“What do you mean? Answered whom? Has some one suggested your going to America already?”
“I must own, they’ve been at me to go, but I declined. That’s between ourselves, of course, Karamazov; do you hear, not a word to any one. I say this only to you. I am not at all anxious to fall into the clutches of the secret police and take lessons at the Chain bridge.
Long will you remember
The house at the Chain bridge.
Do you remember? It’s splendid. Why are you laughing? You don’t suppose I am fibbing, do you?” (“What if he should find out that I’ve only that one number of The Bell in father’s bookcase, and haven’t read any more of it?” Kolya thought with a shudder.)
“Oh, no, I am not laughing and don’t suppose for a moment that you are lying. No, indeed, I can’t suppose so, for all this, alas! is perfectly true. But tell me, have you read Pushkin—Onyegin, for instance?... You spoke just now of Tatyana.”
“No, I haven’t read it yet, but I want to read it. I have no prejudices, Karamazov; I want to hear both sides. What makes you ask?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Tell me, Karamazov, have you an awful contempt for me?” Kolya rapped out suddenly and drew himself up before Alyosha, as though he were on drill. “Be so kind as to tell me, without beating about the bush.”
“I have a contempt for you?” Alyosha looked at him wondering. “What for? I am only sad that a charming nature such as yours should be perverted by all this crude nonsense before you have begun life.”
“Don’t be anxious about my nature,” Kolya interrupted, not without complacency. “But it’s true that I am stupidly sensitive, crudely sensitive. You smiled just now, and I fancied you seemed to—”