The Brothers Karamazovyou want to influence the younger generation — to develop
them, to be of use to them, and I assure you this trait in
your character, which I knew by hearsay, attracted me more
than anything. Let us get to the point, though. I noticed
that there was a sort of softness and sentimentality com-
ing over the boy, and you know I have a positive hatred of
this sheepish sentimentality, and I have had it from a baby.
There were contradictions in him, too: he was proud, but
he was slavishly devoted to me, and yet all at once his eyes
would flash and he’d refuse to agree with me; he’d argue, fly
into a rage. I used sometimes to propound certain ideas; I
could see that it was not so much that he disagreed with the
ideas, but that he was simply rebelling against me, because
I was cool in responding to his endearments. And so, in or-
der to train him properly, the tenderer he was, the colder I
became. I did it on purpose: that was my idea. My object
was to form his character, to lick him into shape, to make a
man of him... and besides... no doubt, you understand me at
a word. Suddenly I noticed for three days in succession he
was downcast and dejected, not because of my coldness, but
for something else, something more important. I wondered
what the tragedy was. I have pumped him and found out
that he had somehow got to know Smerdyakov, who was
footman to your late father — it was before his death, of
course — and he taught the little fool a silly trick — that is,
a brutal, nasty trick. He told him to take a piece of bread, to
stick a pin in it, and throw it to one of those hungry dogs
who snap up anything without biting it, and then to watch
and see what would happen. So they prepared a piece of