"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."Igot 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.
"Where...is Zhutchka?" Ilusha asked in a broken voice.
"Oh well, my boy, your Zhutchka's lost and done for!"Ilusha did not speak, but he fixed an intent gaze once more on Kolya.Alyosha, catching Kolya's eye, signed to him vigourously again, but he turned away his eyes pretending not to have noticed.
"It must have run away and died somewhere.It must have died after a meal like that," Kolya pronounced pitilessly, though he seemed a little breathless."But I've got a dog, Perezvon...A Slavonic name...
I've brought him to show you."
"I don't want him!" said Ilusha suddenly.
"No, no, you really must see him...it will amuse you.I brought him on purpose....He's the same sort of shaggy dog....You allow me to call in my dog, madam?" He suddenly addressed Madame Snegiryov, with inexplicable excitement in his manner.
"I don't want him, I don't want him!" cried Ilusha, with a mournful break in his voice.There was a reproachful light in his eyes.
"You'd better," the captain started up from the chest by the wall on which he had just sat down, "you'd better...another time," he muttered, but Kolya could not be restrained.He hurriedly shouted to Smurov, "Open the door," and as soon as it was open, he blew his whistle.Perezvon dashed headlong into the room.
"Jump, Perezvon, beg! Beg!" shouted Kolya, jumping up, and the dog stood erect on its hind-legs by Ilusha's bedside.What followed was a surprise to everyone: Ilusha started, lurched violently forward, bent over Perezvon and gazed at him, faint with suspense.
"It's...Zhutchka!" he cried suddenly, in a voice breaking with joy and suffering.
"And who did you think it was?" Krassotkin shouted with all his might, in a ringing, happy voice, and bending down he seized the dog and lifted him up to Ilusha.
"Look, old man, you see, blind of one eye and the left ear is torn, just the marks you described to me.It was by that I found him.I found him directly.He did not belong to anyone!" he explained, to the captain, to his wife, to Alyosha and then again to Ilusha.
"He used to live in the Fedotovs' backyard.Though he made his home there, they did not feed him.He was a stray dog that had run away from the village...I found him....You see, old man, he couldn't have swallowed what you gave him.If he had, he must have died, he must have! So he must have spat it out, since he is alive.You did not see him do it.But the pin pricked his tongue, that is why he squealed.He ran away squealing and you thought he'd swallowed it.
He might well squeal, because the skin of dogs' mouths is so tender...
tenderer than in men, much tenderer!" Kolya cried impetuously, his face glowing and radiant with delight.Ilusha could not speak.White as a sheet, he gazed open-mouthed at Kolya, with his great eyes almost starting out of his head.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 realised it.As for the captain he behaved like a small child.