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Chapter 2

The Alarm

UR police captain, Mihail Makarovitch Makarov, a
Oretired lieutenant-colonel, was a widower and an ex-
cellent man. He had only come to us three years previously,
but had won general esteem, chiefly because he ‘knew how
to keep society together.’ He was never without visitors, and
could not have got on without them. Someone or other was
always dining with him; he never sat down to table without
guests. He gave regular dinners, too, on all sorts of occa-
sions, sometimes most surprising ones. Though the fare
was not recherche, it was abundant. The fish-pies were ex-
cellent, and the wine made up in quantity for what it lacked
in quality.
The first room his guests entered was a well fitted bil-
liard-room, with pictures of English race horses, in black
frames on the walls, an essential decoration, as we all know,
for a bachelor’s billiard-room. There was card playing every
evening at his house, if only at one table. But at frequent in-
tervals, all the society of our town, with the mammas and
young ladies, assembled at his house to dance. Mihail Ma-
karovitch was a widower, he did not live alone. His widowed

The Brothers Karamazov