“To Syracuse!” cried the captain, unable to grasp what was said.
“Syracuse is in Sicily,” Kolya jerked out suddenly in explanation. The doctor looked at him.
“Sicily! your Excellency,” faltered the captain, “but you’ve seen”—he spread out his hands, indicating his surroundings—“mamma and my family?”
“N—no, Sicily is not the place for the family, the family should go to Caucasus in the early spring ... your daughter must go to the Caucasus, and your wife ... after a course of the waters in the Caucasus for her rheumatism ... must be sent straight to Paris to the mental specialist Lepelletier; I could give you a note to him, and then ... there might be a change—”
“Doctor, doctor! But you see!” The captain flung wide his hands again despairingly, indicating the bare wooden walls of the passage.
“Well, that’s not my business,” grinned the doctor. “I have only told you the answer of medical science to your question as to possible treatment. As for the rest, to my regret—”
“Don’t be afraid, apothecary, my dog won’t bite you,” Kolya rapped out loudly, noticing the doctor’s rather uneasy glance at Perezvon, who was standing in the doorway. There was a wrathful note in Kolya’s voice. He used the word apothecary instead of doctor on purpose, and, as he explained afterwards, used it “to insult him.”
“What’s that?” The doctor flung up his head, staring with surprise at Kolya. “Who’s this?” he addressed Alyosha, as though asking him to explain.
“It’s Perezvon’s master, don’t worry about me,” Kolya said incisively again.
“Perezvon?”[[7]] repeated the doctor, perplexed.