100 The Brothers Karamazovhis hands and the coffin, with flowers, which had been sent
early in the morning by Lise Hohlakov. But there were flow-
ers too from Katerina Ivanovna, and when Alyosha opened
the door, the captain had a bunch in his trembling hands
and was strewing them again over his dear boy. He scarcely
glanced at Alyosha when he came in, and he would not look
at anyone, even at his crazy weeping wife, ‘mamma,’ who
kept trying to stand on her crippled legs to get a nearer look
at her dead boy. Nina had been pushed in her chair by the
boys close up to the coffin. She sat with her head pressed to
it and she too was no doubt quietly weeping. Snegiryov’s
face looked eager, yet bewildered and exasperated. There
was something crazy about his gestures and the words that
broke from him. ‘Old man, dear old man!’ he exclaimed ev-
ery minute, gazing at Ilusha. It was his habit to call Ilusha
‘old man,’ as a term of affection when he was alive.
‘Father, give me a flower, too; take that white one out of
his hand and give it me,’ the crazy mother begged, whim-
pering. Either because the little white rose in Ilusha’s hand
had caught her fancy or that she wanted one from his hand
to keep in memory of him, she moved restlessly, stretching
out her hands for the flower.
‘I won’t give it to anyone, I won’t give you anything,’
Snegiryov cried callously. ‘They are his flowers, not yours!
Everything is his, nothing is yours!’
‘Father, give mother a flower!’ said Nina, lifting her face
wet with tears.
‘I won’t give away anything and to her less than anyone!
She didn’t love Ilusha. She took away his little cannon and