“Forget the lady! Listen, Alexei Fyodorovich, listen to me, sir, because the moment has now come for you to listen, sir, because you cannot even understand what these two hundred roubles can mean for me now,” the poor man went on, gradually getting into a sort of confused, almost wild ecstasy. He was befuddled, as it were, and was speaking extremely quickly and hastily, as if he were afraid he might not be allowed to get it all out. “Besides the fact that it has been acquired honestly, from such a respected and holy ‘sister,’ sir, do you know that I can now get treatment for mama and Ninochka—my hunchbacked angel, my daughter? Dr. Herzenstube came once out of the goodness of his heart, and examined them both for a whole hour. ‘I can make nothing of it,’ he said, but still, the mineral water they sell at the local pharmacy (he gave a prescription for it) will undoubtedly do her good, and he also prescribed a footbath with medications. The mineral water costs thirty kopecks, and she would have to drink maybe forty jugs of it. So I took the prescription and put it on the shelf under the icons, and it’s still there. And for Ninochka he prescribed baths in some solution, hot baths, every day, morning and evening, but how could we dream of such a treatment, sir, in our place, in our castle, with no maid, with no help, with no tub or water, sir? And Ninochka is rheumatic all over, I didn’t even tell you that yet, at night her whole right side aches, she suffers, and would you believe it, God’s angel, she keeps it in, so as not to disturb us, she doesn’t groan, so as not to wake us up. We eat whatever we can get, and she always takes the worst piece, what should only be thrown to a dog: ‘I’m not worthy of it,’ is what she means, ‘I’m taking food from you, I’m just a burden to you.’ That’s what her angelic eyes mean to say. It weighs on her that we serve her: ‘I don’t deserve it, I don’t deserve it, I’m a worthless cripple, I’m useless,’ but I wouldn’t say she was worthless, sir, when she’s been the salvation of us all with her angelic meekness; without her, without her quiet word, we’d have hell, sir, she’s even softened Varya. And don’t condemn Varvara Nikolaevna either, sir; she, too, is an angel, she, too, is an offended one. She came home this summer and brought sixteen roubles with her that she’d earned giving lessons and set aside so that in September, now, that is, she could go back to Petersburg. And we took her money and lived on it, and she has nothing to go back with, that’s how things are, sir. And she can’t go back, because she slaves for us—we’ve saddled and harnessed her like a nag, she takes care of everything, mends, washes, sweeps the floor, puts mama to bed, and mama is fussy, sir, mama is tearful, sir, and mama is mad, sir...! But now, with these two hundred roubles, I can hire a maid, sir, do you understand, Alexei Fyodorovich, I can undertake treatment for my dear ones, sir, send the student to Petersburg, sir, and buy beef, and introduce a new diet, sir. Lord, but this is a dream!”
Alyosha was terribly glad that he had caused so much happiness and that the poor man had agreed to be made happy.
“Wait, Alexei Fyodorovich, wait,” the captain again seized upon a new dream that had just come to him, and again rattled on in a frenzied patter, “do you know, perhaps now Ilyushka and I will indeed realize our dream: we’ll buy a horse and a covered cart, and the horse will be black, he asked that it be black, and we’ll set off as we were picturing it two days ago. I know a lawyer
in B------province, my childhood friend, sir, and I was told by a reliable man
that if I came he might give me a position as a clerk in his office, and who knows, maybe he would ... So I could put mama in the cart, and Ninochka in the cart, and let Ilyushechka drive, and I’d go by foot, by foot, and so I’d take them all away, sir ... Lord, if only I could get one miserable debt paid back to me, then maybe there would even be enough for that, sir!” “There will be enough, there will be!” Alyosha exclaimed. “Katerina Ivanovna will send you more, as much as you want, and, you know, I have some money, too, take what you need, as you would from a brother, from a friend, you can pay it back later ... (You’ll get rich, you will!) And, you know, you could never have thought of anything better than this move to another province! It will be your salvation, and, above all, your boy’s—and, you know, you should hurry, before winter, before the cold, and you will write to us from there, and we will remain brothers ... No, it’s not a dream!”
Alyosha was about to embrace him, he was so pleased. But glancing at him, he suddenly stopped: the man stood, stretching his neck, stretching his lips, with a pale and frenzied face, whispering something with his lips, as if he were trying to utter something; there was no sound, but he kept whispering with his lips. It was somehow strange.
“What’s wrong with you?” Alyosha suddenly started for some reason.
