Brothers -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Fathers and sons -- Fiction; Russia -- Social life and customs -- 1533-1917 -- Fiction
Alyosha stood rooted to the spot, watching the scene in silence.
Meanwhile, Fyodor Pavlovitch had got into the carriage, and Ivan was
about to follow him in grim silence without even turning to say good-by
to Alyosha. But at this point another almost incredible scene of
grotesque buffoonery gave the finishing touch to the episode. Maximov
suddenly appeared by the side of the carriage. He ran up, panting,
afraid of being too late. Rakitin and Alyosha saw him running. He was
in such a hurry that in his impatience he put his foot on the step on
which Ivan’s left foot was still resting, and clutching the carriage he
kept trying to jump in. “I am going with you!” he kept shouting,
laughing a thin mirthful laugh with a look of reckless glee in his
face. “Take me, too.”
“There!” cried Fyodor Pavlovitch, delighted. “Did I not say he was von
Sohn. It is von Sohn himself, risen from the dead. Why, how did you
tear yourself away? What did you _vonsohn_ there? And how could you get
away from the dinner? You must be a brazen-faced fellow! I am that
myself, but I am surprised at you, brother! Jump in, jump in! Let him
pass, Ivan. It will be fun. He can lie somewhere at our feet. Will you
lie at our feet, von Sohn? Or perch on the box with the coachman. Skip
on to the box, von Sohn!”
But Ivan, who had by now taken his seat, without a word gave Maximov a
violent punch in the breast and sent him flying. It was quite by chance
he did not fall.
“Drive on!” Ivan shouted angrily to the coachman.
“Why, what are you doing, what are you about? Why did you do that?”
Fyodor Pavlovitch protested.
But the carriage had already driven away. Ivan made no reply.
“Well, you are a fellow,” Fyodor Pavlovitch said again.
After a pause of two minutes, looking askance at his son, “Why, it was
you got up all this monastery business. You urged it, you approved of
it. Why are you angry now?”
“You’ve talked rot enough. You might rest a bit now,” Ivan snapped
sullenly.
Fyodor Pavlovitch was silent again for two minutes.
“A drop of brandy would be nice now,” he observed sententiously, but
Ivan made no response.
“You shall have some, too, when we get home.”
Ivan was still silent.
Fyodor Pavlovitch waited another two minutes.
“But I shall take Alyosha away from the monastery, though you will
dislike it so much, most honored Karl von Moor.”
Ivan shrugged his shoulders contemptuously, and turning away stared at
the road. And they did not speak again all the way home.
Book III. The Sensualists
Chapter I.
In The Servants’ Quarters
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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