Poor Folk Anthology

by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

  Astounding news has reached the class,

  Kolbasnikov has been an ass.

  And so on, awfully funny, I'll bring it to you later on. I say nothing against Dardanelov, he is a learned man, there's no doubt about it. I respect men like that and it's not because he stood up for me."

  "But you took him down about the founders of Troy!" Smurov put in suddenly, proud of Krassotkin at such a moment. He was particularly pleased with the story of the goose.

  "Did you really take him down?" the captain inquired, in a flattering way. "On the question who founded Troy? We heard of it, Ilusha told me about it at the time."

  "He knows everything, father, he knows more than any of us!" put in Ilusha; "he only pretends to be like that, but really he is top in every subject… "

  Ilusha looked at Kolya with infinite happiness.

  "Oh, that's all nonsense about Troy, a trivial matter. I consider this an unimportant question," said Kolya with haughty humility. He had by now completely recovered his dignity, though he was still a little uneasy. He felt that he was greatly excited and that he had talked about the goose, for instance, with too little reserve, while Alyosha had looked serious and had not said a word all the time. And the vain boy began by degrees to have a rankling fear that Alyosha was silent because he despised him, and thought he was showing off before him. If he dared to think anything like that, Kolya would-

  "I regard the question as quite a trivial one," he rapped out again, proudly.

  "And I know who founded Troy," a boy, who had not spoken before, said suddenly, to the surprise of everyone. He was silent and seemed to be shy. He was a pretty boy of about eleven, called Kartashov. He was sitting near the door. Kolya looked at him with dignified amazement.

  The fact was that the identity of the founders of Troy had become a secret for the whole school, a secret which could only be discovered by reading Smaragdov, and no one had Smaragdov but Kolya. One day, when Kolya's back was turned, Kartashov hastily opened Smaragdov, which lay among Kolya's books, and immediately lighted on the passage relating to the foundation of Troy. This was a good time ago, but he felt uneasy and could not bring himself to announce publicly that he too knew who had founded Troy, afraid of what might happen and of Krassotkin's somehow putting him to shame over it. But now he couldn't resist saying it. For weeks he had been longing to.

  "Well, who did found it?" Kolya, turning to him with haughty superciliousness. He saw from his face that he really did know and at once made up his mind how to take it. There was so to speak, a discordant note in the general harmony.

  "Troy was founded by Teucer, Dardanus, Ilius and Tros," the boy rapped out at once, and in the same instant he blushed, blushed so, that it was painful to look at him. But the boys stared at him, stared at him for a whole minute, and then all the staring eyes turned at once and were fastened upon Kolya, who was still scanning the audacious boy with disdainful composure.

  "In what sense did they found it?" he deigned to comment at last. "And what is meant by founding a city or a state? What do they do? Did they go and each lay a brick, do you suppose?"

  There was laughter. The offending boy turned from pink to crimson. He was silent and on the point of tears. Kolya held him so for a minute.

  "Before you talk of a historical event like the foundation of a nationality, you must first understand what you mean by it," he admonished him in stern, incisive tones. "But I attach no consequence to these old wives' tales and I don't think much of universal history in general," he added carelessly, addressing the company generally.

  "Universal history?" the captain inquired, looking almost scared.

  "Yes, universal history! It's the study of the successive follies of mankind and nothing more. The only subjects I respect are mathematics and natural science," said Kolya. He was showing off and he stole a glance at Alyosha; his was the only opinion he was afraid of there. But Alyosha was still silent and still serious as before. If Alyosha had said a word it would have stopped him, but Alyosha was silent and "it might be the silence of contempt," and that finally irritated Kolya.

  "The classical languages, too… they are simply madness, nothing more. You seem to disagree with me again, Karamazov?"

  "I don't agree," said Alyosha, with a faint smile.

  "The study of the classics, if you ask my opinion, is simply a police measure, that's simply why it has been introduced into our schools." By degrees Kolya began to get breathless again. "Latin and Greek were introduced because they are a bore and because they stupefy the intellect. It was dull before, so what could they do to make things duller? It was senseless enough before, so what could they do to make it more senseless? So they thought of Greek and Latin. That's my opinion, I hope I shall never change it," Kolya finished abruptly. His cheeks were flushed.

  "That's true," assented Smurov suddenly, in a ringing tone of conviction. He had listened attentively.

  "And yet he is first in Latin himself," cried one of the group of boys suddenly.

  "Yes, father, he says that and yet he is first in Latin," echoed Ilusha.

  "What of it?" Kolya thought fit to defend himself, though the praise was very sweet to him. "I am fagging away at Latin because I have to, because I promised my mother to pass my examination, and I think that whatever you do, it's worth doing it well. But in my soul I have a profound contempt for the classics and all that fraud… . You don't agree, Karamazov?"

  "Why 'fraud'?" Alyosha smiled again.

  "Well, all the classical authors have been translated into all languages, so it was not for the sake of studying the classics they introduced Latin, but solely as a police measure, to stupefy the intelligence. So what can one call it but a fraud?"

  "Why, who taught you all this?" cried Alyosha, surprised at last.

  "In the first place I am capable of thinking for myself without being taught. Besides, what I said just now about the classics being translated our teacher Kolbasnikov has said to the whole of the third class."

  "The doctor has come!" cried Nina, who had been silent till then.

  A carriage belonging to Madame Hohlakov drove up to the gate. The captain, who had been expecting the doctor all the morning, rushed headlong out to meet him. "Mamma" pulled herself together and assumed a dignified air. Alyosha went up to Ilusha and began setting his pillows straight. Nina, from her invalid chair, anxiously watched him putting the bed tidy. The boys hurriedly took leave. Some of them promised to come again in the evening. Kolya called Perezvon and the dog jumped off the bed.

  "I won't go away, I won't go away," Kolya said hastily to Ilusha. "I'll wait in the passage and come back when the doctor's gone, I'll come back with Perezvon."

  But by now the doctor had entered, an important-looking person with long, dark whiskers and a shiny, shaven chin, wearing a bearskin coat. As he crossed the threshold he stopped, taken aback; he probably fancied he had come to the wrong place. "How is this? Where am I?" he muttered, not removing his coat nor his peaked sealskin cap. The crowd, the poverty of the room, the washing hanging on a line in the corner, puzzled him. The captain, bent double, was bowing low before him.

  "It's here, sir, here, sir," he muttered cringingly; "it's here, you've come right, you were coming to us… "

  "Sne-gi-ryov?" the doctor said loudly and pompously. "Mr. Snegiryov- is that you?"

  "That's me, sir!"

  "Ah!"

  The doctor looked round the room with a squeamish air once more and threw off his coat, displaying to all eyes the grand decoration at his neck. The captain caught the fur coat in the air, and the doctor took off his cap.

  "Where is the patient?" he asked emphatically.

  Chapter 6 Precocity

  "WHAT do you think the doctor will say to him?" Kolya asked quickly. "What a repulsive mug, though, hasn't he? I can't endure medicine!"

  "Ilusha is dying. I think that's certain," answered Alyosha, mournfully.

  "They are rogues! Medicine's a fraud! I am glad to have made your acquaintance,
though, Karamazov. I wanted to know you for a long time. I am only sorry we meet in such sad circumstances."

  Kolya had a great inclination to say something even warmer and more demonstrative, but he felt ill at ease. Alyosha noticed this, smiled, and pressed his hand.

  "I've long learned to respect you as a rare person," Kolya muttered again, faltering and uncertain. "I have heard you are a mystic and have been in the monastery. I know you are a mystic, but… that hasn't put me off. Contact with real life will cure you… . It's always so with characters like yours."

  "What do you mean by mystic? Cure me of what?" Alyosha was rather astonished.

  "Oh, God and all the rest of it."

  "What, don't you believe in God?"

  "Oh, I've nothing against God. Of course, God is only a hypothesis, but… I admit that He is needed… for the order of the universe and all that… and that if there were no God He would have to be invented," added Kolya, beginning to blush. He suddenly fancied that Alyosha might think he was trying to show off his knowledge and to prove that he was "grown up." "I haven't the slightest desire to show off my knowledge to him," Kolya thought indignantly. And all of a sudden he felt horribly annoyed.

  "I must confess I can't endure entering on such discussions," he said with a final air. "It's possible for one who doesn't believe in God to love mankind, don't you think so? Voltaire didn't believe in God and loved mankind?" ("I am at it again," he thought to himself.)

  "Voltaire believed in God, though not very much, I think, and I don't think he loved mankind very much either," said Alyosha quietly, gently, and quite naturally, as though he were talking to someone of his own age, or even older. Kolya was particularly struck by Alyosha's apparent diffidence about his opinion of Voltaire. He seemed to be leaving the question for him, little Kolya, to settle.

  "Have you read Voltaire?" Alyosha finished.

  "No, not to say read… . But I've read Candide in the Russian translation… in an absurd, grotesque, old translation.. (At it again! again!)"

  "And did you understand it?"

  "Oh, yes, everything… . That is… Why do you suppose I shouldn't understand it? There's a lot of nastiness in it, of course… . Of course I can understand that it's a philosophical novel and written to advocate an idea… ." Kolya was getting mixed by now. "I am a Socialist, Karamazov, I am an incurable Socialist," he announced suddenly, apropos of nothing.

  "A Socialist?" laughed Alyosha. "But when have you had time to become one? Why, I thought you were only thirteen?"

  Kolya winced.

  "In the first place I am not thirteen, but fourteen, fourteen in a fortnight," he flushed angrily, "and in the second place I am at a complete loss to understand what my age has to do with it? The question is what are my convictions, not what is my age, isn't it?"

  "When you are older, you'll understand for yourself the influence of age on convictions. I fancied, too, that you were not expressing your own ideas," Alyosha answered serenely and modestly, but Kolya interrupted him hotly:

  "Come, you want obedience and mysticism. You must admit that the Christian religion, for instance, has only been of use to the rich and the powerful to keep the lower classes in slavery. That's so, isn't it?"

  "Ah, I know where you read that, and I am sure someone told you so!" cried Alyosha.

  "I say, what makes you think I read it? And certainly no one told so. I can think for myself… . I am not opposed to Christ, if you like. He was a most humane person, and if He were alive to-day, He would be found in the ranks of the revolutionists, and would perhaps play a conspicuous part… . There's no doubt about that."

  "Oh, where, where did you get that from? What fool have you made friends with?" exclaimed Alyosha.

  "Come, the truth will out! It has so chanced that I have often talked to Mr. Rakitin, of course, but… old Byelinsky said that, too, so they say."

  "Byelinsky? I don't remember. He hasn't written that anywhere."

  "If he didn't write it, they say he said it. I heard that from a… but never mind."

  "And have you read Byelinsky?"

  "Well, no… I haven't read all of him, but… I read the passage about Tatyana, why she didn't go off with Onyegin."

  "Didn't go off with Onyegin? Surely you don't… understand that already?"

  "Why, you seem to take me for little Smurov," said Kolya, with a grin of irritation. "But please don't suppose I am such a revolutionist. I often disagree with Mr. Rakitin. Though I mention Tatyana, I am not at all for the emancipation of women. I acknowledge that women are a subject race and must obey. Les femmes tricottent, [12] Napoleon said." Kolya, for some reason, smiled, "And on that question at least I am quite of one mind with that pseudo-great man. I think, too, that to leave one's own country and fly to America is mean, worse than mean- silly. Why go to America when one may be of great service to humanity here? Now especially. There's a perfect mass of fruitful activity open to us. That's what I answered." "What do you mean? Answered whom? Has someone suggested your going to America already?" "I must own, they've been at me to go, but I declined. That's between ourselves, of course, Karamazov; do you hear, not a word to anyone. I say this only to you. I am not at all anxious to fall into the clutches of the secret police and take lessons at the Chain bridge. Long will you remember The house at the Chain bridge. Do you remember? It's splendid. Why are you laughing? You don't suppose I am fibbing, do you?" ("What if he should find out that I've only that one number of The Bell in father's book case, and haven't read any more of it?" Kolya thought with a shudder.) "Oh no, I am not laughing and don't suppose for a moment that you are lying. No, indeed, I can't suppose so, for all this, alas! is perfectly true. But tell me, have you read Pushkin- Onyegin, for instance?… You spoke just now of Tatyana." "No, I haven't read it yet, but I want to read it. I have no prejudices, Karamazov; I want to hear both sides. What makes you ask?" "Oh, nothing." "Tell me, Karamazov, have you an awful contempt for me?" Kolya rapped out suddenly and drew himself up before Alyosha, as though he were on drill. "Be so kind as to tell me, without beating about the bush." "I have a contempt for you?" Alyosha looked at him wondering. "What for? I am only sad that a charming nature such as yours should be perverted by all this crude nonsense before you have begun life." "Don't be anxious about my nature," Kolya interrupted, not without complacency. "But it's true that I am stupidly sensitive, crudely sensitive. You smiled just now, and I fancied you seemed to-" "Oh, my smile meant something quite different. I'll tell you why I smiled. Not long ago I read the criticism made by a German who had lived in Russia, on our students and schoolboys of to-day. 'Show a Russian schoolboy,' he writes, 'a map of the stars, which he knows nothing about, and he will give you back the map next day with corrections on it.' No knowledge and unbounded conceit- that's what the German meant to say about the Russian schoolboy." "Yes, that's perfectly right," Kolya laughed suddenly, "exactly so! Bravo the German! But he did not see the good side, what do you think? Conceit may be, that comes from youth, that will be corrected if need be, but, on the other hand, there is an independent spirit almost from childhood, boldness of thought and conviction, and not the spirit of these sausage makers, grovelling before authority… . But the German was right all the same. Bravo the German! But Germans want strangling all the same. Though they are so good at science and learning they must be strangled." "Strangled, what for?" smiled Alyosha. "Well, perhaps I am talking nonsense, I agree. I am awfully childish sometimes, and when I am pleased about anything I can't restrain myself and am ready to talk any stuff. But, I say, we are chattering away here about nothing, and that doctor has been a long time in there. But perhaps he's examining the mamma and that poor crippled Nina. I liked that Nina, you know. She whispered to me suddenly as I was coming away, 'Why didn't you come before?' And in such a voice, so reproachfully! I think she is awfully nice and pathetic." "Yes, yes! Well, you'll be coming often, you will see what she is like. It would do you a great deal of good to know people like that, to learn to value a great deal wh
ich you will find out from knowing these people," Alyosha observed warmly. "That would have more effect on you than anything." "Oh, how I regret and blame myself for not having come sooner!" Kolya exclaimed, with bitter feeling. "Yes, it's a great pity. You saw for yourself how delighted the poor child was to see you. And how he fretted for you to come!" "Don't tell me! You make it worse! But it serves me right. What kept me from coming was my conceit, my egoistic vanity, and the beastly wilfulness, which I never can get rid of, though I've been struggling with it all my life. I see that now. I am a beast in lots of ways, Karamazov!" "No, you have a charming nature, though it's been distorted, and I quite understand why you have had such an influence on this generous, morbidly sensitive boy," Alyosha answered warmly. "And you say that to me!" cried Kolya; "and would you believe it, I thought- I've thought several times since I've been here- that you despised me! If only you knew how I prize your opinion!" "But are you really so sensitive? At your age! Would you believe it, just now, when you were telling your story, I thought, as I watched you, that you must be very sensitive!" "You thought so? What an eye you've got, I say! I bet that was when I was talking about the goose. That was just when I was fancying you had a great contempt for me for being in such a hurry to show off, and for a moment I quite hated you for it, and began talking like a fool. Then I fancied- just now, here- when I said that if there were no God He would have to be invented, that I was in too great a hurry to display my knowledge, especially as I got that phrase out of a book. But I swear I wasn't showing off out of vanity, though I really don't know why. Because I was so pleased? Yes, I believe it was because I was so pleased… though it's perfectly disgraceful for anyone to be gushing directly they are pleased, I know that. But I am convinced now that you don't despise me; it was all my imagination. Oh, Karamazov, I am profoundly unhappy. I sometimes fancy all sorts of things, that everyone is laughing at me, the whole world, and then I feel ready to overturn the whole order of things." "And you worry everyone about you," smiled Alyosha. "Yes, I worry everyone about me, especially my mother. Karamazov, tell me, am I very ridiculous now?" "Don't think about that, don't think of it at all!" cried Alyosha. "And what does ridiculous mean? Isn't everyone constantly being or seeming ridiculous? Besides, nearly all clever people now are fearfully afraid of being ridiculous, and that makes them unhappy. All I am surprised at is that you should be feeling that so early, though I've observed it for some time past,, not only in you. Nowadays the very children have begun to suffer from it. It's almost a sort of insanity. The devil has taken the form of that vanity and entered into the whole generation; it's simply the devil," added Alyosha, without a trace of the smile that Kolya, staring at him, expected to see. "You are like everyone else," said Alyosha, in conclusion, "that is, like very many others. Only you must not be like everybody else, that's all." "Even if everyone is like that?" "Yes, even if everyone is like that. You be the only one not like it. You really are not like everyone else, here you are not ashamed to confess to something bad and even ridiculous. And who will admit so much in these days? No one. And people have even ceased to feel the impulse to self-criticism. Don't be like everyone else, even if you are the only one." "Splendid! I was not mistaken in you. You know how to console one. Oh, how I have longed to know you, Karamazov! I've long been eager for this meeting. Can you really have thought about me, too? You said just now that you thought of me, too?" "Yes, I'd heard of you and had thought of you, too… and if it's partly vanity that makes you ask, it doesn't matter." "Do you know, Karamazov, our talk has been like a declaration of love," said Kolya, in a bashful and melting voice. "That's not ridiculous, is it?" "Not at all ridiculous, and if it were, it wouldn't matter, because it's been a good thing." Alyosha smiled brightly. "But do you know, Karamazov, you must admit that you are a little ashamed yourself, now… . I see it by your eyes." Kolya smiled with a sort of sly happiness. "Why ashamed?" "Well, why are you blushing?" "It was you made me blush," laughed Alyosha, and he really did blush. "Oh, well, I am a little, goodness knows why, I don't know… " he muttered, almost embarrassed. "Oh, how I love you and admire you at this moment just because you are rather ashamed! Because you are just like me," cried Kolya, in positive ecstasy. His cheeks glowed, his eyes beamed. "You know, Kolya, you will be very unhappy in your life," something made Alyosha say suddenly. "I know, I know. How you know it all before hand!" Kolya agreed at once. "But you will bless life on the whole, all the same." "Just so, hurrah! You are a prophet. Oh, we shall get on together, Karamazov! Do you know, what delights me most, is that you treat me quite like an equal. But we are not equals, no, we are not, you are better! But we shall get on. Do you know, all this last month, I've been saying to myself, 'Either we shall be friends at once, for ever, or we shall part enemies to the grave!'" "And saying that, of course, you loved me," Alyosha laughed gaily. "I did. I loved you awfully. I've been loving and dreaming of you. And how do you know it all beforehand? Ah, here's the doctor. Goodness! What will he tell us? Look at his face!"