VII. Ilyusha

The doctor was coming out of the cottage, once more bundled up in his fur coat, his cap on his head. His face was almost angry and squeamish, as though he were afraid all the time of getting himself dirty on something. He cast a quick glance around the entryway and as he did so looked sternly at Alyosha and Kolya. From the doorway Alyosha signaled to the coachman, and the carriage in which the doctor had come pulled up at the front entrance. The staff captain rushed out headlong after the doctor and, bowing low, almost wriggling before him, stopped him for a last word. The poor man’s face was crushed, his look frightened:

“Your Excellency, Your Excellency… can it be?…” he began, and did not finish, but only threw up his hands in despair, though still looking at the doctor with a last entreaty, as if the sentence on the poor boy really could be changed by the doctor’s word now.

“What can be done! I am not God,” the doctor answered in a careless, though habitually imposing, voice.

“Doctor… Your Excellency… and will it be soon, soon?”

“Pre-pare your-self for an-y-thing,” the doctor rapped out, stressing every syllable, and, lowering his eyes, he made ready to step over the threshold to the carriage.

“Your Excellency, for Christ’s sake!” the staff captain stopped him once more in fright. “Your Excellency!… so is there nothing, can it really be that nothing, nothing at all, will save him now?…”

“It does not de-pend on me now,” the doctor said impatiently, “and yet, hm,” he suddenly paused, “if you could, for instance… send… your patient… at once and without the least delay” (the doctor pronounced the words “at once and without the least delay” not so much sternly as almost wrathfully, so that the staff captain even gave a start) “to Sy-ra-cuse, then… as a result of the new fa-vor-a-ble cli-ma-tic con-di-tions… there might, perhaps, occur…”

“To Syracuse!” cried the staff captain, as though he still understood nothing.

“Syracuse is in Sicily,” Kolya suddenly snapped out loudly, by way of explanation. The doctor looked at him.

“To Sicily! My dear sir, Your Excellency,” the staff captain was at a loss, “but you’ve seen, after all!” He swept both arms around, pointing at his surroundings. “And mamma, and the family?”

“N-no, the family not to Sicily, your family to the Caucasus, in early spring… your daughter to the Caucasus, and your spouse… after a course of the waters, also in the Cau-ca-sus, in view of her rheumatism… im-me-di-ate-ly after that, send her to Paris, to the clinic of the psy-chi-a-trist Doctor Le-pel-le-tier, I could give you a note to him, and then… there might, perhaps, occur…”

“Doctor, doctor! But you can see!” The staff captain suddenly flung out his arms again, pointing in despair at the bare log walls of the entryway.

“Ah, that is no affair of mine,” the doctor smiled, “I have only told you what sci-ence could say in answer to your question about last resorts, and as for the rest… to my regret…”

“Don’t worry, sawbones, my dog won’t bite you,” Kolya snapped out loudly, noticing the doctor’s somewhat uneasy glance at Perezvon, who had planted himself on the threshold. An angry note rang in Kolya’s voice. The word “sawbones,” instead of “doctor,” he used on purpose, and, as he declared himself afterward, “I said it to insult him.”

“What is thi-is?” The doctor threw back his head, staring at Kolya in surprise. “Who is thi-is one?” he suddenly turned to Alyosha, as though demanding an account from him.

“This is Perezvon’s master, sawbones, don’t worry about my person,” Kolya rapped out again.

“Zvon?” the doctor repeated, not understanding what Perezvon was.

“But he doesn’t know where it’s ringing.¹ Goodbye, sawbones, we’ll meet in Syracuse.”

“Who is thi-is? Who, who?” the doctor suddenly flew into a terrible boil.

“He is a schoolboy from here, doctor, he’s a little scamp, pay no attention,” Alyosha said quickly, frowning. “Kolya, be quiet!” he shouted to Krasotkin. “There’s no need to pay attention, doctor,” he repeated, by now somewhat more impatiently.

“A whip-ping, he needs a whip-ping, a whip-ping!” The doctor, who for some reason had already flown into far too great a rage, began stamping his feet.

“And you know, sawbones, my Perezvon may actually bite, I dare say!” Kolya said in a voice that had begun to tremble, turning pale, his eyes flashing. “Ici, Perezvon!”

“Kolya, if you say just one more word, I will break with you forever!” Alyosha shouted commandingly.

“Sawbones, there is only one being in the whole world who can give orders to Nikolai Krasotkin, and it is this man here,” Kolya pointed at Alyosha. “Him I obey. Goodbye!”

He tore himself from the spot and, opening the door, went quickly into the room. Perezvon rushed after him. The doctor stood for another five seconds or so, as if stupefied, looking at Alyosha, then suddenly spat and went quickly to the carriage, loudly repeating: “Thi-is, thi-is, thi-is, I don’t know what thi-is is!” The staff captain rushed to help him in. Alyosha went into the room after Kolya. Kolya was already standing by Ilyusha’s little bed. Ilyusha was holding his hand and calling for his papa. A minute later the staff captain came back too.

“Papa, papa, come here… we…” Ilyusha began to babble in extraordinary excitement, but, evidently not strong enough to go on, he suddenly threw both his wasted little arms forward and embraced the two of them at once, as hard as he could, both Kolya and his papa, joining them in one embrace and pressing himself against them. The staff captain suddenly began to shake all over with silent sobs, and Kolya’s lips and chin began to tremble.

“Papa, papa! How sorry I am for you, papa!” Ilyusha moaned bitterly.

“Ilyushechka… my darling… the doctor said… you’ll be well… we’ll be happy… the doctor…” the staff captain began.

“Ah, papa! I know what the new doctor told you about me… I saw it!” Ilyusha exclaimed, and again he pressed them both to himself as tightly as he could, with all his strength, hiding his face on his papa’s shoulder.

“Papa, don’t cry… and when I die, take a good boy, another one… choose him yourself out of all of them, a good one, call him Ilyusha and love him instead of me…”

“Hush, old man, you’re going to get well!” Krasotkin suddenly shouted, as though he were angry.

“But me, papa, don’t ever forget me,” Ilyusha went on. “Come to my grave… and here’s what, papa, bury me by our big stone, the one we used to walk to, you and I, and come to me there with Krasotkin, in the evening… And Perezvon… And I’ll be waiting for you… Papa, papa!”

His voice broke off; all three stood embracing and were silent now. Ninochka was weeping quietly in her armchair, and suddenly, seeing them all in tears, the mamma burst into tears as well.

“Ilyushechka! Ilyushechka!” she kept exclaiming.

Krasotkin suddenly freed himself from Ilyusha’s embrace.

“Goodbye, old man, my mother’s expecting me for dinner,” he said in a rush. “What a pity I didn’t let her know beforehand! She’ll be very worried… But after dinner I’ll come straight to you, for the whole day, the whole evening, and I’ll tell you so much, so much! And I’ll bring Perezvon, but now I’ll take him with me, because without me he’ll start howling and bother you; goodbye!”

And he ran out into the entryway. He did not want to burst into tears, but in the entryway he did cry after all. That was the state in which Alyosha found him.

“Kolya, you absolutely must keep your word and come, or he will be terribly grieved,” Alyosha said insistently.

“Absolutely! Oh, how I curse myself for not coming sooner,” Kolya muttered, crying and no longer embarrassed that he was crying. At that moment the staff captain suddenly all but leaped out of the room and at once shut the door behind him. His face was frenzied, his lips were trembling. He stood before the two young people and flung both arms up in the air.

“I don’t want a good boy! I don’t want some other boy!” he whispered in a wild whisper, grinding his teeth. “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let it cleave…”

He did not finish, as though he were choking, and sank helplessly to his knees before the wooden bench. Clutching his head in both fists, he began to sob, with absurd little squeals, yet straining with all his might so that his squeals would not be heard in the cottage. Kolya dashed out into the street.

“Goodbye, Karamazov! And you, will you come?” he shouted sharply and angrily to Alyosha.

“I’ll be there this evening without fail.”

“What was that he said about Jerusalem… What on earth is that?”

“It’s from the Bible: ‘If I forget you, O Jerusalem,’ that is, if I forget all that is most precious to me, if I exchange it for anything, then may I be struck…”

“I understand, enough! And you, come yourself! Ici, Perezvon!” he shouted to his dog, quite ferociously now, and strode off home with long, quick steps.

Notes

1. 1. Perezvon means “a peal of bells” and zvon “a ringing.” Kolya is finishing the proverb slyshal zvon, da ne znaet, gde on, “he has heard the ringing but doesn’t know where it is,” said of someone who has caught a word without grasping what it means.