Brothers -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Russia -- Social life and customs -- 1533-1917 -- Fiction
“Stay, Alexey Fyodorovitch, stay,” the captain began to talk with
frenzied rapidity, carried away by a new day-dream. “Do you know that
Ilusha and I will perhaps really carry out our dream. We will buy a
horse and cart, a black horse, he insists on its being black, and we
will set off as we pretended the other day. I have an old friend, a
lawyer in K. province, and I heard through a trustworthy man that if I
were to go he’d give me a place as clerk in his office, so, who knows,
maybe he would. So I’d just put mamma and Nina in the cart, and Ilusha
could drive, and I’d walk, I’d walk.... Why, if I only succeed in
getting one debt paid that’s owing me, I should have perhaps enough for
that too!”
“There would be enough!” cried Alyosha. “Katerina Ivanovna will send
you as much more as you need, and you know, I have money too, take what
you want, as you would from a brother, from a friend, you can give it
back later.... (You’ll get rich, you’ll get rich!) And you know you
couldn’t have a better idea than to move to another province! It would
be the saving of you, especially of your boy—and you ought to go
quickly, before the winter, before the cold. You must write to us when
you are there, and we will always be brothers.... No, it’s not a
dream!”
Alyosha could have hugged him, he was so pleased. But glancing at him
he stopped short. The man was standing with his neck outstretched and
his lips protruding, with a pale and frenzied face. His lips were
moving as though trying to articulate something; no sound came, but
still his lips moved. It was uncanny.
“What is it?” asked Alyosha, startled.
“Alexey Fyodorovitch ... I ... you,” muttered the captain, faltering,
looking at him with a strange, wild, fixed stare, and an air of
desperate resolution. At the same time there was a sort of grin on his
lips. “I ... you, sir ... wouldn’t you like me to show you a little
trick I know?” he murmured, suddenly, in a firm rapid whisper, his
voice no longer faltering.
“What trick?”
“A pretty trick,” whispered the captain. His mouth was twisted on the
left side, his left eye was screwed up. He still stared at Alyosha.
“What is the matter? What trick?” Alyosha cried, now thoroughly
alarmed.
“Why, look,” squealed the captain suddenly, and showing him the two
notes which he had been holding by one corner between his thumb and
forefinger during the conversation, he crumpled them up savagely and
squeezed them tight in his right hand. “Do you see, do you see?” he
shrieked, pale and infuriated. And suddenly flinging up his hand, he
threw the crumpled notes on the sand. “Do you see?” he shrieked again,
pointing to them. “Look there!”
And with wild fury he began trampling them under his heel, gasping and
exclaiming as he did so:
“So much for your money! So much for your money! So much for your
money! So much for your money!”
Suddenly he darted back and drew himself up before Alyosha, and his
whole figure expressed unutterable pride.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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