The Brothers Karamazov‘It’d be sure to break it,’ and he grinned all over his face,
highly delighted. ‘Come on, then,’ said I, ‘let’s try.’ ‘Let’s,’
he said. And it did not take us long to arrange: he stood at
the bridle without being noticed, and I stood on one side
to direct the goose. And the owner wasn’t looking, he was
talking to someone, so I had nothing to do, the goose thrust
its head in after the oats of itself, under the cart, just un-
der the wheel. I winked at the lad, he tugged at the bridle,
and crack. The goose’s neck was broken in half. And, as luck
would have it, all the peasants saw us at that moment and
they kicked up a shindy at once. ‘You did that on purpose!’
‘No, not on purpose.’ ‘Yes, you did, on purpose!’ Well, they
shouted, ‘Take him to the justice of the peace!’ They took
me, too. ‘You were there, too,’ they said, ‘you helped, you’re
known all over the market!’ And, for some reason, I real-
ly am known all over the market,’ Kolya added conceitedly.
‘We all went off to the justice’s, they brought the goose, too.
The fellow was crying in a great funk, simply blubbering
like a woman. And the farmer kept shouting that you could
kill any number of geese like that. Well, of course, there
were witnesses. The justice of the peace settled it in a min-
ute, that the farmer was to be paid a rouble for the goose,
and the fellow to have the goose. And he was warned not
to play such pranks again. And the fellow kept blubbering
like a woman. ‘It wasn’t me,’ he said, ‘it was he egged me
on,’ and he pointed to me. I answered with the utmost com-
posure that I hadn’t egged him on, that I simply stated the
general proposition, had spoken hypothetically. The justice
of the peace smiled and was vexed with himself once for