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It’s Zhutchka!” he cried in a blissful voice, “Ilusha, this is Zhutchka, your Zhutchka! Mamma, this is Zhutchka!” He was almost weeping. “And I never guessed!” cried Smurov regretfully. “Bravo, Krassotkin! I said he’d find the dog and here he’s found him.” “Here he’s found him!” another boy repeated gleefully. “Krassotkin’s a brick!” cried a third voice.
At the moment when Krassotkin opened the door and came into the room, the captain and all the boys were round Ilusha’s bed, looking at a tiny mastiff pup, which had only been born the day before, though the captain had bespoken it a week ago to comfort and amuse Ilusha, who was still fretting over the lost and probably dead Zhutchka.
And if Krassotkin, who had no suspicion of it, had known what a disastrous and fatal effect such a moment might have on the sick child’s health, nothing would have induced him to play such a trick on him. But Alyosha was perhaps the only person in the room who realized it. As for the captain he behaved like a small child. “Zhutchka!
I’ve brought a dog, too,” he said, addressing Ilusha all at once. “Do you remember Zhutchka, old man?” he suddenly fired the question at him. Ilusha’s little face quivered. He looked with an agonized expression at Kolya. Alyosha, standing at the door, frowned and signed to Kolya not to speak of Zhutchka, but he did not or would not notice. “Where ... is Zhutchka?” Ilusha asked in a broken voice.
He told him to take a piece of bread, to stick a pin in it, and throw it to one of those hungry dogs who snap up anything without biting it, and then to watch and see what would happen. So they prepared a piece of bread like that and threw it to Zhutchka, that shaggy dog there’s been such a fuss about. The people of the house it belonged to never fed it at all, though it barked all day.
You won’t be thrashed for coming with me?” “Come, I say, I’m never thrashed! And you’ve got Perezvon with you?” “Yes.” “You’re taking him, too?” “Yes.” “Ah! if it were only Zhutchka!” “That’s impossible. Zhutchka’s non-existent. Zhutchka is lost in the mists of obscurity.”
I trained him so as to bring you a well-trained dog, in good condition, old man, so as to be able to say to you, ‘See, old man, what a fine dog your Zhutchka is now!’ Haven’t you a bit of meat? He’ll show you a trick that will make you die with laughing. A piece of meat, haven’t you got any?” The captain ran across the passage to the landlady, where their cooking was done.
His father and the boys have been hunting all over the town for it. Would you believe it, since he’s been ill, I’ve three times heard him repeat with tears, ‘It’s because I killed Zhutchka, father, that I am ill now. God is punishing me for it.’ He can’t get that idea out of his head. And if the dog were found and proved to be alive, one might almost fancy the joy would cure him.
“Ah! couldn’t we do this?” Smurov suddenly stood still. “You see Ilusha says that Zhutchka was a shaggy, grayish, smoky-looking dog like Perezvon. Couldn’t you tell him this is Zhutchka, and he might believe you?” “Boy, shun a lie, that’s one thing; even with a good object—that’s another. Above all, I hope you’ve not told them anything about my coming.” “Heaven forbid! I know what I am about.
“Not Zhutchka?” Alyosha looked at Kolya with eyes full of pity. “Is she lost for ever?” “I know you would all like it to be Zhutchka. I’ve heard all about it.” Kolya smiled mysteriously. “Listen, Karamazov, I’ll tell you all about it.
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