第243章

"That's true," assented Smurov suddenly, in a ringing tone of conviction.He had listened attentively.

"And yet he is first in Latin himself," cried one of the group of boys suddenly.

"Yes, father, he says that and yet he is first in Latin," echoed Ilusha.

"What of it?" Kolya thought fit to defend himself, though the praise was very sweet to him."I am fagging away at Latin because Ihave to, because I promised my mother to pass my examination, and Ithink that whatever you do, it's worth doing it well.But in my soul Ihave a profound contempt for the classics and all that fraud....You don't agree, Karamazov?""Why 'fraud'?" Alyosha smiled again.

"Well, all the classical authors have been translated into all languages, so it was not for the sake of studying the classics they introduced Latin, but solely as a police measure, to stupefy the intelligence.So what can one call it but a fraud?""Why, who taught you all this?" cried Alyosha, surprised at last.

"In the first place I am capable of thinking for myself without being taught.Besides, what I said just now about the classics being translated our teacher Kolbasnikov has said to the whole of the third class.""The doctor has come!" cried Nina, who had been silent till then.

A carriage belonging to Madame Hohlakov drove up to the gate.

The captain, who had been expecting the doctor all the morning, rushed headlong out to meet him."Mamma" pulled herself together and assumed a dignified air.Alyosha went up to Ilusha and began setting his pillows straight.Nina, from her invalid chair, anxiously watched him putting the bed tidy.The boys hurriedly took leave.

Some of them promised to come again in the evening.Kolya called Perezvon and the dog jumped off the bed.

"I won't go away, I won't go away," Kolya said hastily to Ilusha."I'll wait in the passage and come back when the doctor's gone, I'll come back with Perezvon."But by now the doctor had entered, an important-looking person with long, dark whiskers and a shiny, shaven chin, wearing a bearskin coat.As he crossed the threshold he stopped, taken aback; he probably fancied he had come to the wrong place."How is this? Where am I?" he muttered, not removing his coat nor his peaked sealskin cap.

The crowd, the poverty of the room, the washing hanging on a line in the corner, puzzled him.The captain, bent double, was bowing low before him.

"It's here, sir, here, sir," he muttered cringingly; "it's here, you've come right, you were coming to us...""Sne-gi-ryov?" the doctor said loudly and pompously."Mr.

Snegiryov- is that you?"

"That's me, sir!"

"Ah!"

The doctor looked round the room with a squeamish air once more and threw off his coat, displaying to all eyes the grand decoration at his neck.The captain caught the fur coat in the air, and the doctor took off his cap.

"Where is the patient?" he asked emphatically.

Chapter 6

Precocity"WHAT do you think the doctor will say to him?" Kolya asked quickly."What a repulsive mug, though, hasn't he? I can't endure medicine!""Ilusha is dying.I think that's certain," answered Alyosha, mournfully.

"They are rogues! Medicine's a fraud! I am glad to have made your acquaintance, though, Karamazov.I wanted to know you for a long time.I am only sorry we meet in such sad circumstances."Kolya had a great inclination to say something even warmer and more demonstrative, but he felt ill at ease.Alyosha noticed this, smiled, and pressed his hand.

"I've long learned to respect you as a rare person," Kolya muttered again, faltering and uncertain."I have heard you are a mystic and have been in the monastery.I know you are a mystic, but...

that hasn't put me off.Contact with real life will cure you....

It's always so with characters like yours.""What do you mean by mystic? Cure me of what?" Alyosha was rather astonished.

"Oh, God and all the rest of it."

"What, don't you believe in God?"

"Oh, I've nothing against God.Of course, God is only a hypothesis, but...I admit that He is needed...for the order of the universe and all that...and that if there were no God He would have to be invented," added Kolya, beginning to blush.He suddenly fancied that Alyosha might think he was trying to show off his knowledge and to prove that he was "grown up." "I haven't the slightest desire to show off my knowledge to him," Kolya thought indignantly.And all of a sudden he felt horribly annoyed.

"I must confess I can't endure entering on such discussions," he said with a final air."It's possible for one who doesn't believe in God to love mankind, don't you think so? Voltaire didn't believe in God and loved mankind?" ("I am at it again," he thought to himself.)"Voltaire believed in God, though not very much, I think, and Idon't think he loved mankind very much either," said Alyosha quietly, gently, and quite naturally, as though he were talking to someone of his own age, or even older.Kolya was particularly struck by Alyosha's apparent diffidence about his opinion of Voltaire.He seemed to be leaving the question for him, little Kolya, to settle.

"Have you read Voltaire?" Alyosha finished.

"No, not to say read....But I've read Candide in the Russian translation...in an absurd, grotesque, old translation..(At it again! again!)""And did you understand it?"

"Oh, yes, everything....That is...Why do you suppose I shouldn't understand it? There's a lot of nastiness in it, of course....Of course I can understand that it's a philosophical novel and written to advocate an idea...." Kolya was getting mixed by now."I am a Socialist, Karamazov, I am an incurable Socialist," he announced suddenly, apropos of nothing.

"A Socialist?" laughed Alyosha."But when have you had time to become one? Why, I thought you were only thirteen?"Kolya winced.