Whatever you may say,
I shall go far away.
Life will be bright and gay
In the city far away.
I shall not grieve,
I shall not grieve at all,
I don’t intend to grieve at all.
Then something unexpected happened. Alyosha suddenly sneezed. They were silent. Alyosha got up and walked towards them. He found Smerdyakov dressed up and wearing polished boots, his hair pomaded, and perhaps curled. The guitar lay on the garden‐seat. His companion was the daughter of the house, wearing a light‐blue dress with a train two yards long. She was young and would not have been bad‐looking, but that her face was so round and terribly freckled.
“Will my brother Dmitri soon be back?” asked Alyosha with as much composure as he could.
Smerdyakov got up slowly; Marya Kondratyevna rose too.
“How am I to know about Dmitri Fyodorovitch? It’s not as if I were his keeper,” answered Smerdyakov quietly, distinctly, and superciliously.
“But I simply asked whether you do know?” Alyosha explained.
“I know nothing of his whereabouts and don’t want to.”
“But my brother told me that you let him know all that goes on in the house, and promised to let him know when Agrafena Alexandrovna comes.”
Smerdyakov turned a deliberate, unmoved glance upon him.
“And how did you get in this time, since the gate was bolted an hour ago?” he asked, looking at Alyosha.