The Brothers Karamazov

Kolya pointed to a stalwart peasant in a sheepskin coat, with a good-natured face, who was standing beside his wagon clapping his hands in their mittens to keep them warm. His long, light brown beard was all hoary with frost.

“The peasant’s got his beard frozen!” Kolya cried loudly and pertly as he passed by him.

“Many have got their beards frozen,” the peasant uttered calmly and sententiously in reply.

“Don’t pick on him,” Smurov remarked.

“It’s all right, he won’t be angry, he’s a nice fellow. Good-bye, Matvey.”

“Good-bye.”

“Are you really Matvey?”

“I am. Didn’t you know?”

“No, I just said it.”

“Well, I declare. You must be one of them schoolboys.”

“One of them schoolboys.”

“And what, do they whip you?”

“Not really, so-so.”

“Does it hurt?”

“It can.”

“E-eh, that’s life!” the peasant sighed from the bottom of his heart.

“Good-bye, Matvey.”

“Good-bye. You’re a nice lad, that’s what.”

The boys walked on.

“A good peasant,” Kolya began saying to Smurov. “I like talking with the people, and am always glad to do them justice.”

“Why did you lie about them whipping us at school?” asked Smurov.

“But I had to comfort him.”

“How so?”

“You know, Smurov, I don’t like it when people keep asking questions, when they don’t understand the first time. Some things can’t even be explained. A peasant’s notion is that schoolboys are whipped and ought to be whipped: what kind of schoolboy is he, if he isn’t whipped? And if I were suddenly to tell him that they don’t whip us in our school, it would upset him. Anyway, you don’t understand these things. One has to know how to talk with the people.”

“Only please don’t pick on them, or there’ll be another incident like that time with the goose.”

“Are you afraid?” “Don’t laugh, Kolya. I am afraid, by God. My father will be terribly angry. I’m strictly forbidden to go around with you.”

“Don’t worry, nothing will happen this time. Hello, Natasha,” he shouted to one of the market women under the shed.

“Natasha, is it? My name’s Maria,” the woman, who was still far from old, replied in a shrill voice.

“Maria! How nice! Good-bye.”

“Ah, the scamp! Knee-high to a mushroom and he’s at it already!”

“No time, I have no time for you now, tell me next Sunday,” Kolya waved his hand at her, as if he was not bothering her but she him.

“What am I going to tell you next Sunday? I’m not pestering you, you’re pestering me, you rascal,” Maria went on shouting, “you ought to be whipped, that’s what, you’re a famous offender, that’s what!”

There was laughter among the other market women, who were selling things from their stands next to Maria, when suddenly, from under the arcade of shops nearby, for no reason at all an irritated man jumped out, who looked like a shop clerk, but a stranger, not one of our tradesmen, in a long blue caftan and a visored cap, a young man, with dark brown, curly hair and a long, pale, slightly pockmarked face. He was somehow absurdly agitated, and at once began threatening Kolya with his fist.

“I know you,” he kept exclaiming irritably, “I know you!”

Kolya stared fixedly at him. He was unable to recall when he could have had any quarrel with this man. But he had had so many quarrels in the streets that he could not remember them all.

“So you know me?” he asked ironically.

“I know you! I know you!” the tradesman kept repeating like a fool.

“So much the better for you. But I am in a hurry. Good-bye.”

“You’re still up to your tricks?” the tradesman shouted. “Up to your tricks again? I know you! So you’re up to your tricks again?”

“It’s none of your business, brother, what tricks I’m up to,” Kolya said, stopping and continuing to examine him.

“None of my business, is it?”

“That’s right, it’s none of your business.”

“And whose is it? Whose? Well, whose?”

“It’s Trifon Nikitich’s business now, brother, not yours.”

“What Trifon Nikitich?” the fellow stared at Kolya in foolish surprise, though still with the same excitement. Kolya solemnly looked him up and down.

“Have you been to the Church of the Ascension?” he suddenly asked him sternly and insistently.

“What Ascension? Why? No, I haven’t,” the fellow was a bit taken aback. “Do you know Sabaneyev?” Kolya went on, still more insistently and sternly.

“What Sabaneyev? No, I don’t know him.”

“Devil take you, then!” Kolya suddenly snapped, and turning sharply to the right, quickly went his way as if scorning even to speak with such a dolt who does not even know Sabaneyev.

“Hey, wait! What Sabaneyev?” the fellow came to his senses and again got all excited. “What’s he talking about?” he suddenly turned to the market women, staring foolishly at them.

The women burst out laughing. “A clever boy,” one of them said.

“What, what Sabaneyev did he mean?” the fellow kept repeating frenziedly, waving his right hand.

“Ah, it must be the Sabaneyev that worked for the Kuzmichevs, must be that one,” one woman suddenly understood.

The fellow stared wildly at her.