feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/shmoop/The Brothers Karamazov/section_26_part_0.txt
feat_book_id: The Brothers Karamazov.book 4.chapter 3
feat_summary_id: book 4, chapter 3
feat_summary: {"name": "Book 4, Chapter 3", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20201023112808/https://www.shmoop.com/study-guides/literature/brothers-karamazov/summary/book-4-chapter-3", "summary": "Alyosha then heads off to Madame Khokhlakov's. On a lane to Mikhailovsky Street he encounters a group of boys, all of whom have stones in their hands. He then notices a sickly boy a few feet from them. All of a sudden the sickly boy throws a stone at one of the boys. Before he knows it, Alyosha is also hit on the shoulder by a rock. The boys start hurling stones at the sickly boy and Alyosha pleads with them to stop. They insist that the sickly boy attacked one of them first, stabbing a boy with a pen-knife earlier that day. Alyosha asks the sickly boy why he's throwing stones. The boy yells at him to leave him alone. As Alyosha turns back, the boy throws another stone at him. Alyosha asks the boy why he did that and the boy promptly bites him on the finger. Alyosha calmly wraps his bleeding finger in a kerchief and persists in trying to get the boy to talk to him. But the boy breaks out into tears and runs away.", "analysis": ""}
text: Chapter III. A Meeting With The Schoolboys
  
  
  "Thank goodness he did not ask me about Grushenka," thought Alyosha, as he
  left his father's house and turned towards Madame Hohlakov's, "or I might
  have to tell him of my meeting with Grushenka yesterday."
  
  Alyosha felt painfully that since yesterday both combatants had renewed
  their energies, and that their hearts had grown hard again. "Father is
  spiteful and angry, he's made some plan and will stick to it. And what of
  Dmitri? He too will be harder than yesterday, he too must be spiteful and
  angry, and he too, no doubt, has made some plan. Oh, I must succeed in
  finding him to-day, whatever happens."
  
  But Alyosha had not long to meditate. An incident occurred on the road,
  which, though apparently of little consequence, made a great impression on
  him. Just after he had crossed the square and turned the corner coming out
  into Mihailovsky Street, which is divided by a small ditch from the High
  Street (our whole town is intersected by ditches), he saw a group of
  schoolboys between the ages of nine and twelve, at the bridge. They were
  going home from school, some with their bags on their shoulders, others
  with leather satchels slung across them, some in short jackets, others in
  little overcoats. Some even had those high boots with creases round the
  ankles, such as little boys spoilt by rich fathers love to wear. The whole
  group was talking eagerly about something, apparently holding a council.
  Alyosha had never from his Moscow days been able to pass children without
  taking notice of them, and although he was particularly fond of children
  of three or thereabout, he liked schoolboys of ten and eleven too. And so,
  anxious as he was to-day, he wanted at once to turn aside to talk to them.
  He looked into their excited rosy faces, and noticed at once that all the
  boys had stones in their hands. Behind the ditch some thirty paces away,
  there was another schoolboy standing by a fence. He too had a satchel at
  his side. He was about ten years old, pale, delicate-looking and with
  sparkling black eyes. He kept an attentive and anxious watch on the other
  six, obviously his schoolfellows with whom he had just come out of school,
  but with whom he had evidently had a feud.
  
  Alyosha went up and, addressing a fair, curly-headed, rosy boy in a black
  jacket, observed:
  
  "When I used to wear a satchel like yours, I always used to carry it on my
  left side, so as to have my right hand free, but you've got yours on your
  right side. So it will be awkward for you to get at it."
  
  Alyosha had no art or premeditation in beginning with this practical
  remark. But it is the only way for a grown-up person to get at once into
  confidential relations with a child, or still more with a group of
  children. One must begin in a serious, businesslike way so as to be on a
  perfectly equal footing. Alyosha understood it by instinct.
  
  "But he is left-handed," another, a fine healthy-looking boy of eleven,
  answered promptly. All the others stared at Alyosha.
  
  "He even throws stones with his left hand," observed a third.
  
  At that instant a stone flew into the group, but only just grazed the
  left-handed boy, though it was well and vigorously thrown by the boy
  standing the other side of the ditch.
  
  "Give it him, hit him back, Smurov," they all shouted. But Smurov, the
  left-handed boy, needed no telling, and at once revenged himself; he threw
  a stone, but it missed the boy and hit the ground. The boy the other side
  of the ditch, the pocket of whose coat was visibly bulging with stones,
  flung another stone at the group; this time it flew straight at Alyosha
  and hit him painfully on the shoulder.
  
  "He aimed it at you, he meant it for you. You are Karamazov, Karamazov!"
  the boys shouted, laughing. "Come, all throw at him at once!" and six
  stones flew at the boy. One struck the boy on the head and he fell down,
  but at once leapt up and began ferociously returning their fire. Both
  sides threw stones incessantly. Many of the group had their pockets full
  too.
  
  "What are you about! Aren't you ashamed? Six against one! Why, you'll kill
  him," cried Alyosha.
  
  He ran forward and met the flying stones to screen the solitary boy. Three
  or four ceased throwing for a minute.
  
  "He began first!" cried a boy in a red shirt in an angry childish voice.
  "He is a beast, he stabbed Krassotkin in class the other day with a
  penknife. It bled. Krassotkin wouldn't tell tales, but he must be
  thrashed."
  
  "But what for? I suppose you tease him."
  
  "There, he sent a stone in your back again, he knows you," cried the
  children. "It's you he is throwing at now, not us. Come, all of you, at
  him again, don't miss, Smurov!" and again a fire of stones, and a very
  vicious one, began. The boy the other side of the ditch was hit in the
  chest; he screamed, began to cry and ran away uphill towards Mihailovsky
  Street. They all shouted: "Aha, he is funking, he is running away. Wisp of
  tow!"
  
  "You don't know what a beast he is, Karamazov, killing is too good for
  him," said the boy in the jacket, with flashing eyes. He seemed to be the
  eldest.
  
  "What's wrong with him?" asked Alyosha, "is he a tell-tale or what?"
  
  The boys looked at one another as though derisively.
  
  "Are you going that way, to Mihailovsky?" the same boy went on. "Catch him
  up.... You see he's stopped again, he is waiting and looking at you."
  
  "He is looking at you," the other boys chimed in.
  
  "You ask him, does he like a disheveled wisp of tow. Do you hear, ask him
  that!"
  
  There was a general burst of laughter. Alyosha looked at them, and they at
  him.
  
  "Don't go near him, he'll hurt you," cried Smurov in a warning voice.
  
  "I shan't ask him about the wisp of tow, for I expect you tease him with
  that question somehow. But I'll find out from him why you hate him so."
  
  "Find out then, find out," cried the boys, laughing.
  
  Alyosha crossed the bridge and walked uphill by the fence, straight
  towards the boy.
  
  "You'd better look out," the boys called after him; "he won't be afraid of
  you. He will stab you in a minute, on the sly, as he did Krassotkin."
  
  The boy waited for him without budging. Coming up to him, Alyosha saw
  facing him a child of about nine years old. He was an undersized weakly
  boy with a thin pale face, with large dark eyes that gazed at him
  vindictively. He was dressed in a rather shabby old overcoat, which he had
  monstrously outgrown. His bare arms stuck out beyond his sleeves. There
  was a large patch on the right knee of his trousers, and in his right boot
  just at the toe there was a big hole in the leather, carefully blackened
  with ink. Both the pockets of his great-coat were weighed down with
  stones. Alyosha stopped two steps in front of him, looking inquiringly at
  him. The boy, seeing at once from Alyosha's eyes that he wouldn't beat
  him, became less defiant, and addressed him first.
  
  "I am alone, and there are six of them. I'll beat them all, alone!" he
  said suddenly, with flashing eyes.
  
  "I think one of the stones must have hurt you badly," observed Alyosha.
  
  "But I hit Smurov on the head!" cried the boy.
  
  "They told me that you know me, and that you threw a stone at me on
  purpose," said Alyosha.
  
  The boy looked darkly at him.
  
  "I don't know you. Do you know me?" Alyosha continued.
  
  "Let me alone!" the boy cried irritably; but he did not move, as though he
  were expecting something, and again there was a vindictive light in his
  eyes.
  
  "Very well, I am going," said Alyosha; "only I don't know you and I don't
  tease you. They told me how they tease you, but I don't want to tease you.
  Good-by!"
  
  "Monk in silk trousers!" cried the boy, following Alyosha with the same
  vindictive and defiant expression, and he threw himself into an attitude
  of defense, feeling sure that now Alyosha would fall upon him; but Alyosha
  turned, looked at him, and walked away. He had not gone three steps before
  the biggest stone the boy had in his pocket hit him a painful blow in the
  back.
  
  "So you'll hit a man from behind! They tell the truth, then, when they say
  that you attack on the sly," said Alyosha, turning round again. This time
  the boy threw a stone savagely right into Alyosha's face; but Alyosha just
  had time to guard himself, and the stone struck him on the elbow.
  
  "Aren't you ashamed? What have I done to you?" he cried.
  
  The boy waited in silent defiance, certain that now Alyosha would attack
  him. Seeing that even now he would not, his rage was like a little wild
  beast's; he flew at Alyosha himself, and before Alyosha had time to move,
  the spiteful child had seized his left hand with both of his and bit his
  middle finger. He fixed his teeth in it and it was ten seconds before he
  let go. Alyosha cried out with pain and pulled his finger away with all
  his might. The child let go at last and retreated to his former distance.
  Alyosha's finger had been badly bitten to the bone, close to the nail; it
  began to bleed. Alyosha took out his handkerchief and bound it tightly
  round his injured hand. He was a full minute bandaging it. The boy stood
  waiting all the time. At last Alyosha raised his gentle eyes and looked at
  him.
  
  "Very well," he said, "you see how badly you've bitten me. That's enough,
  isn't it? Now tell me, what have I done to you?"
  
  The boy stared in amazement.
  
  "Though I don't know you and it's the first time I've seen you," Alyosha
  went on with the same serenity, "yet I must have done something to you--you
  wouldn't have hurt me like this for nothing. So what have I done? How have
  I wronged you, tell me?"
  
  Instead of answering, the boy broke into a loud tearful wail and ran away.
  Alyosha walked slowly after him towards Mihailovsky Street, and for a long
  time he saw the child running in the distance as fast as ever, not turning
  his head, and no doubt still keeping up his tearful wail. He made up his
  mind to find him out as soon as he had time, and to solve this mystery.
  Just now he had not the time.
  
  
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Book 4, Chapter 3
target: Alyosha then heads off to Madame Khokhlakov's. On a lane to Mikhailovsky Street he encounters a group of boys, all of whom have stones in their hands. He then notices a sickly boy a few feet from them. All of a sudden the sickly boy throws a stone at one of the boys. Before he knows it, Alyosha is also hit on the shoulder by a rock. The boys start hurling stones at the sickly boy and Alyosha pleads with them to stop. They insist that the sickly boy attacked one of them first, stabbing a boy with a pen-knife earlier that day. Alyosha asks the sickly boy why he's throwing stones. The boy yells at him to leave him alone. As Alyosha turns back, the boy throws another stone at him. Alyosha asks the boy why he did that and the boy promptly bites him on the finger. Alyosha calmly wraps his bleeding finger in a kerchief and persists in trying to get the boy to talk to him. But the boy breaks out into tears and runs away.