The Brothers Karamazov

11  The Brothers Karamazov

go? I’ve forgotten the word.’ He went on, passing his hand
before his eyes, ‘Oh, yes, spazieren.’*

• Promenading.
  ‘Wandering?’
  ‘Oh, yes, wandering, that’s what I say. Well, his wits went
  wandering and fell in such a deep hole that he lost himself.
  And yet he was a grateful and sensitive boy. Oh, I remember
  him very well, a little chap so high, left neglected by his fa-
  ther in the back yard, when he ran about without boots on
  his feet, and his little breeches hanging by one button.’
  A note of feeling and tenderness suddenly came into the
  honest old man’s voice. Fetyukovitch positively started, as
  though scenting something, and caught at it instantly.
  ‘Oh, yes, I was a young man then.... I was... well, I was
  forty-five then, and had only just come here. And I was so
  sorry for the boy then; I asked myself why shouldn’t I buy
  him a pound of... a pound of what? I’ve forgotten what it’s
  called. A pound of what children are very fond of, what is
  it, what is it?’ The doctor began waving his hands again. ‘It
  grows on a tree and is gathered and given to everyone..’
  ‘Apples?’
  ‘Oh, no, no. You have a dozen of apples, not a pound....
  No, there are a lot of them, and call little. You put them in
  the mouth and crack.’
  ‘Quite so, nuts, I say so.’ The doctor repeated in the calm-
  est way as though he had been at no loss for a word. ‘And I
  bought him a pound of nuts, for no one had ever bought the
  boy a pound of nuts before. And I lifted my finger and said
  to him, ‘Boy, Gott der Vater.’ He laughed and said, ‘Gott