10 The Brothers KaramazovAlyosha and Kolya tried to make him get up, soothing and
persuading him.
‘Captain, give over, a brave man must show fortitude,’
muttered Kolya.
‘You’ll spoil the flowers,’ said Alyosha, and mamma is ex-
pecting them, she is sitting crying because you would not
give her any before. Ilusha’s little bed is still there-.’
‘Yes, yes, mamma!’ Snegiryov suddenly recollected,
‘they’ll take away the bed, they’ll take it away,’ he added as
though alarmed that they really would. He jumped up and
ran homewards again. But it was not far off and they all
arrived together. Snegiryov opened the door hurriedly and
called to his wife with whom he had so cruelly quarrelled
just before:
‘Mamma, poor crippled darling, Ilusha has sent you these
flowers,’ he cried, holding out to her a little bunch of flowers
that had been frozen and broken while he was struggling
in the snow. But at that instant he saw in the corner, by the
little bed, Ilusha’s little boots, which the landlady had put
tidily side by side. Seeing the old, patched, rusty-looking,
stiff boots he flung up his hands and rushed to them, fell on
his knees, snatched up one boot and, pressing his lips to it,
began kissing it greedily, crying, ‘Ilusha, old man, dear old
man, where are your little feet?’
‘Where have you taken him away? Where have you taken
him?’ the lunatic cried in a heart-rending voice. Nina, too,
broke into sobs. Kolya ran out of the room, the boys fol-
lowed him. At last Alyosha too went out.
‘Let them weep,’ he said to Kolya, ‘it’s no use trying to