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) 📖». Author Fyodor Dostoyevsky



1 ... 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 ... 178
Go to page:
>generosity. Allow me to introduce my family, my two daughters and my

son-my litter. If I die, who will care for them, and while I live who

but they will care for a wretch like me? That’s a great thing the Lord

has ordained for every man of my sort, sir. For there must be

someone able to love even a man like me.”

 

“Ah, that’s perfectly true!” exclaimed Alyosha.

 

“Oh, do leave off playing the fool! Some idiot comes in, and you

put us to shame!” cried the girl by the window, suddenly turning to

her father with a disdainful and contemptuous air.

 

“Wait a little, Varvara!” cried her father, speaking

peremptorily but looking at them quite approvingly. “That’s her

character,” he said, addressing Alyosha again.

 

“And in all nature there was naught

 

That could find favour in his eyes-

 

or rather in the feminine-that could find favour in her eyes- . But

now let me present you to my wife, Arina Petrovna. She is crippled,

she is forty-three; she can move, but very little. She is of humble

origin. Arina Petrovna, compose your countenance. This is Alexey

Fyodorovitch Karamazov. Get up, Alexey Fyodorovitch.” He took him by

the hand and with unexpected force pulled him up. “You must stand up

to be introduced to a lady. It’s not the Karamazov, mamma, who…

h’m… etcetera, but his brother, radiant with modest virtues. Come,

Arina Petrovna, come, mamma, first your hand to be kissed.”

 

And he kissed his wife’s hand respectfully and even tenderly.

The girl at the window turned her back indignantly on the scene; an

expression of extraordinary cordiality came over the haughtily

inquiring face of the woman.

 

“Good morning! Sit down, Mr. Tchernomazov,” she said.

 

“Karamazov, mamma, Karamazov. We are of humble origin,” he

whispered again.

 

“Well, Karamazov, or whatever it is, but I always think of

Tchermomazov…. Sit down. Why has he pulled you up? He calls me

crippled, but I am not, only my legs are swollen like barrels, and I

am shrivelled up myself. Once I used to be so fat, but now it’s as

though I had swallowed a needle.”

 

“We are of humble origin,” the captain muttered again.

 

“Oh, father, father!” the hunchback girl, who had till then been

silent on her chair, said suddenly, and she hid her eyes in her

handkerchief.

 

“Buffoon!” blurted out the girl at the window.

 

“Have you heard our news?” said the mother, pointing at her

daughters. “It’s like clouds coming over; the clouds pass and we

have music again. When we were with the army, we used to have many

such guests. I don’t mean to make any comparisons; everyone to their

taste. The deacon’s wife used to come then and say, ‘Alexandr

Alexandrovitch is a man of the noblest heart, but Nastasya

Petrovna,’ she would say, ‘is of the brood of hell.’ ‘Well,’ I said,

‘that’s a matter of taste; but you are a little spitfire.’ ‘And you

want keeping in your place;’ says she. ‘You black sword,’ said I, ‘who

asked you to teach me?’ ‘But my breath,’ says she, ‘is clean, and

yours is unclean.’ ‘You ask all the officers whether my breath is

unclean.’ And ever since then I had it in my mind. Not long ago I

was sitting here as I am now, when I saw that very general come in who

came here for Easter, and I asked him: ‘Your Excellency,’ said I, ‘can

a lady’s breath be unpleasant?’ ‘Yes,’ he answered; ‘you ought to open

a window-pane or open the door, for the air is not fresh here.’ And

they all go on like that! And what is my breath to them? The dead

smell worse still!. ‘I won’t spoil the air,’ said I, ‘I’ll order

some slippers and go away.’ My darlings, don’t blame your own

mother! Nikolay Ilyitch, how is it I can’t please you? There’s only

Ilusha who comes home from school and loves me. Yesterday he brought

me an apple. Forgive your own mother-forgive a poor lonely

creature! Why has my breath become unpleasant to you?”

 

And the poor mad woman broke into sobs, and tears streamed down

her cheeks. The captain rushed up to her.

 

“Mamma, mamma, my dear, give over! You are not lonely. Everyone

loves you, everyone adores you.” He began kissing both her hands again

and tenderly stroking her face; taking the dinner-napkin, he began

wiping away her tears. Alyosha fancied that he too had tears in his

eyes. “There, you see, you hear?” he turned with a sort of fury to

Alyosha, pointing to the poor imbecile.

 

“I see and hear,” muttered Alyosha.

 

“Father, father, how can you-with him! Let him alone!” cried

the boy, sitting up in his bed and gazing at his father with glowing

eyes.

 

“Do give over fooling, showing off your silly antics which never

lead to anything! shouted Varvara, stamping her foot with passion.

 

“Your anger is quite just this time, Varvara, and I’ll make

haste to satisfy you. Come, put on your cap, Alexey Fyodorovitch,

and I’ll put on mine. We will go out. I have a word to say to you in

earnest, but not within these walls. This girl sitting here is my

daughter Nina; I forgot to introduce her to you. She is a heavenly

angel incarnate… who has flown down to us mortals,… if you can

understand.”

 

“There he is shaking all over, as though he is in convulsions!”

Varvara went on indignantly.

 

“And she there stamping her foot at me and calling me a fool

just now, she is a heavenly angel incarnate too, and she has good

reason to call me so. Come along, Alexey Fyodorovitch, we must make an

end.”

 

And, snatching Alyosha’s hand, he drew him out of the room into

the street.

Chapter 7

And in the Open Air

 

“THE air is fresh, but in my apartment it is not so in any sense

of the word. Let us walk slowly, sir. I should be glad of your kind

interest.”

 

“I too have something important to say to you,” observed

Alyosha, “only I don’t know how to begin.”

 

“To be sure you must have business with me. You would never have

looked in upon me without some object. Unless you come simply to

complain of the boy, and that’s hardly likely. And, by the way,

about the boy: I could not explain to you in there, but here I will

describe that scene to you. My tow was thicker a week ago-I mean my

beard. That’s the nickname they give to my beard, the schoolboys

most of all. Well, your brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch was pulling me

by my beard, I’d done nothing, he was in a towering rage and

happened to come upon me. He dragged me out of the tavern into the

market place; at that moment the boys were coming out of school, and

with them Ilusha. As soon as he saw me in such a state he rushed up to

me. ‘Father,’ he cried, ‘father!’ He caught hold of me, hugged me,

tried to pull me away, crying to my assailant, ‘Let go, let go, it’s

my father, forgive him!’- yes, he actually cried ‘forgive him.’ He

clutched at that hand, that very hand, in his little hands and

kissed it…. I remember his little face at that moment, I haven’t

forgotten it and I never shall!”

 

“I swear,” cried Alyosha, “that my brother will express his most

deep and sincere regret, even if he has to go down on his knees in

that same marketplace…. I’ll make him or he is no brother of mine!

 

“Aha, then it’s only a suggestion! And it does not come from him

but simply from the generosity of your own warm heart. You should have

said so. No, in that case allow me to tell you of your brother’s

highly chivalrous soldierly generosity, for he did give expression

to it at the time. He left off dragging me by my beard and released

me: ‘You are an officer,’ he said, ‘and I am an officer, if you can

find a decent man to be your second send me your challenge. I will

give satisfaction, though you are a scoundrel.’ That’s what he said. A

chivalrous spirit indeed! I retired with Ilusha, and that scene is a

family record imprinted forever on Ilusha’s soul. No, it’s not for

us to claim the privileges of noblemen. Judge for yourself. You’ve

just been in our mansion, what did you see there? Three ladies, one

a cripple and weak-minded, another a cripple and hunchback and the

third not crippled but far too clever. She is a student, dying to

get back to Petersburg, to work for the emancipation of the Russian

woman on the banks of the Neva. I won’t speak of Ilusha, he is only

nine. I am alone in the world, and if I die, what will become of all

of them? I simply ask you that. And if I challenge him and he kills me

on the spot, what then? What will become of them? And worse still,

if he doesn’t kill me but only cripples me: I couldn’t work, but I

should still be a mouth to feed. Who would feed it and who would

feed them all? Must I take Ilusha from school and send him to beg in

the streets? That’s what it means for me to challenge him to a duel.

It’s silly talk and nothing else.”

 

“He will beg your forgiveness, he will bow down at your feet in

the middle of the marketplace,” cried Alyosha again, with glowing

eyes.

 

“I did think of prosecuting him,” the captain went on, “but look

in our code, could I get much compensation for a personal injury?

And then Agrafena Alexandrovna* sent for me and shouted at me:

‘Don’t dare to dream of it! If you proceed against him, I’ll publish

it to all the world that he beat you for your dishonesty, and then you

will be prosecuted.’ I call God to witness whose was the dishonesty

and by whose commands I acted, wasn’t it by her own and Fyodor

Pavlovitch’s? And what’s more,’ she went on, ‘I’ll dismiss you for

good and you’ll never earn another penny from me. I’ll speak to my

merchant too’ (that’s what she calls her old man) ‘and he will dismiss

you!’ And if he dismisses me, what can I earn then from anyone?

Those two are all I have to look to, for your Fyodor Pavlovitch has

not only given over employing me, for another reason, but he means

to make use of papers I’ve signed to go to law against me. And so I

kept quiet, and you have seen our retreat. But now let me ask you: did

Ilusha hurt your finger much? I didn’t like to go into it in our

mansion before him.”

 

* Grushenka.

 

“Yes, very much, and he was in a great fury. He was avenging you

on me as a Karamazov, I see that now. But if only you had seen how

he was throwing stones at his schoolfellows! It’s very dangerous. They

might kill him. They are children and stupid. A stone may be thrown

and break somebody’s head.”

 

“That’s just what has happened. He has been bruised by a stone

to-day. Not on the head but on the chest, just above the heart. He

came home crying and groaning and now he is ill.”

 

“And you know he attacks them first. He is bitter against them

on your account. They say he stabbed a boy called Krassotkin with a

penknife not long ago.”

 

“I’ve heard about that too, it’s dangerous. Krassotkin is an

official here, we may

1 ... 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 ... 178
Go to page:

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

Comments (0)

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