After the incident on the railway Kolya’s relationship with his mother underwent a certain change. When Anna Fyodorovna (the widow Mrs Krasotkina) learned of her son’s exploit, she nearly went out of her mind with horror. She fell into such terrible fits of hysteria, lasting on and off for several days, that Kolya, now seriously frightened, gave her his word of honour that he would never engage in similar exploits again. In response to his mother’s demands, he knelt before the icon and swore on his father’s memory. The ‘manly’ Kolya burst into tears from emotion, like a six-year-old, and they spent that day embracing each other and sobbing on each other’s shoulders. The next day Kolya awoke as ‘cold-hearted’ as ever, but he was less talkative, more modest, more mature, and more thoughtful. True, about a month and a half later he was again involved in a prank, and his name even came to the attention of our local magistrate, but this prank was of quite a different order—amusing even, and silly—and besides it appeared he was not the instigator, but only a participant. But more of that later, perhaps. His mother continued to have fits of hysteria and to torment herself, while Dardanelov’s hopes increased the more she worried. It should be noted that Kolya guessed Dardanelov’s feelings, understood what was going on, and of course despised him for his ‘sentimentality’; previously, he would not even have hesitated to show his contempt in front of his mother, hinting vaguely that he knew what Dardanelov was up to. But since the incident on the railway line, his attitude in this respect too had altered, he did not allow himself to cast even the slightest aspersion, and he began to be more respectful when talking to his mother about Dardanelov, which the sensitive Anna Fyodorovna noticed at once with infinite gratitude; on the other hand, at the slightest, most inconsequential mention of Dardanelov by some visitor in Kolya’s presence, she would blush like a beetroot with embarrassment. At such moments Kolya would either gaze gloomily out of the window, look down at his boots as if studying them for signs of wear, or brusquely call Perezvon, a rather large, mangy, shaggy-haired dog which he had suddenly acquired from somewhere or other the previous month, enticed into the house, and for some reason kept hidden indoors, not showing it to any of his friends. He tyrannized the dog dreadfully, forcing it to do all kinds of tricks, and reduced the poor animal to such a state that it howled when he was at school, but when he returned it yelped with delight, leapt about as if demented, fawned on him, rolled on the ground, played possum, and so on—in a word, showed off all the tricks that he had taught it, no longer on command, but out of the sheer exuberance of its canine emotions and its grateful heart.
Incidentally, I forgot to mention that Kolya Krasotkin was that same boy whom the retired Staff Captain’s son, Ilyusha, already known to the reader, stabbed in the thigh with a penknife in defence of his father, mockingly nicknamed ‘Loofah’ by these very same schoolboys.
2
CHILDREN
THUS it was that on that cold, frosty November morning, Kolya Krasotkin was at home. It was Sunday and there was no school. But eleven o’clock had already struck and he had to go out, without fail, ‘on a very important matter’; meanwhile, however, he was alone in the house as if he were solely in charge, because it so happened that, due to some pressing and unusual circumstance, all the older occupants had gone out. Across the hallway from the rooms that the widow Krasotkina herself occupied were two small letting-rooms, the only ones to let in the house, which were rented out by her to a doctor’s wife with two young children. This doctor’s wife was the same age as Anna Fyodorovna and a great friend of hers. The doctor himself had left nearly a year ago to go first to Orenburg and then to Tashkent, and nothing had been seen or heard of him for six months, so had it not been for her friendship with Mrs Krasotkina, which helped to assuage her grief, his wife would undoubtedly have wept until she had no tears left to shed. And now, to crown it all, that very Saturday night Katerina, the doctor’s wife’s only servant, had suddenly and, as far as her mistress was concerned, quite out of the blue, announced that she was going to give birth to a baby before morning. That no one had noticed anything earlier was nothing short of a miracle to everyone. Having barely recovered from her astonishment, the doctor’s wife had decided to take Katerina while there was still time to a place in our town which handled such matters and where there was a midwife. As she valued this servant of hers very much, she lost no time in making the necessary arrangements, and not only took her there but even stayed with her. Later—the following morning as it happens—Mrs Krasotkina’s own friendly help and support were enlisted for she knew several people she could turn to and who would under the circumstances be able to pull a few strings. So, both ladies were out; Mrs Krasotkina’s servant Agafya had gone to the market, and Kolya thus found himself temporarily the minder and guardian of the ‘small fry’—the small son and daughter of the doctor’s wife—who had been left unattended. He was not worried about being left in charge of the house, and besides he had Perezvon, who had been ordered to lie under the bench in the hall and ‘stay’, and who therefore shook his head and gave two loud, ingratiating thumps on the floor with his tail every time Kolya entered the hall as he went from room to room, but alas, the summoning whistle failed to materialize. Kolya just looked severely at the poor dog, who would once more freeze into obedient immobility. If anything bothered Kolya, it was the ‘small fry’. It goes without saying that he looked upon the unexpected drama caused by Katerina with the deepest disdain, but he was very fond of the small fry left in his charge and had already given them a children’s book. The little girl Nastya, the elder of the two and already eight years old, could read, and the younger, seven-year-old Kostya, loved to listen while she read to him. Of course, Kolya could have amused them better if he had involved himself with them and played soldiers and hide-and-seek all over the house. He had done this more than once before and did not mind playing such games, with the result that a rumour had even reached his class once that Krasotkin played hobby-horses at home with his little lodgers, prancing like a trace-horse and arching his neck, but Krasotkin had scornfully denied the accusation, saying that for his contemporaries, his thirteen-year-old friends, it would certainly be shameful to play hobby-horses ‘in our day and age’, but that he did it for the sake of the ‘small fry’ because he was very fond of them, and he dared anyone to ask him to justify his feelings. And, consequently, both the little ones worshipped him. But on this occasion there was no question of playing. He had a matter of great personal importance to deal with, a matter even bordering on the mysterious. Meanwhile, time was running out and Agafya, with whom he could have left the children, had still not returned from the market. Several times already he had crossed the hallway, merely opened the door to the other flat and cast an anxious glance at the ‘small fry’, who, on his instructions, were sitting with a book and grinned from ear to ear each time he opened the door, expecting him to come in and do something exciting and amusing. But something was preying on Kolya’s mind and he did not enter. At last eleven o’clock struck, and he made a firm and final decision that if that ‘damned’ Agafya did not return in ten minutes, he would leave without waiting for her, having first assured himself of course that the ‘small fry’ would not be scared to be left alone, would not misbehave, and would not cry from fear. Thinking along these lines, he put on his quilted winter coat with the sealskin collar, slung his bag over his shoulder, and, in spite of his mother’s earlier, repeated admonitions not to go out in ‘such cold’ without his overshoes, gave these a scornful glance, crossed the hallway, and went out. Perezvon, seeing him in his outdoor clothes, started to beat his tail on the floor louder than ever, his whole body twitching with excitement, and he even let out a plaintive wail, but at the sight of such passionate canine excitement Kolya decided that it was a breach of discipline and made him stay under the bench until the last moment, whistling to him only after he had opened the hall door. The dog bounded forward crazily and rushed ahead of him, leaping about with delight. Kolya crossed the hallway and opened the
door to the room where the ‘small fry’ were. They were both sitting at the table as before, no longer reading but squabbling heatedly over something. These two often quarrelled amongst themselves over various delicate matters concerning everyday life, and Nastya, the elder, always came off best; Kostya, if he did not agree with her, would appeal to Kolya Krasotkin, whose decision was accepted by both parties as final and binding. On this occasion the children’s quarrel intrigued Krasotkin and he stopped at the door to listen. The children saw that he was listening and carried on their dispute with increased intensity.
‘I don’t believe you,’ lisped Nastya fervently, ‘I’ll never believe that midwives find babies in the kitchen garden between the cabbage-beds. It’s winter now and there aren’t any cabbage-beds and she couldn’t have brought Katerina a little daughter.’
‘Phew!’ Kolya whistled to himself.
‘Or it’s like this: they bring them from somewhere or other, but only to ladies who are married.’
Kostya stared at Nastya, listening thoughtfully and considering.
‘Nastya, you’re so silly,’ he said at last, firmly and calmly. ‘How can Katerina have a baby when she isn’t married?’
Nastya really lost her temper.
‘You don’t understand anything,’ she snapped crossly, ‘perhaps she had a husband, but he’s in prison and she went and had a baby.’
‘Is her husband really in prison?’ enquired the trustful Kostya gravely.
‘Or perhaps it’s like this,’ Nastya interrupted excitedly, abandoning and forgetting all about her earlier hypothesis, ‘she hasn’t got a husband, you’re right, but she wants to get married, so she started to think about how to get married, and she thought and thought, and she thought about it so hard that in the end she got a baby instead of a husband.’
‘Well, I suppose it could be like that,’ agreed Kostya, quite flattened, ‘only you didn’t mention that before, so how was I to know?’
‘Well, you two,’ said Kolya, stepping into the room, ‘I see you’re having a little argument!’
‘Is Perezvon with you?’ asked Kostya with a wide grin, and began to click his fingers and call Perezvon.
‘Children, I’ve got a problem,’ Krasotkin began seriously, ‘and I need your help: Agafya must have broken her leg or something, since she hasn’t come home yet, and I’ve got to go out. Will you let me go or not?’
The children looked at each other anxiously, and their smiling faces began to look worried. They did not really understand quite what he expected of them.
‘You won’t get up to anything while I’m away, will you? You won’t go climbing on top of cupboards and break your legs. And you won’t cry because you’re afraid to be alone?’
The children’s faces took on an expression of terrible sorrow.
‘And for that, I’ll show you something, a real brass cannon that can fire with real gunpowder.’
The children’s faces lit up instantly.
‘Show us the cannon,’ said Kostya, beaming.
Krasotkin put his hand in the bag, pulled out a little bronze cannon, and put it on the table.
‘You see! Look at its wheels,’ he ran the toy along the table, ‘and it can fire. You fill it with shot and you fire it.’
‘Will it kill?’
‘It’ll kill anyone, you only have to point it.’ And Krasotkin explained where to put the gunpowder, where to load it with shot, showed them the touch-hole, and explained about the recoil. The children listened with intense curiosity. Their imagination was especially fired by the idea of the recoil.
‘Have you got any powder?’ enquired Nastya.
‘Yes.’
‘Show us the powder,’ she went on with a pleading smile.
Krasotkin dipped his hand into the bag again and pulled out a little phial, in which there really was a sprinkling of gunpowder, and a screwed-up piece of paper containing a few pieces of lead shot. He even opened the phial and poured a little powder into the palm of his hand.
‘It’s safe as long as there isn’t any fire anywhere, otherwise it’d ignite and kill us all,’ warned Krasotkin for effect.
The children gazed at the powder with a respectful fear that enhanced their pleasure even more. But Kostya liked the lead shot better.
‘But shot doesn’t burn, does it?’ he enquired.
‘No, shot doesn’t burn.’
‘Give me a little shot,’ he said in a pleading little voice.
‘All right—here you are, take it—only don’t show it to your mama before I return, or she’ll think it’s powder and will drop dead with fear, and will give you a hiding.’
‘Mama would never birch us,’ retorted Nastya at once.
‘I know, I only said it because it sounded good. But you must never deceive your mama, only just this once—till I get back. So, children, can I go or not? You won’t be scared and cry if I’m not here?’
‘We will c-cry,’ stammered Kostya, already about to do so.
‘We will cry, we’re sure to cry,’ Nastya took up the refrain in a nervous gabble.
‘Oh children, my children, how perilous your years!* There’s nothing for it, little fledglings, I’ll have to stay with you as long as it takes. But time, time’s running out!’
‘Tell Perezvon to pretend he’s dead,’ requested Kostya.
‘Yes, there’s nothing for it, I’ll have to include Perezvon in this. Perezvon, here boy!’ And Kolya began to give orders to the dog, who started to show off all the tricks he knew. He was a shaggy dog, the size of a common mongrel, with a sort of lilacgrey coat. He had a squint in his right eye, and his left ear was somewhat torn. He yapped and bounced, begged, walked on his hind legs, rolled on his back with all four legs in the air, and lay motionless, as if dead. During this last trick the door opened and Agafya, Mrs Krasotkina’s servant, a fat woman of about forty with a pock-marked face, appeared on the threshold, having returned from the market with a bagful of groceries in her hand. She stood there with her left arm sagging from the weight of the bag, and looked at the dog. Kolya, in spite of having waited for Agafya with such impatience, carried on with the performance and, having made Perezvon play possum for the required time, finally whistled. The dog leaped up and began to jump with joy at having completed his trick.
The Karamazov Brothers Page 79
