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Updated: June 10, 2025
“I don’t want him to be buried in the churchyard,” Snegiryov wailed suddenly; “I’ll bury him by the stone, by our stone! Ilusha told me to. I won’t let him be carried out!” He had been saying for the last three days that he would bury him by the stone, but Alyosha, Krassotkin, the landlady, her sister and all the boys interfered.
“And I never saw such a charming fellow as this nice boy,” said the grateful lady, pointing to Krassotkin. “And I’ll bring you as much powder as you like, Ilusha. We make the powder ourselves now. Borovikov found out how it’s made—twenty-four parts of saltpeter, ten of sulphur and six of birchwood charcoal.
Madame Krassotkin had let two little rooms, separated from the rest of the house by a passage, to a doctor’s wife with her two small children. This lady was the same age as Anna Fyodorovna, and a great friend of hers. Her husband, the doctor, had taken his departure twelve months before, going first to Orenburg and then to Tashkend, and for the last six months she had not heard a word from him.
Nastya, the elder, a girl of eight, could read, and Kostya, the boy, aged seven, was very fond of being read to by her. Krassotkin could, of course, have provided more diverting entertainment for them. He could have made them stand side by side and played soldiers with them, or sent them hiding all over the house.
He had done so more than once before and was not above doing it, so much so that a report once spread at school that Krassotkin played horses with the little lodgers at home, prancing with his head on one side like a trace-horse.
“You’d better look out,” the boys called after him; “he won’t be afraid of you. He will stab you in a minute, on the sly, as he did Krassotkin.” The boy waited for him without budging. Coming up to him, Alyosha saw facing him a child of about nine years old. He was an undersized weakly boy with a thin pale face, with large dark eyes that gazed at him vindictively.
He hadn’t the slightest idea that Kolya Krassotkin was coming, though he had long wished for a visit from the boy for whom Ilusha was fretting.
“Listen, you frivolous young woman,” Krassotkin began, getting up from the sofa, “can you swear by all you hold sacred in the world and something else besides, that you will watch vigilantly over the kids in my absence? I am going out.” “And what am I going to swear for?” laughed Agafya. “I shall look after them without that.” “No, you must swear on your eternal salvation. Else I shan’t go.”
“One has to be careful there’s no fire about, or it would blow up and kill us all,” Krassotkin warned them sensationally. The children gazed at the powder with an awe-stricken alarm that only intensified their enjoyment. But Kostya liked the shot better. “And does the shot burn?” he inquired. “No, it doesn’t.” “Give me a little shot,” he asked in an imploring voice.
“And you know, apothecary, my Perezvon might bite!” said Kolya, turning pale, with quivering voice and flashing eyes. “Ici, Perezvon!” “Kolya, if you say another word, I’ll have nothing more to do with you,” Alyosha cried peremptorily. “There is only one man in the world who can command Nikolay Krassotkin—this is the man”; Kolya pointed to Alyosha. “I obey him, good-by!”
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