You are not lonely.
Everyone loves you, everyone adores you." He began kissing both her hands again and tenderly stroking her face; taking the dinner-napkin, he began wiping away her tears.
Alyosha fancied that he too had tears in his eyes. "There, you see, you hear?" he turned with a sort of fury to Alyosha, pointing to the poor imbecile.
"I see and hear," muttered Alyosha.
"Father, father, how can you- with him! Let him alone!" cried the boy, sitting up in his bed and gazing at his father with glowing eyes.
"Do give over fooling, showing off your silly antics which never lead to anything! shouted Varvara, stamping her foot with passion.
"Your anger is quite just this time, Varvara, and I'll make haste to satisfy you.
Come, put on your cap, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and I'll put on mine. We will go out.
I have a word to say to you in earnest, but not within these walls.
This girl sitting here is my daughter Nina; I forgot to introduce her to you. She is a heavenly angel incarnate... who has flown down to us mortals,... if you can understand."
"There he is shaking all over, as though he is in convulsions!" Varvara went on indignantly.
"And she there stamping her foot at me and calling me a fool just now, she is a heavenly angel incarnate too, and she has good reason to call me so.
Come along, Alexey Fyodorovitch, we must make an end."
And, snatching Alyosha's hand, he drew him out of the room into the street.
Chapter 7.
And in the Open Air
"THE air is fresh, but in my apartment it is not so in any sense of the word.
Let us walk slowly, sir.
I should be glad of your kind interest."
"I too have something important to say to you," observed Alyosha, "only I don't know how to begin."
"To be sure you must have business with me.
You would never have looked in upon me without some object.
Unless you come simply to complain of the boy, and that's hardly likely.
And, by the way, about the boy: I could not explain to you in there, but here I will describe that scene to you.
My tow was thicker a week ago- I mean my beard. That's the nickname they give to my beard, the schoolboys most of all.
Well, your brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch was pulling me by my beard, I'd done nothing, he was in a towering rage and happened to come upon me. He dragged me out of the tavern into the market place; at that moment the boys were coming out of school, and with them Ilusha.
As soon as he saw me in such a state he rushed up to me.
'Father,' he cried, 'father!'
He caught hold of me, hugged me, tried to pull me away, crying to my assailant,
'Let go, let go, it's my father, forgive him!'- yes, he actually cried 'forgive him.' He clutched at that hand, that very hand, in his little hands and kissed it.... I remember his little face at that moment, I haven't forgotten it and I never shall!"
"I swear," cried Alyosha, "that my brother will express his most deep and sincere regret, even if he has to go down on his knees in that same market-place.... I'll make him or he is no brother of mine!
"Aha, then it's only a suggestion!
And it does not come from him but simply from the generosity of your own warm heart.
You should have said so.
No, in that case allow me to tell you of your brother's highly chivalrous soldierly generosity, for he did give expression to it at the time.
He left off dragging me by my beard and released me:
'You are an officer,' he said, 'and I am an officer, if you can find a decent man to be your second send me your challenge. I will give satisfaction, though you are a scoundrel.'
That's what he said.
A chivalrous spirit indeed!
I retired with Ilusha, and that scene is a family record imprinted forever on Ilusha's soul.
No, it's not for us to claim the privileges of noblemen.
Judge for yourself. You've just been in our mansion, what did you see there?
Three ladies, one a cripple and weak-minded, another a cripple and hunchback and the third not crippled but far too clever. She is a student, dying to get back to Petersburg, to work for the emancipation of the Russian woman on the banks of the Neva.
I won't speak of Ilusha, he is only nine. I am alone in the world, and if I die, what will become of all of them? I simply ask you that.
And if I challenge him and he kills me on the spot, what then?
What will become of them?
And worse still, if he doesn't kill me but only cripples me: I couldn't work, but I should still be a mouth to feed. Who would feed it and who would feed them all?
Must I take Ilusha from school and send him to beg in the streets?
That's what it means for me to challenge him to a duel. It's silly talk and nothing else."
"He will beg your forgiveness, he will bow down at your feet in the middle of the marketplace," cried Alyosha again, with glowing eyes.