wait, there’s something else, and it’s really the main thing—ah, I even forgot that this is the main thing: tell me, why is Lise in hysterics? The moment she heard you were coming, she immediately had hysterics!”
“Maman,it is you who are having hysterics, not me,” Lise’s little voice suddenly chirped through the crack of the door to one of the side rooms. The crack was very small, and the voice was strained, exactly as when one wants terribly to laugh but tries hard to suppress it. Alyosha at once noticed the little crack, and Lise was surely peeking at him through it from her chair, but that he could not see.
“And no wonder, Lise, no wonder ... your caprices will have me in hysterics, too. But anyway, Alexei Fyodorovich, she’s so sick, she was sick all night, in a fever, moaning! I could hardly wait for morning and Herzenstube. He says he can make nothing of it and that we should wait. This Herzenstube always comes and says he can make nothing of it. As soon as you neared the house, she screamed and had a fit, and demanded to be taken here to her old room ...”
“Mama, I had no idea he was coming. It wasn’t because of him at all that I wanted to move to this room.”
“That is not true, Lise. Yulia ran to tell you that Alexei Fyodorovich was coming; she was keeping watch for you.”
“Dear, darling mama, that is terribly unwitty on your part. And if you want to make up for it now and say something very intelligent, dear mama, then please tell my dear sir, the newly arrived Alexei Fyodorovich, that he has shown his complete lack of wit by this alone, that he has ventured to come to us today after what happened yesterday, and despite the fact that everyone is laughing at him.”
“Lise, you are going too far, and I assure you that I shall finally take strict measures. Who is laughing at him? I am very glad that he has come, I need him, I cannot do without him. Oh, Alexei Fyodorovich, I’m extremely unhappy!”
“But what is the matter with you, mama darling?”
“Ah, these caprices of yours, Lise, your fickleness, your illness, this terrible night of fever, this terrible and eternal Herzenstube most of all, eternal, eternal, eternal! And, then, everything, everything ... And then even this miracle! Oh, how it struck me, how it shook me, this miracle, dear Alexei Fyodorovich! And now this tragedy there in the drawing room, which I cannot bear, I cannot, I declare to you beforehand that I cannot! A comedy, perhaps, not a tragedy. Tell me, the elder Zosima will live until tomorrow, won’t he? Oh, my God! What is happening to me? I close my eyes every moment and see that it’s all nonsense, all nonsense.”
“I should like very much to ask you,” Alyosha suddenly interrupted, “for a clean rag to wrap my finger with. I injured it badly, and it hurts very much now.”
Alyosha unwrapped his bitten finger. The handkerchief was soaked with blood. Madame Khokhlakov screamed and shut her eyes tightly.
“God, what a wound, it’s terrible!”
But Lise, as soon as she saw Alyosha’s finger through the crack, immediately swung the door open.
“Come in, come in here to me,” she cried insistently and commandingly. “And no foolishness now! Oh, Lord, why did you stand there all this time and say nothing? He might have bled to death, mama! Where did you do it? How did you do it? Water, water first of all! The wound should be washed, just put it in cold water to stop the pain, and keep it there, keep it there ... Water, quick, quick, mama, in a basin. Hurry!” she finished nervously. She was completely frightened. Alyosha’s wound struck her terribly.
“Shouldn’t we send for Herzenstube?” cried Madame Khokhlakov.
“Mama, you’ll be the death of me! Your Herzenstube will come and say he can make nothing of it! Water, water! Mama, for God’s sake, go yourself, make Yulia hurry! She’s bogged down somewhere, and can never come quickly! Please hurry, mama, or I’ll die...”
“But it’s nothing!” Alyosha exclaimed, frightened by their fright.
Yulia came running in with water. Alyosha put his finger in it.
“Mama, for God’s sake, bring some lint; lint and that stingy, muddy lotion—what’s it called?—for cuts! We have it, we do, we do ... Mama, you know where the bottle is, it’s in your bedroom, in the little cabinet on the right, a big bottle next to the lint...”
“I’ll bring everything right away, Lise, only don’t shout so, and don’t worry. See how firmly Alexei Fyodorovich endures his misfortune. Where could you have gotten such a terrible wound, Alexei Fyodorovich?”
Madame Khokhlakov hastened from the room. This was just what Lise was waiting for.
“First of all, answer the question,” she began talking quickly to Alyosha, “where did you manage to get yourself such a wound? And then I shall speak with you about quite different matters. Well?”
Alyosha, feeling instinctively that the time before her mama’s return was precious to her, hastily, with many omissions and abbreviations, but nonetheless precisely and clearly, told her of his mysterious encounter with the schoolboys. Having heard him out, Lise clasped her hands:
“But how could you, how could you get involved with schoolboys—and in that dress, too!” she cried angrily, as if she had some rights over him. “You’re just a boy yourself after that, the littlest boy there could be! But you must find out for me somehow about this bad boy, and tell me the whole story, because there’s some secret in it. Now for the second thing—but first a question: are you able, Alexei Fyodorovich, despite the pain you are suffering, to speak about perfect trifles, but to speak sensibly?”
“Perfectly able. And there’s not so much pain now.”
“That’s because you’ve kept your finger in water. It should be changed right now, because it gets warm immediately. Yulia, bring a piece of ice from the cellar at once, and a fresh basin of water. Well, now that she’s gone, I’ll get to business: this instant, dear Alexei Fyodorovich, be so good as to give me back the letter I sent you yesterday—this instant, because mama may come back any minute, and I don’t want...”
“I haven’t got the letter with me.”
“It’s not true, you do have it with you. I just knew you’d say that. You have it there in your pocket. I so regretted this silly joke all night! Return the letter to me right now, give it back!”
“I left it there.”
“But you must consider me a girl, a little, little girl after such a silly joke as that letter! I ask your forgiveness for the silly joke, but you must bring me the letter, if you really don’t have it—bring it today, you must, you must!”
“Today I simply cannot, because I’ll be going back to the monastery, and won’t be able to visit you for another two, three, maybe four days, because the elder Zosima ...”
“Four days? What nonsense! Listen, did you laugh at me very much?”
“I didn’t laugh a bit.”
“Why not?”
“Because I believed everything completely.” “You’re insulting me!”
“Not at all. As soon as I read it, I thought at once that that was how everything would be, because as soon as the elder Zosima dies, I must immediately leave the monastery. Then I’ll finish my studies and pass the exam, and when the legal time comes, we’ll get married. I will love you. Though I haven’t had much time to think yet, I don’t think I could find a better wife than you, and the elder told me to get married...”
“But I’m a freak, I’m driven around in a wheelchair!” Liza laughed, a blush coming to her cheeks.
“I’ll wheel you around myself, but I’m sure you’ll be well by then.”
“But you’re crazy,” Liza said nervously, “to make such nonsense suddenly out of such a joke! Ah, here’s mama, maybe just in time. Mama, you’re always late, how can you take so long! Here’s Yulia with the ice!”
“Oh, Lise, do not shout—above all, do not shout. All this shouting makes me ... I cannot help it if you yourself stuck the lint somewhere else ... I’ve been hunting and hunting ... I suspect you did it on purpose.”
“But how could I know he’d come with a bitten finger, otherwise maybe I really would have done it on purpose. Angel mama, you’re beginning to say extremely witty things.”
“They may be witty, Lise, but what a to-do over Alexei Fyodorovich’s finger and all that! Oh, my dear Alexei Fyodorovich, it’s not the particulars that are killing me, not some Herzenstube, but all of it together, the whole of it, that is what I cannot bear!”
“Enough, mama, enough about Herzenstube,” Liza laughed gaily. “Give me the lint quickly, mama, and the lotion. This is just Goulard’s water, Alexei Fyodorovich, now I remember the name, but it’s wonderful water. Imagine, mama, on his way here he had a fight with some boys and one of the boys bit him, now isn’t he a little, little fellow himself, and how can he get married after that, mama, because imagine, mama, he wants to get married! Imagine him married—isn’t it funny, isn’t it terrible?”
And Lise kept laughing her nervous little laugh, looking coyly at Alyosha.
“Why married, Lise? Why this all of a sudden? And why are you all of a sudden ... Besides, that boy may be rabid.”
“Oh, mama, can there be rabid boys?”
“Why can’t there be, Lise? As if I would say something silly! Your boy might have been bitten by a rabid dog, and become a rabid boy, and then he might go and bite someone around him. How well she has bandaged you, Alexei Fyodorovich, I would never have been able to do it. Does it still hurt?”
