Page 337 - the-brothers-karamazov

Chapter 7

And in the Open Air

HE air is fresh, but in my apartment it is not so in any
‘Tsense 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

The Brothers Karamazov