feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_29_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 4.chapter 6
feat_summary_id: book 4, chapter 6
feat_summary: {"name": "Book 4, Chapter 6", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-4-chapter-6", "summary": "Alyosha heads off for Snegiryov's, but, as he has to pass his brother Dmitri's house on the way, he decides to stop and see if he's around. Dmitri's landlord insists he's not around, so Alyosha continues on his way. At Snegiryov's, Alyosha hesitates to introduce himself, but Snegiryov invites him to make himself at home in his humble cottage. Crowded into the room is the rest of Snegiryov's family, including his ill wife and two daughters. When Alyosha mentions the incident with Dmitri, the young boy who bit him earlier emerges from behind a curtain in the corner. Alyosha denies that that's what his visit is about, but Snegiryov offers to whip the boy, which appalls Alyosha. Bust as suddenly, Snegiryov refuses and even yells angrily at Alyosha. Alyosha tries to calm Snegiryov down by reassuring him that Dmitri will apologize and make amends if necessary. Snegiryov seems calmer and introduces Alyosha to his wife. But his behavior - and his wife's - annoy his children, so Snegiryov recommends that Alyosha follow him outside.", "analysis": ""}
text: Chapter VI. A Laceration In The Cottage
  
  
  He certainly was really grieved in a way he had seldom been before. He had
  rushed in like a fool, and meddled in what? In a love-affair. "But what do
  I know about it? What can I tell about such things?" he repeated to
  himself for the hundredth time, flushing crimson. "Oh, being ashamed would
  be nothing; shame is only the punishment I deserve. The trouble is I shall
  certainly have caused more unhappiness.... And Father Zossima sent me to
  reconcile and bring them together. Is this the way to bring them
  together?" Then he suddenly remembered how he had tried to join their
  hands, and he felt fearfully ashamed again. "Though I acted quite
  sincerely, I must be more sensible in the future," he concluded suddenly,
  and did not even smile at his conclusion.
  
  Katerina Ivanovna's commission took him to Lake Street, and his brother
  Dmitri lived close by, in a turning out of Lake Street. Alyosha decided to
  go to him in any case before going to the captain, though he had a
  presentiment that he would not find his brother. He suspected that he
  would intentionally keep out of his way now, but he must find him anyhow.
  Time was passing: the thought of his dying elder had not left Alyosha for
  one minute from the time he set off from the monastery.
  
  There was one point which interested him particularly about Katerina
  Ivanovna's commission; when she had mentioned the captain's son, the
  little schoolboy who had run beside his father crying, the idea had at
  once struck Alyosha that this must be the schoolboy who had bitten his
  finger when he, Alyosha, asked him what he had done to hurt him. Now
  Alyosha felt practically certain of this, though he could not have said
  why. Thinking of another subject was a relief, and he resolved to think no
  more about the "mischief" he had done, and not to torture himself with
  remorse, but to do what he had to do, let come what would. At that thought
  he was completely comforted. Turning to the street where Dmitri lodged, he
  felt hungry, and taking out of his pocket the roll he had brought from his
  father's, he ate it. It made him feel stronger.
  
  Dmitri was not at home. The people of the house, an old cabinet-maker, his
  son, and his old wife, looked with positive suspicion at Alyosha. "He
  hasn't slept here for the last three nights. Maybe he has gone away," the
  old man said in answer to Alyosha's persistent inquiries. Alyosha saw that
  he was answering in accordance with instructions. When he asked whether he
  were not at Grushenka's or in hiding at Foma's (Alyosha spoke so freely on
  purpose), all three looked at him in alarm. "They are fond of him, they
  are doing their best for him," thought Alyosha. "That's good."
  
  At last he found the house in Lake Street. It was a decrepit little house,
  sunk on one side, with three windows looking into the street, and with a
  muddy yard, in the middle of which stood a solitary cow. He crossed the
  yard and found the door opening into the passage. On the left of the
  passage lived the old woman of the house with her old daughter. Both
  seemed to be deaf. In answer to his repeated inquiry for the captain, one
  of them at last understood that he was asking for their lodgers, and
  pointed to a door across the passage. The captain's lodging turned out to
  be a simple cottage room. Alyosha had his hand on the iron latch to open
  the door, when he was struck by the strange hush within. Yet he knew from
  Katerina Ivanovna's words that the man had a family. "Either they are all
  asleep or perhaps they have heard me coming and are waiting for me to open
  the door. I'd better knock first," and he knocked. An answer came, but not
  at once, after an interval of perhaps ten seconds.
  
  "Who's there?" shouted some one in a loud and very angry voice.
  
  Then Alyosha opened the door and crossed the threshold. He found himself
  in a regular peasant's room. Though it was large, it was cumbered up with
  domestic belongings of all sorts, and there were several people in it. On
  the left was a large Russian stove. From the stove to the window on the
  left was a string running across the room, and on it there were rags
  hanging. There was a bedstead against the wall on each side, right and
  left, covered with knitted quilts. On the one on the left was a pyramid of
  four print-covered pillows, each smaller than the one beneath. On the
  other there was only one very small pillow. The opposite corner was
  screened off by a curtain or a sheet hung on a string. Behind this curtain
  could be seen a bed made up on a bench and a chair. The rough square table
  of plain wood had been moved into the middle window. The three windows,
  which consisted each of four tiny greenish mildewy panes, gave little
  light, and were close shut, so that the room was not very light and rather
  stuffy. On the table was a frying-pan with the remains of some fried eggs,
  a half-eaten piece of bread, and a small bottle with a few drops of vodka.
  
  A woman of genteel appearance, wearing a cotton gown, was sitting on a
  chair by the bed on the left. Her face was thin and yellow, and her sunken
  cheeks betrayed at the first glance that she was ill. But what struck
  Alyosha most was the expression in the poor woman's eyes--a look of
  surprised inquiry and yet of haughty pride. And while he was talking to
  her husband, her big brown eyes moved from one speaker to the other with
  the same haughty and questioning expression. Beside her at the window
  stood a young girl, rather plain, with scanty reddish hair, poorly but
  very neatly dressed. She looked disdainfully at Alyosha as he came in.
  Beside the other bed was sitting another female figure. She was a very sad
  sight, a young girl of about twenty, but hunchback and crippled "with
  withered legs," as Alyosha was told afterwards. Her crutches stood in the
  corner close by. The strikingly beautiful and gentle eyes of this poor
  girl looked with mild serenity at Alyosha. A man of forty-five was sitting
  at the table, finishing the fried eggs. He was spare, small and weakly
  built. He had reddish hair and a scanty light-colored beard, very much
  like a wisp of tow (this comparison and the phrase "a wisp of tow" flashed
  at once into Alyosha's mind for some reason, he remembered it afterwards).
  It was obviously this gentleman who had shouted to him, as there was no
  other man in the room. But when Alyosha went in, he leapt up from the
  bench on which he was sitting, and, hastily wiping his mouth with a ragged
  napkin, darted up to Alyosha.
  
  "It's a monk come to beg for the monastery. A nice place to come to!" the
  girl standing in the left corner said aloud. The man spun round instantly
  towards her and answered her in an excited and breaking voice:
  
  "No, Varvara, you are wrong. Allow me to ask," he turned again to Alyosha,
  "what has brought you to--our retreat?"
  
  Alyosha looked attentively at him. It was the first time he had seen him.
  There was something angular, flurried and irritable about him. Though he
  had obviously just been drinking, he was not drunk. There was
  extraordinary impudence in his expression, and yet, strange to say, at the
  same time there was fear. He looked like a man who had long been kept in
  subjection and had submitted to it, and now had suddenly turned and was
  trying to assert himself. Or, better still, like a man who wants
  dreadfully to hit you but is horribly afraid you will hit him. In his
  words and in the intonation of his shrill voice there was a sort of crazy
  humor, at times spiteful and at times cringing, and continually shifting
  from one tone to another. The question about "our retreat" he had asked as
  it were quivering all over, rolling his eyes, and skipping up so close to
  Alyosha that he instinctively drew back a step. He was dressed in a very
  shabby dark cotton coat, patched and spotted. He wore checked trousers of
  an extremely light color, long out of fashion, and of very thin material.
  They were so crumpled and so short that he looked as though he had grown
  out of them like a boy.
  
  "I am Alexey Karamazov," Alyosha began in reply.
  
  "I quite understand that, sir," the gentleman snapped out at once to
  assure him that he knew who he was already. "I am Captain Snegiryov, sir,
  but I am still desirous to know precisely what has led you--"
  
  "Oh, I've come for nothing special. I wanted to have a word with you--if
  only you allow me."
  
  "In that case, here is a chair, sir; kindly be seated. That's what they
  used to say in the old comedies, 'kindly be seated,' " and with a rapid
  gesture he seized an empty chair (it was a rough wooden chair, not
  upholstered) and set it for him almost in the middle of the room; then,
  taking another similar chair for himself, he sat down facing Alyosha, so
  close to him that their knees almost touched.
  
  "Nikolay Ilyitch Snegiryov, sir, formerly a captain in the Russian
  infantry, put to shame for his vices, but still a captain. Though I might
  not be one now for the way I talk; for the last half of my life I've
  learnt to say 'sir.' It's a word you use when you've come down in the
  world."
  
  "That's very true," smiled Alyosha. "But is it used involuntarily or on
  purpose?"
  
  "As God's above, it's involuntary, and I usen't to use it! I didn't use
  the word 'sir' all my life, but as soon as I sank into low water I began
  to say 'sir.' It's the work of a higher power. I see you are interested in
  contemporary questions, but how can I have excited your curiosity, living
  as I do in surroundings impossible for the exercise of hospitality?"
  
  "I've come--about that business."
  
  "About what business?" the captain interrupted impatiently.
  
  "About your meeting with my brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch," Alyosha blurted
  out awkwardly.
  
  "What meeting, sir? You don't mean that meeting? About my 'wisp of tow,'
  then?" He moved closer so that his knees positively knocked against
  Alyosha. His lips were strangely compressed like a thread.
  
  "What wisp of tow?" muttered Alyosha.
  
  "He is come to complain of me, father!" cried a voice familiar to
  Alyosha--the voice of the schoolboy--from behind the curtain. "I bit his
  finger just now." The curtain was pulled, and Alyosha saw his assailant
  lying on a little bed made up on the bench and the chair in the corner
  under the ikons. The boy lay covered by his coat and an old wadded quilt.
  He was evidently unwell, and, judging by his glittering eyes, he was in a
  fever. He looked at Alyosha without fear, as though he felt he was at home
  and could not be touched.
  
  "What! Did he bite your finger?" The captain jumped up from his chair.
  "Was it your finger he bit?"
  
  "Yes. He was throwing stones with other schoolboys. There were six of them
  against him alone. I went up to him, and he threw a stone at me and then
  another at my head. I asked him what I had done to him. And then he rushed
  at me and bit my finger badly, I don't know why."
  
  "I'll thrash him, sir, at once--this minute!" The captain jumped up from
  his seat.
  
  "But I am not complaining at all, I am simply telling you ... I don't want
  him to be thrashed. Besides, he seems to be ill."
  
  "And do you suppose I'd thrash him? That I'd take my Ilusha and thrash him
  before you for your satisfaction? Would you like it done at once, sir?"
  said the captain, suddenly turning to Alyosha, as though he were going to
  attack him. "I am sorry about your finger, sir; but instead of thrashing
  Ilusha, would you like me to chop off my four fingers with this knife here
  before your eyes to satisfy your just wrath? I should think four fingers
  would be enough to satisfy your thirst for vengeance. You won't ask for
  the fifth one too?" He stopped short with a catch in his throat. Every
  feature in his face was twitching and working; he looked extremely
  defiant. He was in a sort of frenzy.
  
  "I think I understand it all now," said Alyosha gently and sorrowfully,
  still keeping his seat. "So your boy is a good boy, he loves his father,
  and he attacked me as the brother of your assailant.... Now I understand
  it," he repeated thoughtfully. "But my brother Dmitri Fyodorovitch regrets
  his action, I know that, and if only it is possible for him to come to
  you, or better still, to meet you in that same place, he will ask your
  forgiveness before every one--if you wish it."
  
  "After pulling out my beard, you mean, he will ask my forgiveness? And he
  thinks that will be a satisfactory finish, doesn't he?"
  
  "Oh, no! On the contrary, he will do anything you like and in any way you
  like."
  
  "So if I were to ask his highness to go down on his knees before me in
  that very tavern--'The Metropolis' it's called--or in the market-place, he
  would do it?"
  
  "Yes, he would even go down on his knees."
  
  "You've pierced me to the heart, sir. Touched me to tears and pierced me
  to the heart! I am only too sensible of your brother's generosity. Allow
  me to introduce my family, my two daughters and my son--my litter. If I
  die, who will care for them, and while I live who but they will care for a
  wretch like me? That's a great thing the Lord has ordained for every man
  of my sort, sir. For there must be some one able to love even a man like
  me."
  
  "Ah, that's perfectly true!" exclaimed Alyosha.
  
  "Oh, do leave off playing the fool! Some idiot comes in, and you put us to
  shame!" cried the girl by the window, suddenly turning to her father with
  a disdainful and contemptuous air.
  
  "Wait a little, Varvara!" cried her father, speaking peremptorily but
  looking at her quite approvingly. "That's her character," he said,
  addressing Alyosha again.
  
  
      "And in all nature there was naught
      That could find favor in his eyes--
  
  
  or rather in the feminine: that could find favor in her eyes. But now let
  me present you to my wife, Arina Petrovna. She is crippled, she is forty-
  three; she can move, but very little. She is of humble origin. Arina
  Petrovna, compose your countenance. This is Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov.
  Get up, Alexey Fyodorovitch." He took him by the hand and with unexpected
  force pulled him up. "You must stand up to be introduced to a lady. It's
  not the Karamazov, mamma, who ... h'm ... etcetera, but his brother,
  radiant with modest virtues. Come, Arina Petrovna, come, mamma, first your
  hand to be kissed."
  
  And he kissed his wife's hand respectfully and even tenderly. The girl at
  the window turned her back indignantly on the scene; an expression of
  extraordinary cordiality came over the haughtily inquiring face of the
  woman.
  
  "Good morning! Sit down, Mr. Tchernomazov," she said.
  
  "Karamazov, mamma, Karamazov. We are of humble origin," he whispered
  again.
  
  "Well, Karamazov, or whatever it is, but I always think of
  Tchernomazov.... Sit down. Why has he pulled you up? He calls me crippled,
  but I am not, only my legs are swollen like barrels, and I am shriveled up
  myself. Once I used to be so fat, but now it's as though I had swallowed a
  needle."
  
  "We are of humble origin," the captain muttered again.
  
  "Oh, father, father!" the hunchback girl, who had till then been silent on
  her chair, said suddenly, and she hid her eyes in her handkerchief.
  
  "Buffoon!" blurted out the girl at the window.
  
  "Have you heard our news?" said the mother, pointing at her daughters.
  "It's like clouds coming over; the clouds pass and we have music again.
  When we were with the army, we used to have many such guests. I don't mean
  to make any comparisons; every one to their taste. The deacon's wife used
  to come then and say, 'Alexandr Alexandrovitch is a man of the noblest
  heart, but Nastasya Petrovna,' she would say, 'is of the brood of hell.'
  'Well,' I said, 'that's a matter of taste; but you are a little spitfire.'
  'And you want keeping in your place,' says she. 'You black sword,' said I,
  'who asked you to teach me?' 'But my breath,' says she, 'is clean, and
  yours is unclean.' 'You ask all the officers whether my breath is
  unclean.' And ever since then I had it in my mind. Not long ago I was
  sitting here as I am now, when I saw that very general come in who came
  here for Easter, and I asked him: 'Your Excellency,' said I, 'can a lady's
  breath be unpleasant?' 'Yes,' he answered; 'you ought to open a window-
  pane or open the door, for the air is not fresh here.' And they all go on
  like that! And what is my breath to them? The dead smell worse still! 'I
  won't spoil the air,' said I, 'I'll order some slippers and go away.' My
  darlings, don't blame your own mother! Nikolay Ilyitch, how is it I can't
  please you? There's only Ilusha who comes home from school and loves me.
  Yesterday he brought me an apple. Forgive your own mother--forgive a poor
  lonely creature! Why has my breath become unpleasant to you?"
  
  And the poor mad woman broke into sobs, and tears streamed down her
  cheeks. The captain rushed up to her.
  
  "Mamma, mamma, my dear, give over! You are not lonely. Every one loves
  you, every one adores you." He began kissing both her hands again and
  tenderly stroking her face; taking the dinner-napkin, he began wiping away
  her tears. Alyosha fancied that he too had tears in his eyes. "There, you
  see, you hear?" he turned with a sort of fury to Alyosha, pointing to the
  poor imbecile.
  
  "I see and hear," muttered Alyosha.
  
  "Father, father, how can you--with him! Let him alone!" cried the boy,
  sitting up in his bed and gazing at his father with glowing eyes.
  
  "Do give over fooling, showing off your silly antics which never lead to
  anything!" shouted Varvara, stamping her foot with passion.
  
  "Your anger is quite just this time, Varvara, and I'll make haste to
  satisfy you. Come, put on your cap, Alexey Fyodorovitch, and I'll put on
  mine. We will go out. I have a word to say to you in earnest, but not
  within these walls. This girl sitting here is my daughter Nina; I forgot
  to introduce her to you. She is a heavenly angel incarnate ... who has
  flown down to us mortals,... if you can understand."
  
  "There he is shaking all over, as though he is in convulsions!" Varvara
  went on indignantly.
  
  "And she there stamping her foot at me and calling me a fool just now, she
  is a heavenly angel incarnate too, and she has good reason to call me so.
  Come along, Alexey Fyodorovitch, we must make an end."
  
  And, snatching Alyosha's hand, he drew him out of the room into the
  street.
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Book 4, Chapter 6
target: Alyosha heads off for Snegiryov's, but, as he has to pass his brother Dmitri's house on the way, he decides to stop and see if he's around. Dmitri's landlord insists he's not around, so Alyosha continues on his way. At Snegiryov's, Alyosha hesitates to introduce himself, but Snegiryov invites him to make himself at home in his humble cottage. Crowded into the room is the rest of Snegiryov's family, including his ill wife and two daughters. When Alyosha mentions the incident with Dmitri, the young boy who bit him earlier emerges from behind a curtain in the corner. Alyosha denies that that's what his visit is about, but Snegiryov offers to whip the boy, which appalls Alyosha. Bust as suddenly, Snegiryov refuses and even yells angrily at Alyosha. Alyosha tries to calm Snegiryov down by reassuring him that Dmitri will apologize and make amends if necessary. Snegiryov seems calmer and introduces Alyosha to his wife. But his behavior - and his wife's - annoy his children, so Snegiryov recommends that Alyosha follow him outside.