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.
But now he couldn't resist saying it.
For weeks he had been longing to.
"Well, who did found it?" Kolya, turning to him with haughty superciliousness. He saw from his face that he really did know and at once made up his mind how to take it.
There was so to speak, a discordant note in the general harmony.
"Troy was founded by Teucer, Dardanus, Ilius and Tros," the boy rapped out at once, and in the same instant he blushed, blushed so, that it was painful to look at him.
But the boys stared at him, stared at him for a whole minute, and then all the staring eyes turned at once and were fastened upon Kolya, who was still scanning the audacious boy with disdainful composure.
"In what sense did they found it?" he deigned to comment at last. "And what is meant by founding a city or a state?
What do they do? Did they go and each lay a brick, do you suppose?"
There was laughter.
The offending boy turned from pink to crimson.
He was silent and on the point of tears.
Kolya held him so for a minute.
"Before you talk of a historical event like the foundation of a nationality, you must first understand what you mean by it," he admonished him in stern, incisive tones. "But I attach no consequence to these old wives' tales and I don't think much of universal history in general," he added carelessly, addressing the company generally.
"Universal history?" the captain inquired, looking almost scared.
"Yes, universal history!
It's the study of the successive follies of mankind and nothing more.
The only subjects I respect are mathematics and natural science," said Kolya. He was showing off and he stole a glance at Alyosha; his was the only opinion he was afraid of there.
But Alyosha was still silent and still serious as before.
If Alyosha had said a word it would have stopped him, but Alyosha was silent and "it might be the silence of contempt," and that finally irritated Kolya.
"The classical languages, too... they are simply madness, nothing more. You seem to disagree with me again, Karamazov?"
"I don't agree," said Alyosha, with a faint smile.
"The study of the classics, if you ask my opinion, is simply a police measure, that's simply why it has been introduced into our schools." By degrees Kolya began to get breathless again. "Latin and Greek were introduced because they are a bore and because they stupefy the intellect.
It was dull before, so what could they do to make things duller?
It was senseless enough before, so what could they do to make it more senseless?
So they thought of Greek and Latin.
That's my opinion, I hope I shall never change it," Kolya finished abruptly.
His cheeks were flushed.
"That's true," assented Smurov suddenly, in a ringing tone of conviction. He had listened attentively.
"And yet he is first in Latin himself," cried one of the group of boys suddenly.
"Yes, father, he says that and yet he is first in Latin," echoed Ilusha.
"What of it?" Kolya thought fit to defend himself, though the praise was very sweet to him. "I am fagging away at Latin because I have to, because I promised my mother to pass my examination, and I think that whatever you do, it's worth doing it well. But in my soul I have a profound contempt for the classics and all that fraud.... You don't agree, Karamazov?"
"Why 'fraud'?" Alyosha smiled again.
"Well, all the classical authors have been translated into all languages, so it was not for the sake of studying the classics they introduced Latin, but solely as a police measure, to stupefy the intelligence.
So what can one call it but a fraud?"
"Why, who taught you all this?" cried Alyosha, surprised at last.
"In the first place I am capable of thinking for myself without being taught. Besides, what I said just now about the classics being translated our teacher Kolbasnikov has said to the whole of the third class."
"The doctor has come!" cried Nina, who had been silent till then.
A carriage belonging to Madame Hohlakov drove up to the gate.
The captain, who had been expecting the doctor all the morning, rushed headlong out to meet him.
"Mamma" pulled herself together and assumed a dignified air.
Alyosha went up to Ilusha and began setting his pillows straight.
Nina, from her invalid chair, anxiously watched him putting the bed tidy.
The boys hurriedly took leave. Some of them promised to come again in the evening.
Kolya called Perezvon and the dog jumped off the bed.
"I won't go away, I won't go away," Kolya said hastily to Ilusha. "I'll wait in the passage and come back when the doctor's gone, I'll come back with Perezvon."
But by now the doctor had entered, an important-looking person with long, dark whiskers and a shiny, shaven chin, wearing a bearskin coat.
As he crossed the threshold he stopped, taken aback; he probably fancied he had come to the wrong place.
"How is this?