“Ah, what a pity,” Alyosha exclaimed with feeling, “that I didn’t know about the relations between you before, or I’d have come long ago and asked you to go and see him with me. Would you believe that he talked about you in his fever, in delirium, when he was sick? I didn’t even know how dear you were to him! And can it be, can it be that you never found that Zhuchka? His father and all the boys were searching all over town. Would you believe that three times, since he got sick, I’ve heard him say in tears to his father: ‘I’m sick because I killed Zhuchka, papa, God is punishing me for it’—and he won’t give up the idea! If only we could find that Zhuchka now and show him that she’s not dead, that she’s alive, he might just be resurrected by the joy of it. We’ve all had our hopes on you.”

“Tell me, what reason did you have to hope that I would find Zhuchka— that is, that precisely I would be the one to find her?” Kolya asked with great curiosity. “Why did you count 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 like that. Most of all, we keep trying to assure him that Zhuchka is alive, that she’s been seen somewhere. The boys found a live hare someplace, but he just looked at it, smiled faintly, and asked us to let it go in the fields. And so we did. Just now his father came home and brought him a mastiff pup, he also got it someplace, he wanted to comfort him, but it seems to have made things even worse ...”

“Another thing, Karamazov: what about his father? I know him, but how would you define him: a buffoon, a clown?” “Ah, no, there are people who feel deeply but are somehow beaten down. Their buffoonery is something like a spiteful irony against those to whom they dare not speak the truth directly because of a long-standing, humiliating timidity before them. Believe me, Krasotkin, such buffoonery is sometimes extremely tragic. For him, now, everything on earth has come together in Ilyusha, and if Ilyusha dies, he will either go out of his mind from grief or take his own life. I’m almost convinced of it when I look at him now!”

“I understand you, Karamazov, I see that you know human nature,” Kolya added with feeling.

“And so, when I saw you with a dog, I immediately thought you must be bringing that Zhuchka.”

“Wait, Karamazov, maybe we’ll still find her, but this one—this one is Perezvon. I’ll let him into the room now, and maybe he’ll cheer Ilyusha up more than the mastiff. Wait, Karamazov, you’re going to find something out now. Ah, my God, but I’m keeping you out here!” Kolya suddenly cried. “You’re just wearing a jacket in such cold, and I’m keeping you—see, see what an egoist I am! Oh, we’re all egoists, Karamazov!”

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

“Nikolai, Nikolai Ivanov Krasotkin, or, as they say in official jargon, son of Krasotkin,” Kolya laughed at something, but suddenly added: “Naturally, I hate the name Nikolai.”

“But why?”

“Trivial, official-sounding...”

“You’re going on thirteen?” Alyosha asked.

“No, fourteen, in two weeks I’ll be fourteen, quite soon. I’ll confess one weakness to you beforehand, Karamazov, to you alone, for the sake of our new acquaintance, so that you can see the whole of my character at once: I hate being asked my age, more than hate it ... and finally, another thing, there’s a slanderous rumor going around about me, that I played robbers with the preparatory class last week. That I played with them is actually true, but that I played for myself, for my own pleasure, is decidedly slander. I have reason to think it may have reached your ears, but I played not for myself, but for the kids, because they couldn’t think up anything without me. And people here are always spreading nonsense. This town lives on gossip, I assure you.”

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

“Well, even if I did ... But you don’t play hobbyhorse, do you?”

“You should reason like this,” Alyosha smiled. “Adults, for instance, go to the theater, and in the theater, too, all sorts of heroic adventures are acted out, sometimes also with robbers and battles—and isn’t that the same thing, in its own way, of course? And a game of war among youngsters during a period of recreation, or a game of robbers—that, too, is a sort of nascent art, an emerging need for art in a young soul, and these games are sometimes even better conceived than theater performances, with the only difference that people go to the theater to look at the actors, and here young people are themselves the actors. But it’s only natural.”

“You think so? Is that your conviction?” Kolya was looking at him intently. “You know, you’ve said a very interesting thought; I’ll set my mind to it when I get home. I admit, I did suspect it would be possible to learn something from you. I’ve come to learn from you, Karamazov,” Kolya concluded in an emotional and effusive voice.

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

Kolya was extremely pleased with Alyosha. It struck him that Alyosha was to the highest degree on an equal footing with him, and spoke with him as with “the most adult” person.

“I’m going to show you a stunt now, Karamazov, also a theater performance,” he laughed nervously, “that’s what I came for.”

“Let’s stop at the landlady’s first, on the left; we all leave our coats there, because it’s crowded and hot in the room.”

“Oh, I’ve just come for a moment, I’ll go in and keep my coat on. Perezvon will stay here in the entryway and play dead. Ici, Perezvon, couche, and play dead! See, he’s dead. I’ll go in first, check out the situation, and then at the right moment I’ll whistle: Ici, Perezvon! And you’ll see, he’ll come rushing in like mad. Only Smurov must not forget to open the door at that moment. I’ll arrange it, and you’ll see a real stunt...”

Chapter 5: At Ilyusha’s Bedside

The room, already familiar to us, in which the family of our acquaintance retired captain Snegiryov lived was at that moment both stuffy and crowded with a numerous gathering of visitors. This time several boys were sitting with Ilyusha, and though all of them were ready, like Smurov, to deny that it was Alyosha who had reconciled and brought them together with Ilyusha, still it was so. His whole art in this case lay in getting them together one by one, without “sentimental slop,” but as if quite unintentionally and inadvertently. And this brought enormous relief to Ilyusha in his suffering. Seeing an almost tender friendship and concern for him in all these boys, his former enemies, he was very touched. Only Krasotkin was missing, and this lay as a terrible burden on his heart. If in Ilyushechka’s bitter memories there was any that was most bitter, it was precisely the whole episode with Krasotkin, once his sole friend and protector, whom he had then attacked with a knife. So, too, thought the smart lad Smurov (who was the first to come and be reconciled with Ilyusha). But when Smurov remotely mentioned that Alyosha wanted to come and see him “on a certain matter,” Krasotkin at once broke in and cut it short, charging Smurov to inform “Karamazov” immediately that he knew how to act himself, that he asked for no one’s advice, and that if he did go to see the sick boy, he would decide himself when to go, because he had “his own considerations.” That was still about two weeks before this Sunday. And that was why Alyosha had not gone in person to see him, as he had intended. Yet, though he waited a little, he nevertheless sent Smurov to Krasotkin once again, and then a third time. But both times Krasotkin responded with a most impatient and abrupt refusal, asking him to tell Alyosha that if he came in person to get him, then just for that he would never go to see Ilyusha, and that he did not want to be bothered any more. Smurov himself had not known even up to the very last day that Kolya had decided to go and see Ilyusha that morning, and it had only been the previous evening that Kolya, as he was saying good-bye to Smurov, suddenly told him brusquely to wait for him at home the next morning, because he was going to the Snegiryovs’ with him, warning him, however, that he must not dare inform anyone of his coming, because he wanted to arrive unexpectedly. Smurov obeyed. And his hope that Krasotkin would bring the lost Zhuchka, Smurov based on a few words he dropped in passing, “that they were all asses if they couldn’t find the dog, provided it was alive.” But when Smurov, waiting for the right moment, timidly hinted to Krasotkin what he had guessed about the dog, the latter suddenly became terribly angry: “What an ass I’d be to go looking for other people’s dogs all over town, when I’ve got my Perezvon! And who would even dream that a dog could survive after swallowing a pin? It’s sentimental slop, that’s all!”