Текст книги "The Brothers Karamazov"
Автор книги: Федор Достоевский
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The class was astonished to discover The slob Kolbasnikov is a lover.
And so on, very funny, I’ll bring it to you later. I will say nothing about Dardanelov: he’s a man of learning, decidedly a man of learning. I respect his kind, and not at all because he stood up for me . . .” “But you still showed him up over who founded Troy!” Smurov suddenly interjected, being decidedly proud of Krasotkin at the moment. He liked the story about the goose very much.
“Did you really show him up?” the captain joined in fawningly. “Over who founded Troy, sir? We heard about that, that you showed him up. Ilyushechka told me right then, sir...”
“He knows everything, papa, better than any of us!” Ilyushechka also joined in. “He only pretends to be like that, but he’s the first student in every subject ...”
Ilyusha looked at Kolya with boundless happiness.
“Well, it’s all nonsense about Troy, trifles. I myself consider it an idle question,” Kolya responded with prideful modesty. He was now perfectly on pitch, though he was still somewhat worried: he felt that he was overly excited, and that he had told about the goose, for example, too openheartedly, while Alyosha had kept silent all through the story and looked serious, so that it gradually began to rankle the vain boy: “Is he silent because he despises me, thinking that I’m seeking his praise? If so, if he dares to think so, then I...”
“I consider it decidedly an idle question,” he proudly broke off once again.
“I know who founded Troy,” one boy suddenly spoke quite unexpectedly. He had said almost nothing till then, was silent and obviously shy, a very pretty-looking boy, about eleven years old, by the name of Kartashov. He was sitting just next to the door. Kolya gave him a surprised and imposing look. The thing was that the question of who precisely founded Troy had decidedly become a great secret in all the classes, and in order to penetrate it one had to read Smaragdov. But no one except Kolya had a copy of Smaragdov. And so one day when Kolya’s back was turned, the boy Kartashov had quickly and slyly opened Smaragdov, which lay among Kolya’s books, and lighted just on the passage discussing the founders of Troy. That had been some time ago, but he was somehow embarrassed and could not bring himself to reveal publicly that he, too, knew who had founded Troy, for fear something might come of it and Kolya might somehow confound him. But now, suddenly, for some reason he could not refrain from saying it. He had been wanting to for a long time.
“Well, who did?” Kolya turned to him arrogantly and condescendingly, having already seen from the boy’s face that he indeed did know, and, of course, preparing himself at once for all the consequences. What is known as a dissonance came into the general mood.
“Troy was founded by Teucer, Dardanus, Ilius, and Tros,” the boy rapped out at once, and instantly blushed all over, blushed so much that it was pitiful to see. But all the boys stared fixedly at him, stared for a whole minute, and then suddenly all those staring eyes turned at once to Kolya. He stood looking the bold boy up and down with disdainful equanimity.
“And in what sense did they found it?” he deigned at last to speak. “What generally is meant by the founding of a city or a state? Did each of them come and lay a brick, or what?”
There was laughter. The guilty boy turned from pink to crimson. He was silent, he was on the verge of tears. Kolya kept him like that for another minute.
“If one is to speak of such historical events as the founding of a nation, one must first know what it means,” he uttered distinctly, severely, by way of admonition. “I, in any case, do not regard these old wives’ tales as important, and generally I do not have much respect for world history,” he suddenly added nonchalantly, now addressing everyone present.
“World history, sir? “ the captain inquired suddenly with some sort of fear.
“Yes, world history. It is the study of the succession of human follies, and nothing more. I only respect mathematics and natural science,” Kolya swaggered, and glanced at Alyosha: his was the only opinion in the room that he feared. But Alyosha was still as silent and serious as before. If Alyosha had said anything now, the matter would have ended there, but Alyosha did not respond, and “his silence could well be contemptuous,” and at that Kolya became quite vexed.
“And also these classical languages we have now: simply madness, nothing more ... Again you seem to disagree with me, Karamazov?”
“I disagree,” Alyosha smiled restrainedly.
“Classical languages, if you want my full opinion about them—it’s a police measure, that’s the sole purpose for introducing them,” again Kolya gradually became breathless, “they were introduced because they’re boring, and because they dull one’s faculties. It was boring already, so how to make it even more boring? It was muddled already, so how to make it even more muddled? And so they thought up the classical languages. That is my full opinion of them, and I hope I shall never change it,” Kolya ended sharply. Flushed spots appeared on both his cheeks.
“That’s true,” Smurov, who had been listening diligently, suddenly agreed in a ringing and convinced voice.
“And he’s first in Latin himself!” one boy in the crowd cried.
“Yes, papa, he says that, and he’s first in the class in Latin,” Ilyusha echoed.
“What of it?” Kolya found it necessary to defend himself, though the praise also pleased him very much. “I grind away at Latin because I have to, because I promised my mother I’d finish school, and I think that whatever one does one ought to do well, but in my soul I deeply despise classicism and all that baseness ... You don’t agree, Karamazov?”
“Why ‘baseness’?” Alyosha smiled again.
“But, good heavens, the classics have been translated into all languages, therefore there was absolutely no need for Latin in order to study the classics, they needed it only as a police measure and to dull one’s faculties. Wouldn’t you call that baseness?”
“But who taught you all that?” exclaimed Alyosha, at last surprised. [280]
“First of all, I myself am capable of understanding without being taught, and second, let me inform you that the very thing I just explained about the classics being translated, our teacher, Kolbasnikov, said himself to the whole third class ...”
“The doctor has come!” Ninochka, who had been silent all the while, suddenly exclaimed.
Indeed, a carriage belonging to Madame Khokhlakov drove up to the gates of the house. The captain, who had been expecting the doctor all morning, madly rushed out to meet him. Mama pulled herself together and assumed an important air. Alyosha went over to Ilyusha and began straightening his pillow. Ninochka anxiously watched from her armchair as he straightened the little bed. The boys began saying good-bye hastily, some of them promised to stop by in the evening. Kolya called Perezvon, and he jumped down from the bed.
“I’m not leaving, I’m not,” Kolya said hurriedly to Ilyusha, “I’ll wait in the entryway and come back when the doctor leaves, I’ll bring Perezvon back.”
But the doctor was already coming in—an imposing figure in a bearskin coat, with long, dark side-whiskers and a gleamingly shaven chin. Having stepped across the threshold, he suddenly stopped as if taken aback: he must have thought he had come to the wrong place. “What’s this? Where am I?” he muttered, without doffing his fur coat or his sealskin hat with its sealskin visor. The crowd, the poverty of the room, the laundry hanging on a line in the corner bewildered him. The captain bent double before him.
“It’s here you were coming, sir, it’s here, sir,” he kept muttering servilely, “you’ve come here, sir, to my place, come to my place, sir...”
“Sne-gi-ryov?” the doctor pronounced loudly and importantly. “Mr. Snegiryov—is that you?”
“It’s me, sir.”
“Ah!”
The doctor once again looked squeamishly around the room and threw off his fur coat. An important decoration hanging on his neck flashed in everyone’s eyes. The captain caught the coat in midair, and the doctor took off his hat.
“Where is the patient?” he asked loudly and emphatically.
Chapter 6: Precocity
“What do you think the doctor will say to him? “ Kolya rattled out. “What a disgusting mug, by the way, don’t you agree? I can’t stand medicine!”
“Ilyusha will die. That seems certain to me now,” Alyosha replied sadly.
“Swindlers! Medicine is a swindle! I’m glad, however, to have met you, Karamazov. I’ve long wanted to meet you. Only it’s too bad we’ve met so sadly ...”
Kolya would have liked very much to say something even more ardent, more expansive, but something seemed to cramp him. Alyosha noticed it, smiled, and pressed his hand.
“I’ve long learned to respect the rare person in you,” Kolya muttered again, faltering and becoming confused. “I’ve heard you are a mystic and were in the monastery. I know you are a mystic, but ... that didn’t stop me. The touch of reality will cure you ... With natures like yours, it can’t be otherwise.”
“What do you mean by ‘a mystic’? Cure me of what?” Alyosha was a little surprised.
“Well, God and all that.”
“What, don’t you believe in God?”
“On the contrary, I have nothing against God. Of course God is only a hypothesis ... but ... I admit, he is necessary, for the sake of order ... for the order of the world and so on ... and if there were no God, he would have to be invented,” [281]Kolya added, beginning to blush. He suddenly fancied that Alyosha might be thinking he wanted to show off his knowledge and prove how “adult” he was. “And I don’t want to show off my knowledge at all,” Kolya thought indignantly. And he suddenly became quite vexed.
“I’ll admit, I can’t stand entering into all these debates,” he snapped. “It’s possible to love mankind even without believing in God, don’t you think? Voltaire did not believe in God, but he loved mankind, didn’t he?” (“Again, again!” he thought to himself.)
“Voltaire believed in God, but very little, it seems, and it seems he also loved mankind very little,” Alyosha said softly, restrainedly, and quite naturally, as if he were talking to someone of the same age or even older than himself. Kolya was struck precisely by Alyosha’s uncertainty, as it were, in his opinion of Voltaire, and that he seemed to leave it precisely up to him, little Kolya, to resolve the question.
“So you’ve read Voltaire?” Alyosha concluded.
“No, I can’t say I’ve read him ... I’ve read Candide, [282] though, in a Russian translation ... an old, clumsy translation, very funny . . .”(“Again, again!”)
“And did you understand it?”
“Oh, yes, everything ... I mean ... why do you think I wouldn’t understand it? Of course there are lots of salacious things in it ... But of course I’m capable of understanding that it’s a philosophical novel, written in order to put forward an idea ... ,” Kolya was now completely muddled. “I’m a socialist, Karamazov, I am an incorrigible socialist,” he suddenly broke off for no reason at all.
“A socialist?” Alyosha laughed. “But how have you had time? You’re still only thirteen, I think?”
Kolya cringed.
“First of all, I’m fourteen, not thirteen, fourteen in two weeks,” he flushed deeply, “and second, I absolutely do not understand what my age has to do with it. The point is what my convictions are, not how old I am, isn’t it?”
“When you’re older, you will see yourself what significance age has upon convictions. It also occurred to me that you were using words that weren’t yours,” Alyosha replied calmly and modestly, but Kolya hotly interrupted him.
“For God’s sake, you want obedience and mysticism. You must agree, for instance, that the Christian faith has only served the rich and noble, so as to keep the lower classes in slavery, isn’t that so?”
“Ah, I know where you read that, and I knew someone must have been teaching you!” Alyosha exclaimed.
“For God’s sake, why must have I read it? And no one has taught me at all. I myself am capable ... And, if you like, I’m not against Christ. He was a very humane person, and if he was living in our time, he would go straight to join the revolutionaries, and perhaps would play a conspicuous part ... It’s even certain he would.”
“But where, where did you get all that? What kind of fool have you been dealing with?” Alyosha exclaimed.
“For God’s sake, the truth can’t be hidden! Of course, I often talk with Mr. Rakitin about a certain matter, but ... Old Belinsky used to say the same thing, they say.”
“Belinsky? I don’t remember. He never wrote it anywhere.” “Maybe he didn’t write it, but they say he said it. I heard it from a certain ... ah, the devil...!”
“And have you read Belinsky?”
“In fact ... no ... I haven’t exactly read him, but ... the part about Tatiana, why she didn’t go with Onegin, I did read.” [283]
“What? Why she didn’t go with Onegin? Can it be that you already . . understand that?”
“For God’s sake, you seem to take me for the boy Smurov,” Kolya grinned irritably. “By the way, please don’t think I’m such a revolutionary. I quite often disagree with Mr. Rakitin. If I speak about Tatiana, it’s not at all to say that I’m for women’s emancipation. I acknowledge that woman is a subordinate creature and must obey. Les femmes tricottent, [284] as Napoleon said,” Kolya smirked for some reason, “and at least here I fully share the conviction of that pseudo great man. I also think, for example, that to flee the fatherland for America is a base thing, worse than base—it’s foolish. Why go to America, if one can also be of much use to mankind here? Precisely now. There’s a whole mass of fruitful activity. That was my answer.”
“Answer? Who did you answer? Has someone already invited you to America?”
“I must admit they were urging me, but I declined. Naturally that’s between us, Karamazov, not a word to anyone, do you hear? It’s only for you. I have no desire to fall into the kindly clutches of the Third Department and take lessons at the Chain Bridge.
You will never forget
The house near the Chain Bridge!
Do you remember? Splendid! What are you laughing at? Do you think it’s all lies?” (“And what if he finds out that there’s only that one issue of The Bellin my father’s bookcase, and that I never read any more than that?” Kolya thought fleetingly, but with a shudder.) [285]
“Oh, no, I’m not laughing, and I don’t at all think you’ve been lying to me. That’s just it, I don’t think so because all of that, alas, is quite true! Well, and Pushkin, tell me, have you read him, have you read Onegin... ? You just mentioned Tatiana.”
“No, I haven’t read it, but I intend to. I have no prejudices, Karamazov. I want to hear both sides. Why do you ask?”
“I just wondered.”
“Tell me, Karamazov, do you despise me terribly?” Kolya suddenly blurted out, and he drew himself up straight before Alyosha, as if positioning himself. “Kindly tell me, without beating around the bush.”
“I despise you?” Alyosha looked at him with surprise. “But what for? I’m only sad that such a lovely nature as yours, which has not yet begun to live, should already be perverted by all this crude nonsense.”
“Don’t worry about my nature,” Kolya interrupted, not without some smugness, “but it’s true that I’m insecure. Stupidly insecure, crudely insecure. You just smiled, and I thought you seemed to...”
“Ah, I smiled at something quite different. You see, what I smiled at was this: I recently read a comment by a foreigner, a German, who used to live in Russia, about our young students these days. ‘Show a Russian schoolboy a chart of the heavens,’ he writes, ‘of which hitherto he had no idea at all, and the next day he will return the chart to you with corrections.’ No knowledge and boundless conceit—that’s what the German meant to say about the Russian schoolboy.”
“Ah, but he’s absolutely right!” Krasotkin suddenly burst out laughing. “Verissimo,exactly! Bravo, German! However, the Kraut didn’t look at the good side, what do you think? Conceit—so be it, it comes from youth, it will correct itself, if there’s any need for correction, but, on the other hand, an independent spirit, almost from childhood, a boldness of thought and conviction, and not the spirit of those sausage-makers groveling before the authorities ... But still, the German put it well! Bravo, German! Though the Germans still ought to be strangled. They may be good at science there, but they still ought to be strangled ...”
“Strangled? Why?” Alyosha smiled.
“Well, maybe I was just mouthing off, I agree. Sometimes I’m a terrible child, and when I’m pleased about something, I can’t restrain myself, I’m ready to mouth all kinds of nonsense. Listen, though, here we are chatting about trifles, and that doctor seems to have got stuck in there for a long time. Though maybe he’s examining ‘mama’ too, and that crippled Ninochka. You know, I like that Ninochka. She suddenly whispered to me as I was going out: ‘Why didn’t you come before?’ And in such a voice, so reproachful! I think she’s terribly kind and pathetic.”
“Yes, yes! When you’ve come more often, you’ll see what sort of being she is. It’s very good for you to get to know such beings, in order to learn to value many other things besides, which you will learn precisely from knowing these beings,” Alyosha observed warmly. “That will remake you more than anything.”
“Oh, how sorry I am and how I scold myself for not coming sooner!” Kolya exclaimed with bitter feeling.
“Yes, it’s a great pity. You saw for yourself what a joyful impression you made on the poor child! And how he grieved as he waited for you!”
“Don’t tell me! You’re just rubbing it in! It serves me right, though: it was vanity that kept me from coming, egoistic vanity and base despotism, which I haven’t been able to get rid of all my life, though all my life I’ve been trying to break myself. I’m a scoundrel in many ways, Karamazov, I see it now!”
“No, you have a lovely nature, though it’s been perverted, and I fully understand how you could have such an influence on this noble and morbidly sensitive boy!” Alyosha replied ardently.
“And you say that to me!” Kolya cried, “and just imagine, I thought—several times already since I came here today—I thought you despised me! If only you knew how I value your opinion!”
“But can it be that you really are so insecure? At your age? Well, imagine, I was thinking just that, as I watched you telling stories there in the room, that you must be very insecure.”
“You thought that? What an eye you have, really, you see, you see! I bet it was when I was telling about the goose. Precisely at that moment I imagined you must deeply despise me for being in such a hurry to show what a fine fellow I was, and I even hated you for it and began talking drivel. Then I imagined (it was here, just now) when I was saying: ‘If there were no God, he would have to be invented,’ that I was in too great a hurry to show off my education, especially since I got the phrase out of a book. But I swear to you, I was in a hurry to show off, not out of vanity, but just, I don’t know, for the joy of it, by God, as if for the joy of it ... though it’s an extremely disgraceful quality in a man to go throwing himself on everyone’s neck out of joy. I know that. But now instead I’m convinced that you don’t despise me, that I invented it all myself. Oh, Karamazov, I’m profoundly unhappy. Sometimes I imagine God knows what, that everyone is laughing at me, the whole world, and then I ... then I’m quite ready to destroy the whole order of things.”
“And you torment the people around you,” Alyosha smiled.
“And I torment the people around me, especially my mother. Tell me, Karamazov, am I very ridiculous now?”
“But don’t think about it, don’t think about it at all!” Alyosha exclaimed. “And what does it mean—ridiculous? What does it matter how many times a man is or seems to be ridiculous? Besides, nowadays almost all capable people are terribly afraid of being ridiculous, and are miserable because of it. I’m only surprised that you’ve begun to feel it so early, though, by the way, I’ve been noticing it for a long time, and not in you alone. Nowadays even children almost are already beginning to suffer from it. It’s almost a madness. The devil has incarnated himself in this vanity and crept into a whole generation—precisely the devil,” Alyosha added, not smiling at all, as Kolya, who was looking at him intently, thought for a moment. “You are like everyone else,” Alyosha concluded, “that is, like a great many others, only you ought not to be like everyone else, that’s what.”
“Even if everyone is like that?” “Yes, even if everyone is like that. You be the only one who is not like that. And in fact you’re not like everyone else: you weren’t ashamed just now to confess bad and even ridiculous things about yourself. Who would confess such things nowadays? No one, and people have even stopped feeling any need for self-judgment. So do not be like everyone else; even if you are the only one left who is not like that, still do not be like that.”
“Splendid! I was not mistaken in you. You know how to give comfort. Oh, how I’ve yearned for you, Karamazov, how long I’ve been seeking to meet you! Can it be that you also thought about me? You said just now that you were thinking about me?”
“Yes, I had heard about you and also thought about you ... and if it’s partly vanity that makes you ask, it doesn’t matter.”
“You know, Karamazov, our talk is something like a declaration of love,” Kolya said in a sort of limp and bashful voice. “That’s not ridiculous, is it?”
“Not ridiculous at all, and even if it were ridiculous, it still wouldn’t matter, because it’s good,” Alyosha smiled brightly.
“And you know, Karamazov, you must admit that you yourself feel a little ashamed with me now ... I can see it in your eyes,” Kolya smiled somehow slyly, but also with almost a sort of happiness.
“Ashamed of what?”
“Why did you blush, then?”
“But it was you who made me blush!” Alyosha laughed, and indeed blushed all over. “Well, yes, a little ashamed, God knows why, I don’t know ... ,” he muttered, even almost embarrassed.
“Oh, how I love you and value you right now, precisely because you, too, are ashamed of something with me! Because you’re just like me!” Kolya exclaimed, decidedly in ecstasy. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes shining.
“Listen, Kolya, by the way, you are going to be a very unhappy man in your life,” Alyosha suddenly said for some reason.
“I know, I know. How do you know all that beforehand!” Kolya confirmed at once.
“But on the whole you will bless life all the same.”
“Precisely! Hurrah! You’re a prophet. Oh, we will become close, Karamazov. You know, what delights me most of all is that you treat me absolutely as an equal. And we’re not equal, no, not equal, you are higher! But we will become close. You know, all this past month I’ve been saying to myself: He and I will either become close friends at once and forever, or from the first we’ll part as mortal enemies! ‘“
“And surely you already loved me as you said it!” Alyosha was laughing happily. “I did, I loved you terribly, I loved you, and I was dreaming about you! But how do you know everything beforehand? Hah, here’s the doctor. Lord, what’s he going to say? Look at his face!”
Chapter 7: Ilyusha
The doctor was just coming out of the room, already wrapped up in his fur coat and with his hat on his head. His face was almost angry and squeamish, as if he were afraid of dirtying himself on something. He gave a cursory look around the entryway and glanced sternly at Alyosha and Kolya. Alyosha waved to the coachman from the doorway, and the carriage that had brought the doctor drove up to the front door. The captain rushed out after the doctor and, bending low, almost writhing before him, stopped him to get his final word. The poor man looked completely crushed, his eyes were frightened.
“Your Excellency, your Excellency ... can it be ... ?” he began, and could not finish, but simply clasped his hands in despair, though still making a last plea to the doctor with his eyes, as if a word from the doctor now might indeed change the poor boy’s sentence.
“What can I do? I am not God,” the doctor replied in a casual, though habitually imposing, voice.
“Doctor ... your Excellency ... and will it be soon, soon?”
“Be pre-pared for any-thing,” the doctor pronounced, emphasizing each syllable, and, lowering his eyes, he himself prepared to step across the threshold to the carriage.
“Your Excellency, for Christ’s sake!” the captain, frightened, stopped him again. “Your Excellency! ... isn’t there anything, can it be that nothing, nothing at all can save ... ?”
“It no longer de-pends on me,” the doctor spoke impatiently, “but, however, hmm,” he suddenly paused, “if you could, for example ... con-vey ... your patient ... at once and without the least delay”(the doctor uttered the words “at once and without the least delay” not so much sternly as almost angrily, so that the captain was even startled) “to Sy-ra-cuse, then ... as a result of the new, fa-vor-able cli-ma-tic conditions ... there might, perhaps, be...”
“To Syracuse!” the captain cried, as if he still understood nothing. “Syracuse—it’s in Sicily,” Kolya suddenly snapped loudly, by way of explanation. The doctor looked at him.
“To Sicily! Good Lord, your Excellency,” the captain was at a loss. “But haven’t you seen?” he pointed to his surroundings with both hands. “And mama, and the family?”
“N-no, the family should go, not to Sicily, but to the Caucasus, in early spring ... your daughter to the Caucasus, and your wife ... after a course of treatments with the waters—also in the Caucasus, in view of her rheumatism ... should immediately afterwards be con-veyed to Paris, to the clinic of the psy-chi-a-trist Le-pel-le-tier, I can give you a note to him, and then there might, perhaps, be...”
“Doctor, doctor! But don’t you see!” the captain again waved his hands, pointing in despair at the bare log walls of the entryway.
“Ah, that is not my business,” the doctor grinned, “I have merely said what sci-ence can say to your questions about last measures. As for the rest ... to my regret ...”
“Don’t worry, leech, my dog won’t bite you,” Kolya cut in abruptly, having noticed the doctor’s somewhat anxious look at Perezvon, who was standing in the doorway. An angry note rang in Kolya’s voice. And he used the word “leech” instead of “doctor” on purpose,as he declared afterwards, and “meant it as an insult.”
“What did you say?” the doctor threw back his head and stared at Kolya in surprise. “Who is this?” he suddenly turned to Alyosha, as if asking him for an explanation.
“This is Perezvon’s master, leech, don’t worry about my humble self,” Kolya snapped again.
“Swan?” the doctor repeated, not understanding what “Perezvon” meant.
“Yes, as in zvon-song. Good-bye, leech, see you in Syracuse.”
“Wh-ho is he? Who, who?” the doctor suddenly became terribly excited.
“A local schoolboy, doctor, he’s a prankster, don’t pay any attention to him,” Alyosha rattled out, frowning. “Kolya, be still!” he cried to Krasotkin. “Pay no attention to him, doctor,” he repeated, this time more impatiently.
“Whip-ped, he ought to be whip-ped!” the doctor, who for some reason was utterly infuriated, began stamping his feet.
“On the other hand, leech, my Perezvon may just bite!” Kolya said in a trembling voice, turning pale, his eyes flashing. “Ici, Perezvon!”
“Kolya, if you say another word, I’ll break with you forever,” Alyosha cried peremptorily.
“Leech, there is only one person in the whole world who can tell Nikolai Krasotkin what to do—this is the man,” Kolya pointed to Alyosha. “I obey him. Good-bye!”
He tore himself from his place, opened the door, and quickly went into the room. Perezvon dashed after him. The doctor stood stupefied, as it were, for another five seconds, looking at Alyosha, then suddenly spat and quickly went out to the carriage, repeating loudly: “This-s is, this-s is, this-s is ... I don’t know what this-s is!” The captain rushed to help him into the carriage. Alyosha followed Kolya into the room. He was already standing by Ilyusha’s bed. Ilyusha was holding him by the hand and calling his papa. In a moment the captain, too, returned.
“Papa, papa, come here ... we ... ,” Ilyusha prattled in great excitement, but, apparently unable to go on, suddenly thrust both his thin arms out and, as firmly as he could, embraced the two of them, Kolya and his papa, uniting them in one embrace and pressing himself to them. The captain suddenly began shaking all over with silent sobs, and Kolya’s lips and chin started trembling.
“Papa, papa! I’m so sorry for you, papa!” Ilyusha moaned bitterly.
“Ilyushechka ... darling ... the doctor said ... you’ll get well. . we’ll be happy ... the doctor ... ,” the captain started to say.
“Ah, papa! I know what the new doctor told you about me ... I could see!” Ilyusha exclaimed, and again firmly, with all his strength, he pressed them both to himself, hiding his face on his papa’s shoulder.
“Papa, don’t cry ... and when I die, you get some nice boy, another one ... choose from all of them, a nice one, call him Ilyusha, and love him instead of me...”
“Shut up, old man, you’ll get well!” Krasotkin suddenly shouted as if he were angry.
“And don’t ever forget me, papa,”Ilyusha went on,”visit my grave ... and one more thing, papa, you must bury me by the big stone where we used to go for our walks, and visit me there with Krasotkin, in the evenings ... And Perezvon ... And I’ll be waiting for you ... Papa, papa!”
His voice broke off. All three embraced one another and were silent now. Ninochka, too, wept quietly in her chair, and suddenly, seeing everyone crying, the mother also dissolved in tears.
“Ilyushechka! Ilyushechka!” she kept exclaiming.
Krasotkin suddenly freed himself from Ilyusha’s embrace.
“Good-bye, old man, my mother’s expecting me for dinner,” he spoke quickly. “Too bad I didn’t warn her! She’ll be really worried ... But after dinner I’ll come right back, for the whole day, for the whole evening, and I’ll tell you so many things, so many things! And I’ll bring Perezvon—I’ll have to take him with me now, because without me he’ll howl and bother you—goodbye!”
