ith his
coldness. The boy disliked this, and the more demonstrations of feeling
were demanded of him the more he seemed intentionally to avoid them. Yet
it was not intentional on his part but instinctive--it was his character.
His mother was mistaken; he was very fond of her. He only disliked
"sheepish sentimentality," as he expressed it in his schoolboy language.

There was a bookcase in the house containing a few books that had been his
father's. Kolya was fond of reading, and had read several of them by
himself. His mother did not mind that and only wondered sometimes at
seeing the boy stand for hours by the bookcase poring over a book instead
of going to play. And in that way Kolya read some things unsuitable for
his age.

Though the boy, as a rule, knew where to draw the line in his mischief, he
had of late begun to play pranks that caused his mother serious alarm. It
is true there was nothing vicious in what he did, but a wild mad
recklessness.

It happened that July, during the summer holidays, that the mother and son
went to another district, forty-five miles away, to spend a week with a
distant relation, whose husband was an official at the railway station
(the very station, the nearest one to our town, from which a month later
Ivan Fyodorovitch Karamazov set off for Moscow). There Kolya began by
carefully investigating every detail connected with the railways, knowing
that he could impress his schoolfellows when he got home with his newly
acquired knowledge. But there happened to be some other boys in the place
with whom he soon made friends. Some of them were living at the station,
others in the neighborhood; there were six or seven of them, all between
twelve and fifteen, and two of them came from our town. The boys played
together, and on the fourth or fifth day of Kolya's stay at the station, a
mad bet was made by the foolish boys. Kolya, who was almost the youngest
of the party and rather looked down upon by the others in consequence, was
moved by vanity or by reckless bravado to bet them two roubles that he
would lie down between the rails at night when the eleven o'clock train
was due, and would lie there without moving while the train rolled over
him at full speed. It is true they made a preliminary investigation, from
which it appeared that it was possible to lie so flat between the rails
that the train could pass over without touching, but to lie there was no
joke! Kolya maintained stoutly that he