“No, you have a charming nature, though it’s been distorted, and I quite understand why you have had such an influence on this generous, morbidly sensitive boy,” Alyosha answered warmly.
“And you say that to me!” cried Kolya; “and would you believe it, I thought — I’ve thought several times since I’ve been here — that you despised me! If only you knew how I prize your opinion!”
“But are you really so sensitive? At your age! Would you believe it, just now, when you were telling your story, I thought, as I watched you, that you must be very sensitive!”
“You thought so? What an eye you’ve got, I say! I bet that was when I was talking about the goose. That was just when I was fancying you had a great contempt for me for being in such a hurry to show off, and for a moment I quite hated you for it, and began talking like a fool.
Then I fancied — just now, here — when I said that if there were no God He would have to be invented, that I was in too great a hurry to display my knowledge, especially as I got that phrase out of a book.
But I swear I wasn’t showing off out of vanity, though I really don’t know why. Because I was so pleased? Yes, I believe it was because I was so pleased… though it’s perfectly disgraceful for anyone to be gushing directly they are pleased, I know that. But I am convinced now that you don’t despise me; it was all my imagination. Oh, Karamazov, I am profoundly unhappy. I sometimes fancy all sorts of things, that everyone is laughing at me, the whole world, and then I feel ready to overturn the whole order of things.”
“And you worry everyone about you,” smiled Alyosha.
“Yes, I worry everyone about me, especially my mother. Karamazov, tell me, am I very ridiculous now?”
“Don’t think about that, don’t think of it at all!” cried Alyosha. “And what does ridiculous mean? Isn’t everyone constantly being or seeming ridiculous? Besides, nearly all clever people now are fearfully afraid of being ridiculous, and that makes them unhappy.
All I am surprised at is that you should be feeling that so early, though I’ve observed it for some time past,, not only in you. Nowadays the very children have begun to suffer from it.
It’s almost a sort of insanity. The devil has taken the form of that vanity and entered into the whole generation; it’s simply the devil,” added Alyosha, without a trace of the smile that Kolya, staring at him, expected to see. “You are like everyone else,” said Alyosha, in conclusion, “that is, like very many others. Only you must not be like everybody else, that’s all.”
“Even if everyone is like that?”
“Yes, even if everyone is like that. You be the only one not like it. You really are not like everyone else, here you are not ashamed to confess to something bad and even ridiculous. And who will admit so much in these days? No one. And people have even ceased to feel the impulse to self-criticism. Don’t be like everyone else, even if you are the only one.”
“Splendid! I was not mistaken in you. You know how to console one. Oh, how I have longed to know you, Karamazov! I’ve long been eager for this meeting. Can you really have thought about me, too? You said just now that you thought of me, too?”
“Yes, I’d heard of you and had thought of you, too… and if it’s partly vanity that makes you ask, it doesn’t matter.”
“Do you know, Karamazov, our talk has been like a declaration of love,” said Kolya, in a bashful and melting voice. “That’s not ridiculous, is it?”
“Not at all ridiculous, and if it were, it wouldn’t matter, because it’s been a good thing.” Alyosha smiled brightly.
“But do you know, Karamazov, you must admit that you are a little ashamed yourself, now…. I see it by your eyes.” Kolya smiled with a sort of sly happiness.
“Why ashamed?”
“Well, why are you blushing?”
“It was you made me blush,” laughed Alyosha, and he really did blush. “Oh, well, I am a little, goodness knows why, I don’t know..,” he muttered, almost embarrassed.
“Oh, how I love you and admire you at this moment just because you are rather ashamed! Because you are just like me,” cried Kolya, in positive ecstasy. His cheeks glowed, his eyes beamed.
“You know, Kolya, you will be very unhappy in your life,” something made Alyosha say suddenly.
“I know, I know. How you know it all before hand!” Kolya agreed at once.
“But you will bless life on the whole, all the same.”
“Just so, hurrah! You are a prophet. Oh, we shall get on together, Karamazov! Do you know, what delights me most, is that you treat me quite like an equal. But we are not equals, no, we are not, you are better! But we shall get on. Do you know, all this last month, I’ve been saying to myself, ‘Either we shall be friends at once, for ever, or we shall part enemies to the grave!’”
“And saying that, of course, you loved me,” Alyosha laughed gaily.
“I did. I loved you awfully. I’ve been loving and dreaming of you. And how do you know it all beforehand? Ah, here’s the doctor. Goodness! What will he tell us? Look at his face!”
Chapter 7 Ilusha
THE doctor came out of the room again, muffled in his fur coat and with his cap on his head. His face looked almost angry and disgusted, as though he were afraid of getting dirty. He cast a cursory glance round the passage, looking sternly at Alyosha and Kolya as he did so.
Alyosha waved from the door to the coachman, and the carriage that had brought the doctor drove up. The captain darted out after the doctor, and, bowing apologetically, stopped him to get the last word. The poor fellow looked utterly crushed; there was a scared look in his eyes.
“Your Excellency, your Excellency… is it possible?” he began, but could not go on and clasped his hands in despair. Yet he still gazed imploringly at the doctor, as though a word from him might still change the poor boy’s fate.
“I can’t help it, I am not God!” the doctor answered offhand, though with the customary impressiveness.
“Doctor… your Excellency… and will it be soon, soon?”
“You must be prepared for anything,” said the doctor in emphatic and incisive tones, and dropping his eyes, he was about to step out to the coach.
“Your Excellency, for Christ’s sake!” the terror-stricken captain stopped him again. “Your Excellency! But can nothing, absolutely nothing save him now?”
“It’s not in my hands now,” said the doctor impatiently, “but h’m!..,” he stopped suddenly. “If you could, for instance… send… your patient… at once, without delay” (the words “at once, without delay,” the doctor uttered with an almost wrathful sternness that made the captain start) “to Syracuse, the change to the new be-ne-ficial
“To Syracuse!” cried the captain, unable to grasp what was said.
“Syracuse is in Sicily,” Kolya jerked out suddenly in explanation. The doctor looked at him.
“Sicily! Your Excellency,” faltered the captain, “but you’ve seen” — he spread out his hands, indicating his surroundings— “mamma and my family?”
“N-no, SiciIy is not the place for the family, the family should go to Caucasus in the early spring… your daughter must go to the Caucasus, and your wife… after a course of the waters in the Caucasus for her rheumatism… must be sent straight to Paris to the mental specialist Lepelletier; I could give you a note to him, and then… there might be a change-”
“Doctor, doctor! But you see!” The captain flung wide his hands again despairingly, indicating the bare wooden walls of the passage.
“Well, that’s not my business,” grinned the doctor. “I have only told you the answer of medical science to your question as to possible
“Don’t be afraid, apothecary, my dog won’t bite you,” Kolya rapped out loudly, noticing the doctor’s rather uneasy glance at Perezvon, who was standing in the doorway. There was a wrathful note in Kolya’s voice. He used the word apothecary instead of doctor on purpose, and, as he explained afterwards, used it “to insult him.”
“What’s that?” The doctor flung up his head, staring with surprise at Kolya. “Who’s this?” he addressed Alyosha, as though asking him to explain.
“It’s Perezvon’s master, don’t worry about me,” Kolya said incisively again.
“Perezvon?”* repeated the doctor, perplexed.
- i.e. a chime of bells.
“He hears the bell, but where it is he cannot tell. Good-bye, we shall meet in Syracuse.”
“Who’s this? Who’s this?” The doctor flew into a terrible rage.
“He is a schoolboy, doctor, he is a mischievous boy; take no notice of him,” said Alyosha, frowning and speaking quickly. “Kolya, hold your tongue!” he cried to Krassotkin. “Take no notice of him, doctor,” he repeated, rather impatiently.
“He wants a thrashing, a good thrashing!” The doctor stamped in a perfect fury.
“And you know, apothecary, my Perezvon might bite!” said Kolya, turning pale, with quivering voice and flashing eyes. “Ici, Perezvon!”
“Kolya, if you say another word, I’ll have nothing more to do with you,” Alyosha cried peremptorily.
“There is only one man in the world who can command Nikolay Krassotkin — this is the man,” Kolya pointed to Alyosha. “I obey him, good-bye!”
He stepped forward, opened the door, and quickly went into the inner room. Perezvon flew after him. The doctor stood still for five seconds in amazement, looking at Alyosha; then, with a curse, he
