The Brothers Karamazov

Chapter 2

The Alarm

O

UR police captain, Mihail Makarovitch Makarov, a

retired lieutenant-colonel, was a widower and an ex-

cellent man. He had only come to us three years previously,

but had won general esteem, chiefly because he ‘knew how

to keep society together.’ He was never without visitors, and

could not have got on without them. Someone or other was

always dining with him; he never sat down to table without

guests. He gave regular dinners, too, on all sorts of occa-

sions, sometimes most surprising ones. Though the fare

was not recherche, it was abundant. The fish-pies were ex-

cellent, and the wine made up in quantity for what it lacked

in quality.

The first room his guests entered was a well fitted bil-

liard-room, with pictures of English race horses, in black

frames on the walls, an essential decoration, as we all know,

for a bachelor’s billiard-room. There was card playing every

evening at his house, if only at one table. But at frequent in-

tervals, all the society of our town, with the mammas and

young ladies, assembled at his house to dance. Mihail Ma-

karovitch was a widower, he did not live alone. His widowed