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One day, when Kolya’s back was turned, Kartashov hastily opened Smaragdov, which lay among Kolya’s books, and immediately lighted on the passage relating to the foundation of Troy. This was a good time ago, but he felt uneasy and could not bring himself to announce publicly that he too knew who had founded Troy, afraid of what might happen and of Krassotkin’s somehow putting him to shame over it.
When Kolya began going to school, the mother devoted herself to studying all the sciences with him so as to help him, and go through his lessons with him. She hastened to make the acquaintance of the teachers and their wives, even made up to Kolya’s schoolfellows, and fawned upon them in the hope of thus saving Kolya from being teased, laughed at, or beaten by them.
The captain suddenly began to shake with dumb sobs, and Kolya’s lips and chin twitched. “Father, father! How sorry I am for you!” Ilusha moaned bitterly. “Ilusha ... darling ... the doctor said ... you would be all right ... we shall be happy ... the doctor ...” the captain began. “Ah, father!
Some of them were living at the station, others in the neighborhood; there were six or seven of them, all between twelve and fifteen, and two of them came from our town. The boys played together, and on the fourth or fifth day of Kolya’s stay at the station, a mad bet was made by the foolish boys.
“Don’t be afraid, apothecary, my dog won’t bite you,” Kolya rapped out loudly, noticing the doctor’s rather uneasy glance at Perezvon, who was standing in the doorway. There was a wrathful note in Kolya’s voice. He used the word apothecary instead of doctor on purpose, and, as he explained afterwards, used it “to insult him.”
“Oh, well, my boy, your Zhutchka’s lost and done for!” Ilusha did not speak, but he fixed an intent gaze once more on Kolya. Alyosha, catching Kolya’s eye, signed to him vigorously again, but he turned away his eyes pretending not to have noticed. “It must have run away and died somewhere.
But then Kolya’s mother hastened to entreat the masters on her boy’s behalf, and in the end Dardanelov, a respected and influential teacher, exerted himself in his favor, and the affair was ignored.
Kolya’s mad prank seemed to have broken the ice, and Dardanelov was rewarded for his intercession by a suggestion of hope. The suggestion, it is true, was a faint one, but then Dardanelov was such a paragon of purity and delicacy that it was enough for the time being to make him perfectly happy.
But at the slightest mention of Dardanelov by a visitor in Kolya’s presence, she would flush as pink as a rose.
All this was very becoming to him, and he looked quite handsome. His charming face always had a good-humored expression; but there was a gentleness and serenity in his good-humor. To Kolya’s surprise, Alyosha came out to him just as he was, without an overcoat. He had evidently come in haste. He held out his hand to Kolya at once. “Here you are at last! How anxious we’ve been to see you!”
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