Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com 0
been lavish in helping them, and the captain, terror-strick-
en at the thought that his boy might be dying, forgot his
pride and humbly accepted her assistance.
All this time Doctor Herzenstube, who was called in
by Katerina Ivanovna, came punctually every other day,
but little was gained by his visits and he dosed the inval-
id mercilessly. But on that Sunday morning a new doctor
was expected, who had come from Moscow, where he had a
great reputation. Katerina Ivanovna had sent for him from
Moscow at great expense, not expressly for Ilusha, but for
another object of which more will be said in its place here-
after. But, as he had come, she had asked him to see Ilusha
as well, and the captain had been told to expect him. He
hadn’t the slightest idea that Kolya Krassotkin was com-
ing, though he had long wished for a visit from the boy for
whom Ilusha was fretting.
At the moment when Krassotkin opened the door and
came into the room, the captain and all the boys were round
Ilusha’s bed, looking at a tiny mastiff pup, which had only
been born the day before, though the captain had bespoken
it a week ago to comfort and amuse Ilusha, who was still
fretting over the lost and probably dead Zhutchka. Ilusha,
who had heard three days before that he was to be presented
with a puppy, not an ordinary puppy, but a pedigree mas-
tiff (a very important point, of course), tried from delicacy
of feeling to pretend that he was pleased. But his father and
the boys could not help seeing that the puppy only served
to recall to his little heart the thought of the unhappy dog
he had killed. The puppy lay beside him feebly moving and