The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoevsky (the reader ebook txt) 📖

suddenly began to shake with dumb sobs, and Kolya’s lips and chin twitched.

“Father, father! How sorry I am for you!” Ilusha moaned bitterly.

“Ilusha⁠ ⁠… darling⁠ ⁠… the doctor said⁠ ⁠… you would be all right⁠ ⁠… we shall be happy⁠ ⁠… the doctor⁠ ⁠…” the captain began.

“Ah, father! I know what the new doctor said to you about me.⁠ ⁠… I saw!” cried Ilusha, and again he hugged them both with all his strength, hiding his face on his father’s shoulder.

“Father, don’t cry, and when I die get a good boy, another one⁠ ⁠… choose one of them all, a good one, call him Ilusha and love him instead of me.⁠ ⁠…”

“Hush, old man, you’ll get well,” Krassotkin cried suddenly, in a voice that sounded angry.

“But don’t ever forget me, father,” Ilusha went on, “come to my grave⁠ ⁠… and, father, bury me by our big stone, where we used to go for our walk, and come to me there with Krassotkin in the evening⁠ ⁠… and Perezvon⁠ ⁠… I shall expect you.⁠ ⁠… Father, father!”

His voice broke. They were all three silent, still embracing. Nina was crying quietly in her chair, and at last seeing them all crying, “mamma,” too, burst into tears.

“Ilusha! Ilusha!” she exclaimed.

Krassotkin suddenly released himself from Ilusha’s embrace.

“Goodbye, old man, mother expects me back to dinner,” he said quickly. “What a pity I did not tell her! She will be dreadfully anxious.⁠ ⁠… But after dinner I’ll come back to you for the whole day, for the whole evening, and I’ll tell you all sorts of things, all sorts of things. And I’ll bring Perezvon, but now I will take him with me, because he will begin to howl when I am away and bother you. Goodbye!”

And he ran out into the passage. He didn’t want to cry, but in the passage he burst into tears. Alyosha found him crying.

“Kolya, you must be sure to keep your word and come, or he will be terribly disappointed,” Alyosha said emphatically.

“I will! Oh, how I curse myself for not having come before!” muttered Kolya, crying, and no longer ashamed of it.

At that moment the captain flew out of the room, and at once closed the door behind him. His face looked frenzied, his lips were trembling. He stood before the two and flung up his arms.

“I don’t want a good boy! I don’t want another boy!” he muttered in a wild whisper, clenching his teeth. “If I forget thee, Jerusalem, may my tongue⁠—” He broke off with a sob and sank on his knees before the wooden bench. Pressing his fists against his head, he began sobbing with absurd whimpering cries, doing his utmost that his cries should not be heard in the room.

Kolya ran out into the street.

“Goodbye, Karamazov? Will you come yourself?” he cried sharply and angrily to Alyosha.

“I will certainly come in the evening.”

“What was that he said about Jerusalem?⁠ ⁠… What did he mean by that?”

“It’s from the Bible. ‘If I forget thee, Jerusalem,’ that is, if I forget all that is most precious to me, if I let anything take its place, then may⁠—”

“I understand, that’s enough! Mind you come! Ici, Perezvon!” he cried with positive ferocity to the dog, and with rapid strides he went home.

Book XI Ivan I At Grushenka’s

Alyosha went towards the cathedral square to the widow Morozov’s house to see Grushenka, who had sent Fenya to him early in the morning with an urgent message begging him to come. Questioning Fenya, Alyosha learned that her mistress had been particularly distressed since the previous day. During the two months that had passed since Mitya’s arrest, Alyosha had called frequently at the widow Morozov’s house, both from his own inclination and to take messages for Mitya. Three days after Mitya’s arrest, Grushenka was taken very ill and was ill for nearly five weeks. For one whole week she was unconscious. She was very much changed⁠—thinner and a little sallow, though she had for the past fortnight been well enough to go out. But to Alyosha her face was even more attractive than before, and he liked to meet her eyes when he went in to her. A look of firmness and intelligent purpose had developed in her face. There were signs of a spiritual transformation in her, and a steadfast, fine and humble determination that nothing could shake could be discerned in her. There was a small vertical line between her brows which gave her charming face a look of concentrated thought, almost austere at the first glance. There was scarcely a trace of her former frivolity.

It seemed strange to Alyosha, too, that in spite of the calamity that had overtaken the poor girl, betrothed to a man who had been arrested for a terrible crime, almost at the instant of their betrothal, in spite of her illness and the almost inevitable sentence hanging over Mitya, Grushenka had not yet lost her youthful cheerfulness. There was a soft light in the once proud eyes, though at times they gleamed with the old vindictive fire when she was visited by one disturbing thought stronger than ever in her heart. The object of that uneasiness was the same as ever⁠—Katerina Ivanovna, of whom Grushenka had even raved when she lay in delirium. Alyosha knew that she was fearfully jealous of her. Yet Katerina Ivanovna had not once visited Mitya in his prison, though she might have done it whenever she liked. All this made a difficult problem for Alyosha, for he was the only person to whom Grushenka opened her heart and from whom she was continually asking advice. Sometimes he was unable to say anything.

Full of anxiety he entered her lodging. She was at home. She had returned from seeing Mitya half an hour before, and from the rapid movement with which she leapt up from her chair to meet him he saw that she had been expecting him with great impatience. A pack of cards dealt for a game of “fools” lay on the table. A