All this time Doctor Herzenstube, who was called in by Katerina Ivanovna, came punctually every other day, but little was gained by his visits and he dosed the invalid mercilessly.
But on that Sunday morning a new doctor was expected, who had come from Moscow, where he had a great reputation.
Katerina Ivanovna had sent for him from Moscow at great expense, not expressly for Ilusha, but for another object of which more will be said in its place hereafter. But, as he had come, she had asked him to see Ilusha as well, and the captain had been told to expect him.
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.
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.
Ilusha, who had heard three days before that he was to be presented with a puppy, not an ordinary puppy, but a pedigree mastiff (a very important point, of course), tried from delicacy of feeling to pretend that he was pleased. But his father and the boys could not help seeing that the puppy only served to recall to his little heart the thought of the unhappy dog he had killed.
The puppy lay beside him feebly moving and he, smiling sadly, stroked it with his thin, pale, wasted hand. Clearly he liked the puppy, but... it wasn't Zhutchka; if he could have had Zhutchka and the puppy, too, then he would have been completely happy.
"Krassotkin!" cried one of the boys suddenly. He was the first to see him come in.
Krassotkin's entrance made a general sensation; the boys moved away and stood on each side of the bed, so that he could get a full view of Ilusha.
The captain ran eagerly to meet Kolya.
"Please come in... you are welcome!" he said hurriedly. "Ilusha, Mr. Krassotkin has come to see you!
But Krassotkin, shaking hands with him hurriedly, instantly showed his complete knowledge of the manners of good society.
He turned first to the captain's wife sitting in her armchair, who was very ill-humoured at the moment, and was grumbling that the boys stood between her and Ilusha's bed and did not let her see the new puppy. With the greatest courtesy he made her a bow, scraping his foot, and turning to Nina, he made her, as the only other lady present, a similar bow.
This polite behaviour made an extremely favourable impression on the deranged lady.
"There,.you can see at once he is a young man that has been well brought up," she commented aloud, throwing up her hands; "But as for our other visitors they come in one on the top of another."
"How do you mean, mamma, one on the top of another, how is that?" muttered the captain affectionately, though a little anxious on her account.
"That's how they ride in.
They get on each other's shoulders in the passage and prance in like that on a respectable family.
Strange sort of visitors!"
"But who's come in like that, mamma?"
"Why, that boy came in riding on that one's back and this one on that one's."
Kolya was already by Ilusha's bedside.
The sick boy turned visibly paler.
He raised himself in the bed and looked intently at Kolya.
Kolya had not seen his little friend for two months, and he was overwhelmed at the sight of him. He had never imagined that he would see such a wasted, yellow face, such enormous, feverishly glowing eyes and such thin little hands.
He saw, with grieved surprise, Ilusha's rapid, hard breathing and dry lips.
He stepped close to him, held out his hand, and almost overwhelmed, he said:
"Well, old man... how are you?"
But his voice failed him, he couldn't achieve an appearance of ease; his face suddenly twitched and the corners of his mouth quivered.
Ilusha smiled a pitiful little smile, still unable to utter a word.
Something moved Kolya to raise his hand and pass it over Ilusha's hair.
"Never mind!" he murmured softly to him to cheer him up, or perhaps not knowing why he said it.
For a minute they were silent again.
"Hallo, so you've got a new puppy?" Kolya said suddenly, in a most callous voice.
"Ye-es," answered Ilusha in a long whisper, gasping for breath.
"A black nose, that means he'll be fierce, a good house-dog," Kolya observed gravely and stolidly, as if the only thing he cared about was the puppy and its black nose.
But in reality he still had to do his utmost to control his feelings not to burst out crying like a child, and do what he would he could not control it. "When it grows up, you'll have to keep it on the chain, I'm sure."
"He'll be a huge dog!" cried one of the boys.
"Of course he will," "a mastiff," "large," "like this," "as big as a calf," shouted several voices.
"As big as a calf, as a real calf," chimed in the captain. "I got one like that on purpose, one of the fiercest breed, and his parents are huge and very fierce, they stand as high as this from the floor.... Sit down here, on Ilusha's bed, or here on the bench.
You are welcome, we've been hoping to see you a long time.... You were so kind as to come with Alexey Fyodorovitch?"
Krassotkin sat on the edge of the bed, at Ilusha's feet.
Though he had perhaps prepared a free-and-easy opening for the conversation on his way, now he completely lost the thread of it.
"No... I came with Perezvon. I've got a dog now, called Perezvon.
A Slavonic name.
He's out there... if I whistle, he'll run in.
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 agonised 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.