Page 869 - the-brothers-karamazov

Fyodorovitch Karamazov set off for Moscow). There Kolya
began by carefully investigating every detail connected with
the railways, knowing that he could impress his schoolfel-
lows when he got home with his newly acquired knowledge.
But there happened to be some other boys in the place with
whom he soon made friends. Some of them were living at
the station, others in the neighbourhood; there were six or
seven of them, all between twelve and fifteen, and two of
them came from our town. The boys played together, and
on the fourth or fifth day of Kolya’s stay at the station, a
mad bet was made by the foolish boys. Kolya, who was al-
most the youngest of the party and rather looked down
upon by the others in consequence, was moved by vanity or
by reckless bravado to bet them two roubles that he would
lie down between the rails at night when the eleven o’clock
train was due, and would lie there without moving while
the train rolled over him at full speed. It is true they made
a preliminary investigation, from which it appeared that it
was possible to lie so flat between the rails that the train
could pass over without touching, but to lie there was no
joke! Kolya maintained stoutly that he would. At first they
laughed at him, called him a little liar, a braggart, but that
only egged him on. What piqued him most was that these
boys of fifteen turned up their noses at him too supercil-
iously, and were at first disposed to treat him as ‘a small boy,’
not fit to associate with them, and that was an unendurable
insult. And so it was resolved to go in the evening, half a
mile from the station, so that the train might have time to
get up full speed after leaving the station The boys assem-

The Brothers Karamazov