The Brothers Karamazovhe knew what Dardanelov was after. But from the time of
the railway incident his behaviour in this respect also was
changed; he did not allow himself the remotest allusion to
the subject and began to speak more respectfully of Darda-
nelov before his mother, which the sensitive woman at once
appreciated with boundless gratitude. But at the slight-
est mention of Dardanelov by a visitor in Kolya’s presence,
she would flush as pink as a rose. At such moments Kolya
would either stare out of the window scowling, or would
investigate the state of his boots, or would shout angrily for
‘Perezvon,’ the big, shaggy, mangy dog, which he had picked
up a month before, brought home, and kept for some reason
secretly indoors, not showing him to any of his schoolfel-
lows. He bullied him frightfully, teaching him all sorts of
tricks, so that the poor dog howled for him whenever he was
absent at school, and when he came in, whined with delight,
rushed about as if he were crazy, begged, lay down on the
ground pretending to be dead, and so on; in fact, showed all
the tricks he had taught him, not at the word of command,
but simply from the zeal of his excited and grateful heart.
I have forgotten, by the way, to mention that Kolya Kras-
sotkin was the boy stabbed with a penknife by the boy
already known to the reader as the son of Captain Snegiryov.
Ilusha had been defending his father when the schoolboys
jeered at him, shouting the nickname ‘wisp of tow.’