Read FICTION books online

Reading books fiction Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself.



Fiction genre suitable for people of all ages. Everyone will find something interesting for themselves. Our electronic library is always at your service. Reading online free books without registration. Nowadays ebooks are convenient and efficient. After all, don’t forget: literature exists and develops largely thanks to readers.
The genre of fiction is interesting to read not only by the process of cognition and the desire to empathize with the fate of the hero, this genre is interesting for the ability to rethink one's own life. Of course the reader may accept the author's point of view or disagree with them, but the reader should understand that the author has done a great job and deserves respect. Take a closer look at genre fiction in all its manifestations in our elibrary.



Read books online » Fiction » The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) 📖

Book online «The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) đŸ“–Â». Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky



1 ... 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 ... 178
Go to page:
for my part, of course, am ready to wish you all success


in your defence
. As a matter of fact, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, I’ve

always been disposed to regard you as, so to speak, more unfortunate

than guilty. All of us here, if I may make bold to speak for all, we

are all ready to recognise that you are, at bottom, a young man of

honour, but, alas, one who has been carried away by certain passions

to a somewhat excessive degree
”

 

Nikolay Parfenovitch’s little figure was positively majestic by

the time he had finished speaking. It struck Mitya that in another

minute this “boy” would take his arm, lead him to another corner,

and renew their conversation about “girls.” But many quite

irrelevant and inappropriate thoughts sometimes occur even to a

prisoner when he is being led out to execution.

 

“Gentlemen, you are good, you are humane, may I see her to say

‘good-bye’ for the last time?” asked Mitya.

 

“Certainly, but considering
 in fact, now it’s impossible except

in the presence of-”

 

“Oh, well, if it must be so, it must!”

 

Grushenka was brought in, but the farewell was brief, and of few

words, and did not at all satisfy Nikolay Parfenovitch. Grushenka made

a deep bow to Mitya.

 

“I have told you I am yours, and I will be yours. I will follow

you for ever, wherever they may send you. Farewell; you are guiltless,

though you’ve been your own undoing.”

 

Her lips quivered, tears flowed from her eyes.

 

“Forgive me, Grusha, for my love, for ruining you, too, with my

love.”

 

Mitya would have said something more, but he broke off and went

out. He was at once surrounded by men who kept a constant watch on

him. At the bottom of the steps to which he had driven up with such

a dash the day before with Andrey’s three horses, two carts stood in

readiness. Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, a sturdy, thick-set man with a

wrinkled face, was annoyed about something, some sudden

irregularity. He was shouting angrily. He asked Mitya to get into

the cart with somewhat excessive surliness.

 

“When I stood him drinks in the tavern, the man had quite a

different face,” thought Mitya, as he got in. At the gates there was a

crowd of people, peasants, women, and drivers. Trifon Borissovitch

came down the steps too. All stared at Mitya.

 

“Forgive me at parting, good people!” Mitya shouted suddenly

from the cart.

 

“Forgive us too!” he heard two or three voices.

 

“Goodbye to you, too, Trifon Borissovitch!”

 

But Trifon Borissovitch did not even turn round. He was,

perhaps, too busy. He, too, was shouting and fussing about

something. It appeared that everything was not yet ready in the second

cart, in which two constables were to accompany Mavriky Mavrikyevitch.

The peasant who had been ordered to drive the second cart was

pulling on his smock, stoutly maintaining that it was not his turn

to go, but Akim’s. But Akim was not to be seen. They ran to look for

him. The peasant persisted and besought them to wait.

 

“You see what our peasants are, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch. They’ve

no shame!” exclaimed Trifon Borissovitch. “Akim gave you twenty-five

copecks the day before yesterday. You’ve drunk it all and now you

cry out. I’m simply surprised at your good-nature, with our low

peasants, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, that’s all I can say.”

 

“But what do we want a second cart for?” Mitya put in. “Let’s

start with the one, Mavriky Mavrikyevitch. I won’t be unruly, I

won’t run away from you, old fellow. What do we want an escort for?”

 

“I’ll trouble you, sir, to learn how to speak to me if you’ve

never been taught. I’m not ‘old fellow’ to you, and you can keep

your advice for another time!” Mavriky Mavrikyevitch snapped out

savagely, as though glad to vent his wrath.

 

Mitya was reduced to silence. He flushed all over. A moment

later he felt suddenly very cold. The rain had ceased, but the dull

sky was still overcast with clouds, and a keen wind was blowing

straight in his face.

 

“I’ve taken a chill,” thought Mitya, twitching his shoulders.

 

At last Mavriky Mavrikyevitch, too, got into the cart, sat down

heavily, and, as though without noticing it, squeezed Mitya into the

corner. It is true that he was out of humour and greatly disliked

the task that had been laid upon him.

 

“Goodbye, Trifon Borissovitch!” Mitya shouted again, and felt

himself, that he had not called out this time from good-nature, but

involuntarily, from resentment.

 

But Trifon Borissovitch stood proudly, with both hands behind

his back, and staring straight at Mitya with a stern and angry face,

he made no reply.

 

“Goodbye, Dmitri Fyodorovitch, good-bye!” he heard all at once

the voice of Kalganov, who had suddenly darted out. Running up to

the cart he held out his hand to Mitya. He had no cap on.

 

Mitya had time to seize and press his hand.

 

“Goodbye, dear fellow! I shan’t forget your generosity,” he cried

warmly.

 

But the cart moved and their hands parted. The bell began

ringing and Mitya was driven off.

 

Kalganov ran back, sat down in a corner, bent his head, hid his

face in his hands, and burst out crying. For a long while he sat

like that, crying as though he were a little boy instead of a young

man of twenty. Oh, he believed almost without doubt in Mitya’s guilt.

 

“What are these people? What can men be after this?” he

exclaimed incoherently, in bitter despondency, almost despair. At that

moment he had no desire to live.

 

“Is it worth it? Is it worth it?” exclaimed the boy in his grief.

PART IV Book X

The Boys

Chapter 1

Kolya Krassotkin

 

IT was the beginning of November. There had been a hard frost,

eleven degrees Reaumur, without snow, but a little dry snow had fallen

on the frozen ground during the night, and a keen dry wind was lifting

and blowing it along the dreary streets of our town, especially

about the marketplace. It was a dull morning, but the snow had

ceased.

 

Not far from the marketplace, close to Plotnikov’s shop, there

stood a small house, very clean both without and within. It belonged

to Madame Krassotkin, the widow of a former provincial secretary,

who had been dead for fourteen years. His widow, still a

nice-looking woman of thirty-two, was living in her neat little

house on her private means. She lived in respectable seclusion; she

was of a soft but fairly cheerful disposition. She was about

eighteen at the time of her husband’s death; she had been married only

a year and had just borne him a son. From the day of his death she had

devoted herself heart and soul to the bringing up of her precious

treasure, her boy Kolya. Though she had loved him passionately those

fourteen years, he had caused her far more suffering than happiness.

She had been trembling and fainting with terror almost every day,

afraid he would fall ill, would catch cold, do something naughty,

climb on a chair and fall off it, and so on and so on. When Kolya

began going to school, the mother devoted herself to studying all

the sciences with him so as to help him, and go through his lessons

with him. She hastened to make the acquaintance of the teachers and

their wives, even made up to Kolya’s schoolfellows, and fawned upon

them in the hope of thus saving Kolya from being teased, laughed at,

or beaten by them. She went so far that the boys actually began to

mock at him on her account and taunt him with being a “mother’s

darling.”

 

But the boy could take his own part. He was a resolute boy,

“tremendously strong,” as was rumoured in his class, and soon proved

to be the fact; he was agile, strong-willed, and of an audacious and

enterprising temper. He was good at lessons, and there was a rumour in

the school that he could beat the teacher, Dardanelov, at arithmetic

and universal history. Though he looked down upon everyone, he was a

good comrade and not supercilious. He accepted his schoolfellows’

respect as his due, but was friendly with them. Above all, he knew

where to draw the line. He could restrain himself on occasion, and

in his relations with the teachers he never overstepped that last

mystic limit beyond which a prank becomes an unpardonable breach of

discipline. But he was as fond of mischief on every possible

occasion as the smallest boy in the school, and not so much for the

sake of mischief as for creating a sensation, inventing something,

something effective and conspicuous. He was extremely vain. He knew

how to make even his mother give way to him; he was almost despotic in

his control of her. She gave way to him, oh, she had given way to

him for years. The one thought unendurable to her was that her boy had

no great love for her. She was always fancying that Kolya was

“unfeeling” to her, and at times, dissolving into hysterical tears,

she used to reproach him with his coldness. The boy disliked this, and

the more demonstrations of feeling were demanded of him, the more he

seemed intentionally to avoid them. Yet it was not intentional on

his part but instinctive-it was his character. His mother was

mistaken; he was very fond of her. He only disliked “sheepish

sentimentality,” as he expressed it in his schoolboy language.

 

There was a bookcase in the house containing a few books that

had been his father’s. Kolya was fond of reading, and had read several

of them by himself. His mother did not mind that and only wondered

sometimes at seeing the boy stand for hours by the bookcase poring

over a book instead of going to play. And in that way Kolya read

some things unsuitable for his age.

 

Though the boy, as a rule, knew where to draw the line in his

mischief, he had of late begun to play pranks that caused his mother

serious alarm. It is true there was nothing vicious in what he did,

but a wild mad recklessness.

 

It happened that July, during the summer holidays, that the mother

and son went to another district, forty-five miles away, to spend a

week with a distant relation, whose husband was an official at the

railway station (the very station, the nearest one to our town, from

which a month later Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov set off for Moscow).

There Kolya began by carefully investigating every detail connected

with the railways, knowing that he could impress his schoolfellows

when he got home with his newly acquired knowledge. But there happened

to be some other boys in the place with whom he soon made friends.

Some of them were living at the station, others in the

neighbourhood; there were six or seven of them, all between twelve and

fifteen, and two of them came from our town. The boys played together,

and on the fourth or fifth day of Kolya’s stay at the station, a mad

bet was made by the foolish boys. Kolya, who was almost the youngest

of the party and rather looked down upon by the others in consequence,

was moved by vanity or by reckless bravado to bet them two roubles

that he would lie down between the rails at night when the eleven

o’clock train was due, and would lie there without moving while the

train rolled over him at full speed. It is true they made a

preliminary investigation, from which it appeared that it was possible

to lie so flat between the

1 ... 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 ... 178
Go to page:

Free ebook «The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (best e book reader for android txt) đŸ“–Â» - read online now

Comments (0)

There are no comments yet. You can be the first!
Add a comment