And the poor mad woman broke into sobs, and tears streamed down her cheeks. The captain rushed up to her.
«Mamma, mamma, my dear, give over! You are not lonely. Everyone loves you, everyone adores you.» He began kissing both her hands again and tenderly stroking her face; taking the dinner-napkin, he began wiping away her tears. Alyosha fancied that he too had tears in his eyes. «There, you see, you hear?» he turned with a sort of fury to Alyosha, pointing to the poor imbecile.
«I see and hear,» muttered Alyosha.
«Father, father, how can you- with him! Let him alone!» cried the boy, sitting up in his bed and gazing at his father with glowing eyes.
«Do give over fooling, showing off your silly antics which never lead to anything! shouted Varvara, stamping her foot with passion.
«Your anger is quite just this time, Varvara, and I’ll make haste to satisfy you. Come, put on your cap, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and I’ll put on mine. We will go out. I have a word to say to you in earnest, but not within these walls. This girl sitting here is my daughter Nina; I forgot to introduce her to you. She is a heavenly angel incarnate… who has flown down to us mortals,… if you can understand.»
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«There he is shaking all over, as though he is in convulsions!» Varvara went on indig-nantly.
«And she there stamping her foot at me and calling me a fool just now, she is a heavenly angel incarnate too, and she has good reason to call me so. Come along, Alexey Fyodorovitch, we must make an end.»
And, snatching Alyosha’s hand, he drew him out of the room into the street.
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«THE air is fresh, but in my apartment it is not so in any sense of the word. Let us walk slowly, sir. I should be glad of your kind interest.»
«I too have something important to say to you,» observed Alyosha, «only I don’t know how to begin.»
«To be sure you must have business with me. You would never have looked in upon me without some object. Unless you come simply to complain of the boy, and that’s hardly likely. And, by the way, about the boy: I could not explain to you in there, but here I will describe that scene to you. My tow was thicker a week ago- I mean my beard. That’s the nickname they give to my beard, the schoolboys most of all. Well, your brother Dmitri Fy-odorovitch was pulling me by my beard, I’d done nothing, he was in a towering rage and happened to come upon me. He dragged me out of the tavern into the market place; at that moment the boys were coming out of school, and with them Ilusha. As soon as he saw me in such a state he rushed up to me. ‘Father,’ he cried, ‘father!’ He caught hold of me, hugged me, tried to pull me away, crying to my assailant, ‘Let go, let go, it’s my father, forgive him!’-yes, he actually cried ‘forgive him.’ He clutched at that hand, that very hand, in his little hands and kissed it…. I remember his little face at that moment, I haven’t forgotten it and I never shall!»
«I swear,» cried Alyosha, «that my brother will express his most deep and sincere regret, even if he has to go down on his knees in that same market-place…. I’ll make him or he is no brother of mine!
«Aha, then it’s only a suggestion! And it does not come from him but simply from the generosity of your own warm heart. You should have said so. No, in that case allow me to tell you of your brother’s highly chivalrous soldierly generosity, for he did give expression to it at the time. He left off dragging me by my beard and released me: ‘You are an officer,’ he said, ‘and I am an officer, if you can find a decent man to be your second send me your challenge. I will give satisfaction, though you are a scoundrel.’ That’s what he said. A chival-rous spirit indeed! I retired with Ilusha, and that scene is a family record imprinted forever on Ilusha’s soul. No, it’s not for us to claim the privileges of noblemen. Judge for yourself. You’ve just been in our mansion, what did you see there? Three ladies, one a cripple and weak-minded, another a cripple and hunchback and the third not crippled but far too clever. She is a student, dying to get back to Petersburg, to work for the emancipation of the Russian woman on the banks of the Neva. I won’t speak of Ilusha, he is only nine. I am alone in the world, and if I die, what will become of all of them? I simply ask you that. And if I challenge him and he kills me on the spot, what then? What will become of them? And worse still, if he doesn’t kill me but only cripples me: I couldn’t work, but I should still be a mouth to feed. Who would feed it and who would feed them all? Must I take Ilusha from school and send him to beg in the streets? That’s what it means for me to challenge him to a duel. It’s silly talk and nothing else.»
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«He will beg your forgiveness, he will bow down at your feet in the middle of the mar-ketplace,» cried Alyosha again, with glowing eyes.
«I did think of prosecuting him,» the captain went on, «but look in our code, could I get much compensation for a personal injury? And then Agrafena Alexandrovna* sent for me and shouted at me: ‘Don’t dare to dream of it! If you proceed against him, I’ll publish it to all the world that he beat you for your dishonesty, and then you will be prosecuted.’ I call God to witness whose was the dishonesty and by whose commands I acted, wasn’t it by her own and Fyodor Pavlovitch’s? And what’s more,’ she went on, ‘I’ll dismiss you for good and you’ll never earn another penny from me. I’ll speak to my merchant too’ (that’s what she calls her old man) ‘and he will dismiss you!’ And if he dismisses me, what can I earn then from anyone? Those two are all I have to look to, for your Fyodor Pavlovitch has not only given over employing me, for another reason, but he means to make use of papers I’ve signed to go to law against me. And so I kept quiet, and you have seen our retreat. But now let me ask you: did Ilusha hurt your finger much? I didn’t like to go into it in our mansion before him.»
- Grushenka.
«Yes, very much, and he was in a great fury. He was avenging you on me as a Karamazov, I see that now. But if only you had seen how he was throwing stones at his schoolfellows! It’s very dangerous. They might kill him. They are children and stupid. A stone may be thrown and break somebody’s head.»
«That’s just what has happened. He has been bruised by a stone to-day. Not on the head but on the chest, just above the heart. He came home crying and groaning and now he is ill.»
«And you know he attacks them first. He is bitter against them on your account. They say he stabbed a boy called Krassotkin with a penknife not long ago.»
«I’ve heard about that too, it’s dangerous. Krassotkin is an official here, we may hear more about it.»
«I would advise you,» Alyosha went on warmly, «not to send him to school at all for a time till he is calmer. and his anger is passed.»
«Anger!» the captain repeated, «that’s just what it is. He is a little creature, but it’s a mighty anger. You don’t know all, sir. Let me tell you more. Since that incident all the boys have been teasing him about the ‘wisp of tow.’ Schoolboys are a merciless race, individually they are angels, but together, especially in schools, they are often merciless. Their teasing has stiffed up a gallant spirit in Ilusha. An ordinary boy, a weak son, would have submitted, have felt ashamed of his father, sir, but he stood up for his father against them all. For his father and for truth and justice. For what he suffered when he kissed your brother’s hand and cried to him ‘Forgive father, forgive him,’- that only God knows- and I, his father. For our children- not your children, but ours- the children of the poor gentlemen looked down
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