IV. Zhuchka

Kolya, with a grave expression on his face, leaned against the fence and began to wait for Alyosha to show himself. Yes, he had wanted to meet him for a long time. The boys had told him a great deal about him, but until now, whenever they talked to him about Alyosha, he had always outwardly shown a contemptuously indifferent air, and had even “criticized” Alyosha as he listened to the reports about him. But inwardly he very, very much wanted to make his acquaintance: all the stories he had heard about Alyosha had something sympathetic and appealing in them. And so the present minute was an important one; first, he must not disgrace himself, he must show his independence: “Or else he’ll think I’m thirteen and take me for the same kind of little boy as these. And what are these boys to him? I’ll ask him when we get to know each other. What’s bad, though, is that I’m so small. Tuzikov is younger than I am, and he’s half a head taller. My face is clever, though; I’m not good-looking, I know my face is vile, but it’s a clever face. And I mustn’t say too much about myself, either, or if I go straight to embraces, he’ll think… Pah, how vile it will be if he thinks that!…”

So Kolya was fretting, trying with all his might to assume the most independent air. The main thing that tormented him was his small height, not so much his “vile” face as his height. At home, on the wall in a corner, a little pencil line had been made as long ago as last year, by which he had marked his height, and since then every two months he would go up to it again with excitement to measure himself: how much had he managed to grow? But alas! he was growing terribly little, and this sometimes reduced him simply to despair. As for his face, it was not “vile” at all; on the contrary, it was rather pretty, fair, pale, freckled. His small gray but lively eyes looked out boldly and often lit up with feeling. His cheekbones were somewhat wide, his lips small, not very full, but very red; his nose small and decidedly turned up: “A real snub nose, a real snub nose!” Kolya would mutter to himself when he looked in the mirror, and he always walked away from the mirror indignant. “And is it even a clever face?” he would think now and then, doubting even that. However, it must not be supposed that worry about his face and his height absorbed his whole soul. On the contrary, however stinging the minutes before the mirror were, he quickly forgot them, and even for a long time, “giving himself up entirely to ideas and to real life,” as he himself defined his activity.

Alyosha soon appeared and came hurrying up to Kolya; while he was still several steps away, Kolya made out that Alyosha had a sort of quite joyful face. “Can he really be so glad to see me?” Kolya thought with pleasure. Let us note here, by the way, that Alyosha had changed very much since we left him: he had thrown off his cassock and now wore a beautifully tailored frock coat, a soft round hat, and his hair cut short. All this had improved his looks very much, and he looked quite handsome. His pretty face always had a cheerful look, but this cheerfulness was of a sort of quiet and calm kind. To Kolya’s surprise, Alyosha had come out to him in just what he had on indoors, without an overcoat; evidently he had hurried. He held out his hand straight to Kolya.

“So here you are at last; how we’ve all been waiting for you.”

“There were reasons, which you will learn of presently. In any case, I am glad to make your acquaintance. I have long been waiting for the opportunity, and have heard a great deal,” Kolya muttered, a little out of breath.

“We would have got acquainted anyway, I’ve heard a lot about you myself, but you’re late in coming here.”

“Tell me, how are things here?”

“Ilyusha is very bad; he will certainly die.”

“You don’t say! You must agree that medicine is a vile business, Karamazov,” Kolya exclaimed with heat.

“Ilyusha has often, very often spoken of you, even, you know, in his sleep, in delirium. One can see that you were very, very dear to him before… before that incident… with the penknife. There is another reason as well… Tell me, is that your dog?”

“Mine. Perezvon.”

“And not Zhuchka?” Alyosha looked pitifully into Kolya’s eyes. “So that one is lost for good?”

“I know you would all like Zhuchka, I’ve heard everything, sir,” Kolya grinned mysteriously. “Listen, Karamazov, I’ll explain the whole thing to you; that’s mainly what I came for, that’s why I called you out, to explain the whole episode to you beforehand, before we go in,” he began with animation. “You see, Karamazov, in the spring Ilyusha enters the preparatory class. Well, you know what our preparatory class is: little boys, small fry. They began picking on Ilyusha at once. I’m two classes higher and, naturally, I watch from a distance, from the side. I see a small boy, a weak little thing, but he won’t submit, he even fights with them, proud, his little eyes burning. I like that sort. And they went at him all the harder. The main thing was that he had wretched clothes then, his little trousers creeping up, and his boots gaping. They went at him for that too. Humiliated him. No, that I don’t like, I stood up for him at once and gave them an extra-peppering. I beat them, you know, and they adore me, do you know that, Karamazov?” Kolya boasted expansively. “And in general I like small fry. Even now at home I have two fledglings on my hands, they even held me up today. So they stopped beating Ilyusha, and I took him under my protection. I see he’s a proud boy, I’m telling you he’s proud, but he ended by giving himself up to me slavishly, carrying out my slightest commands, listening to me as if I were God, trying to imitate me. In the intervals between classes he comes straight to me, and we walk about together. On Sundays too. At our gymnasium they laugh when an older boy gets on such a footing with a little one, but that’s a prejudice. Such is my fancy, and basta, isn’t that so? I teach him, I develop him—why, tell me, can’t I develop him if I like him? After all, you, Karamazov, have taken up with all these fledglings, so you want to act on the young generation, to develop them, to be useful? And I confess, this trait in your character, which I learned of by hearsay, interested me most of all. However, to the point: I notice that a sort of sensitivity, sentimentality, is developing in the boy, and I, you know, am a decided enemy of all calf’s tenderness, from the day I was born. And contradictions besides: he’s proud, but devoted to me slavishly—devoted slavishly, and then suddenly his little eyes flash and he won’t even agree with me, he argues, he climbs the walls. I used to put forward various ideas: it’s not that he disagrees with the ideas, but I simply see that he is rebelling against me personally, because I answer his tenderness with coolness. And so, to keep him in line, the more tender he became, the cooler I got; I did it on purpose, such is my conviction. I had in mind to train his character, to straighten it out, to create a man… well, and so forth… you, of course, understand me at half a word. Suddenly I notice that for a day, a second, a third, he is troubled, grieving, but no longer about tenderness, but about something else, something stronger, higher. I think, what is this tragedy? I press him and find out the thing: somehow he had got together with your late father’s lackey (your father was still alive then), Smerdyakov, and that one went and taught him, the little fool, a stupid trick, that is, a beastly trick, a vile trick—to take a piece of bread, the soft part, stick a pin in it, and throw it to some yard dog, one of those that are so hungry they swallow a piece without chewing, and see what comes of it. So they fixed up such a piece and threw it to this very shaggy Zhuchka that there’s such a to-do about now, a yard dog from a yard where they simply didn’t feed her, and she spent the whole day barking at the wind. (Are you fond of that stupid barking, Karamazov? I can’t bear it.) Well, she rushed at it, swallowed it, and squealed, spun around, and set off running, running and squealing all the way, and vanished—that’s how Ilyusha himself described it to me. He confesses to me, and he’s crying and crying, hugging me, shaking all over: ‘She runs and squeals, she runs and squeals’—that’s all he keeps repeating; the picture had struck him. Well, I see, pangs of conscience. I took it seriously. Mainly, I wanted to put him through his paces for the earlier things too, so I confess I was cunning here, I pretended to be in such indignation as perhaps I didn’t feel at all: ‘You,’ I say, ‘have done a low thing, you’re a scoundrel; I won’t spread it about, of course, but for the time being I’m breaking off relations with you. I’ll think the matter over and let you know through Smurov’ (this very boy who has come with me now and who has always been devoted to me) ‘whether I will continue relations with you in the future or drop you forever as a scoundrel.’ That struck him terribly. I confess I felt even then that perhaps I had taken it too strictly, but what was there to do, such was my idea at the time. A day later I send Smurov to him and through him I let him know that I am ‘not speaking’ to him anymore, that’s what we call it when two comrades break off relations with each other. The secret was that I meant to make him pay forfeit only a few days, and then, seeing his repentance, hold out my hand to him again. That was my firm intention. But what do you think: he heard Smurov out, and suddenly his eyes flashed. ‘Tell Krasotkin from me,’ he shouted, ‘that now I’m going to throw pieces with pins in them to all the dogs, all of them, all!’ ‘Ah,’ I think, ‘a little free spirit has got into him, it has to be smoked out,’ and I began showing him complete contempt; at every meeting I turn away or smile ironically. And suddenly then comes this incident with his father, you remember, the wisp of bast? You must understand that in this way he had already been prepared in advance for a terrible irritation. The boys, seeing that I had abandoned him, fell upon him, teasing him: ‘Wisp of bast, wisp of bast.’ That was just when the battles began among them, which I terribly regret, because it seems they gave him a very bad beating one time then. Then one time he throws himself at everyone in the yard as they were coming out of classes, and I happen to be standing ten paces away, looking at him. And I swear, I don’t remember laughing then; on the contrary, I felt very, very sorry for him then, and another moment, and I would have rushed to defend him. But suddenly he met my eyes: what he imagined—I don’t know, but he snatched out a penknife, rushed at me, and stuck it into my thigh, right here, by the right leg. I didn’t move; I confess I am sometimes brave, Karamazov; I only looked at him with contempt, as if saying with my look: ‘Wouldn’t you like to have another go, for all my friendship? I’m at your service.’ But he didn’t stab me a second time, he couldn’t bear it, he got frightened himself, threw down the penknife, burst out sobbing, and ran off. Naturally I didn’t tell tales and ordered everyone to keep quiet, so that it wouldn’t reach the authorities; I told even my mother only when it had all healed, and the little wound was a trifle anyway, a scratch. Then I hear that the same day he was throwing stones and bit your finger—but you understand what state he was in! Well, what can I say, I acted stupidly: when he fell ill, I didn’t go to forgive him, that is, to make up; now I regret it. But by then I had particular aims of my own. Well, that’s the whole story… only I think I acted stupidly…”

“Ah, what a pity,” Alyosha exclaimed with emotion, “that I didn’t know about these relations of yours with him before, or else I would have come to you long ago myself to ask you to go to him together with me. Would you believe it, in his fever, in his illness, he was delirious about you. I didn’t even know how dear you are to him! And is it really, really true that you never found that Zhuchka? His father and all the boys have searched the whole town. Would you believe it, ill as he is, in tears, three times now he has repeated to his father in front of me: ‘It’s because I killed Zhuchka then that I’m ill, Papa, it’s God who has punished me’—you can’t shake him from that thought! And if only someone could get hold of that Zhuchka now and show him that she isn’t dead but alive, I think he would rise again from joy. We were all putting our hopes in you.”

“Tell me, what on earth made you hope I would find Zhuchka, that is, that I of all people would find her?” Kolya asked with extraordinary curiosity. “Why were you counting precisely on me, and not on someone else?”

“There was some rumor that you were looking for her and that when you found her you would bring her. Smurov said something of the kind. Mainly, we all keep trying to convince him that Zhuchka is alive, that she has been seen somewhere. The boys got him a live little hare from somewhere, but he only looked at it, smiled a tiny bit, and asked them to let it go in the field. So that is what we did. His father has just this minute come back and brought him a mastiff puppy, he got it somewhere too, he thought he would comfort him with it, but I think it has turned out even worse…”

“Tell me something else, Karamazov: what is this father? I know him, but what is he, by your definition: a buffoon, a clown?”

“Ah, no, there are people who feel deeply, but are somehow crushed. Their buffoonery is a kind of spiteful irony at those to whose faces they do not dare to speak the truth, out of a long-standing, humiliating timidity before them. Believe me, Krasotkin, such buffoonery is sometimes extraordinarily tragic. For him now everything, everything on earth has come together in Ilyusha, and if Ilyusha dies, he will either go mad with grief or take his own life. I am almost convinced of that when I look at him now!”

“I understand you, Karamazov; I see you know human nature,” Kolya added feelingly.

“And when I saw you with the dog, I thought that it was the very same Zhuchka you had brought.”

“Wait, Karamazov, maybe we shall find her yet, but this one—this is Perezvon. I will let him into the room now and perhaps cheer Ilyusha up more than with a mastiff puppy. Wait, Karamazov, you will learn something presently. Ah, my God, why am I keeping you!” Kolya suddenly cried impetuously. “You are in nothing but your frock coat in such cold, and I am keeping you; you see, you see what an egoist I am! Oh, we’re all of us egoists, Karamazov!”

“Don’t worry; it’s cold, it’s true, but I don’t catch cold easily. Let’s go in, though. By the way: what is your name? I know it’s Kolya, but what else?”

“Nikolai, Nikolai Ivanov Krasotkin, or, as they put it in official papers, Krasotkin, son,” Kolya laughed at something, but suddenly added: “I hate my name Nikolai, of course.”

“Why so?”

“Trivial, official…”

“You are in your thirteenth year?” asked Alyosha.

“That is, my fourteenth; in two weeks I’ll be fourteen, very soon. I confess to you in advance one weakness, Karamazov, just to you, for our first acquaintance, so that you can see my whole nature at once: I hate it when people ask me about my age, more than hate it… and finally… there is a slander about me, for instance, that last week I played robbers with the preparatory boys. That I played is a fact, but that I played for myself, to give myself pleasure, that is decidedly a slander. I have grounds to think that it has reached you, but I didn’t play for myself, I played for the small fry, because they couldn’t think up anything without me. And so nonsense is always spread about here. This is a town of gossip, I assure you.”

“And even if you did play for your own pleasure, what of it?”

“Well, for myself… You wouldn’t start playing horses, would you?”

“But reason it this way,” Alyosha smiled. “Grown-ups go to the theater, for instance, and in the theater too they act out the adventures of all sorts of heroes, sometimes with robbers and war as well—so isn’t that the same thing, in its own way, of course? And a game of war among young people, at recreation time, or of robbers, say—why, that is also an art being born, the need for art being born in a young soul, and these games are sometimes even better put together than performances in the theater, the only difference being that people go to the theater to see the actors, while here the young people are the actors themselves. But that is only natural.”

“You think so? Is that your conviction?” Kolya looked at him intently. “You know, you have said a rather curious thing; I’ll go home now and stir my brains over it. I confess I was expecting that one might learn a thing or two from you. I have come to learn from you, Karamazov,” Kolya concluded in a heartfelt and expansive voice.

“And I from you,” Alyosha smiled, pressing his hand.

Kolya was extraordinarily pleased with Alyosha. What struck him was that he was on a perfectly equal footing with him and that Alyosha talked to him as to “the most grown-up.”

“I’ll show you a stunt right now, Karamazov, a theatrical performance too,” he laughed nervously. “That’s what I came for.”

“Let’s first go in to the landlords’ on the left; all your friends leave their coats there, because it’s crowded and hot in the room.”

“Oh, but I’m only here for a moment, I’ll go in and sit in my coat. Perezvon will stay here in the entryway and die: ‘Ici, Perezvon, couche, and die!’—you see, he’s died. And I’ll go in first, look over the situation, and then, when it’s time, I’ll whistle: ‘Ici, Perezvon!’—and you’ll see, he’ll fly in at once like a mad thing. Only Smurov mustn’t forget to open the door at that instant. I’ll give the orders, and you’ll see a stunt…”