The Brothers Karamazov

And so on that cold and wintry November morning, the boy Kolya Krasotkin was sitting at home. It was Sunday, and there was no school. But the clock had just struck eleven and he absolutely had to go out “on very important business,” and yet there he was, left alone in the whole house and decidedly in `harge of it, because it so happened that all of its elder inhabitants were away, owing to some urgent and singular circumstance. There was only one other apartment in the widow Krasotkin’s house, two little rooms across the hall from the widow’s apartment, which she rented out, and which were occupied by a doctor’s wife with two small children. This doctor’s wife was the same age as Anna Fyodorovna, and a great friend of hers, while the doctor himself had gone off somewhere about a year before, first to Orenburg, then to Tashkent, and nothing had been heard of him for the past six months, so that had it not been for the friendship of Mrs. Krasotkin, which somewhat softened the grief of the doctor’s abandoned wife, she would decidedly have drowned herself in the tears of that grief. And now it so happened, as if to crown all the adversities of fate, that Katerina, the doctor’s wife’s only maid, suddenly, and quite unexpectedly for her mistress, announced to her that very night, on Saturday, that she intended to give birth to a baby the next morning. How it happened that no one had noticed it before struck everyone as almost miraculous. The amazed doctor’s wife judged it best, while there was still time, to take Katerina to an establishment kept by a midwife in our town, suitable for such occasions. Since she highly valued her maid, she put her plan into action at once, took her there, and moreover stayed there with her. Later, in the morning, for some reason there was need for all the friendly participation and help of Mrs. Krasotkin herself, who on such an occasion could ask someone for something and wield a certain influence. Thus both ladies were absent, and as for Mrs. Krasotkin’s own maid, Agafya, she had gone to the market, and thus Kolya found himself for a time the keeper and guardian of the “squirts”—that is, the doctor’s wife’s little boy and girl, who were left all alone. Kolya was not afraid of guarding the house; besides he had Perezvon, who was ordered to lie down and “stay” under the bench in the front hall, and, precisely for that reason, every time Kolya, who kept pacing the rooms, came out to the hall, he shook his head and gave two firm and ingratiating thumps on the floor with his tail, but, alas, the summoning whistle did not come. Kolya would give the miserable dog a severe look, and again the dog would obediently freeze. But if anything troubled Kolya, it was the “squirts.” He naturally looked with the deepest contempt upon the unexpected adventure with Katerina, but the orphaned squirts he loved very much, and he had already brought them some children’s book. The older of the two, the girl Nastya, was eight and knew how to read, and the younger squirt, the seven-year-old boy, Kostya, liked it very much when Nastya read to him. Naturally, Krasotkin knew more interesting ways of entertaining them—for instance, by standing them side by side and playing soldiers, or hiding all over the house. He had done it more than once before and did not consider it beneath him, so that the rumor had even spread in his class that Krasotkin played “horses” at home with his little tenants, prancing and tossing his head like an outrunner, but Krasotkin proudly parried the accusation, putting forward the argument that “in our day” it would indeed be disgraceful to play “horses” with one’s peers, with thirteen-year-olds, but that he did so with the “squirts” because he loved them, and no one should dare call him to account for his feelings. And how the two “squirts” adored him! But this was no time for games. He was faced with some very important business of his own, which somehow even appeared almost mysterious, and meanwhile time was passing, and Agafya, with whom he could have left the children, still refused to come back from the market. He had already gone across the hall several times, opened the door to the other apartment, and looked in anxiously at the “squirts,” who, on his orders, were sitting there with a book, and, each time he opened the door, gave him big, silent smiles, expecting him to come in and do something wonderful and amusing. But Kolya was troubled in his soul and would not go in. Finally it struck eleven and he decided firmly and ultimately that if in ten minutes that “cursed” Agafya had not come back, he would leave without waiting for her, of course making the “squirts” give their word that they would not be scared without him, would not get into mischief, and would not cry from fear. With that thought in mind, he put on his padded winter coat with some kind of sealskin collar, slung his bag over his shoulder, and, despite his mother’s oft-repeated pleadings that he not go out “in such cold” without his galoshes, merely glanced at them in disdain, passing through the hall, and went out in just his boots. Perezvon, as soon as he saw him with his coat on, began thumping the floor still harder with his tail, nervously twitching all over, and even uttered a pitiful howl, but Kolya, seeing such passionate yearning in his dog, decided it was bad discipline, and kept him longer, though just a moment longer, under the bench, and only as he was opening the door to the hall did he suddenly whistle for him. The dog jumped up madly and began leaping ecstatically in front of him. Kolya crossed the hall and opened the “squirts’ “ door. They were both still sitting at the table, not reading now, but arguing heatedly about something. The children often argued with each other about various provocative matters of life, and Nastya, being older, always had the upper hand; and Kostya, if he did not agree with her, almost always went to appeal to Kolya Krasotkin, and whatever he decided remained the ultimate verdict for all sides. This time the argument between the “squirts” somewhat interested Krasotkin, and he stopped in the doorway to listen. The children saw he was listening and carried on their dispute with even greater enthusiasm.