Chapter 4 The Lost Dog

Kolya waits for Alyosha, determined to appear independent despite his insecurity about his height and looks. Alyosha greets him warmly, now out of his cassock, and immediately asks about Ilusha. Kolya learns Ilusha is dying and that the boy dreams of him in delirium. Alyosha notices Kolya’s dog and hopes it is the lost Zhutchka.

Kolya explains his history with Ilusha: he protected the poorly dressed, proud new boy from bullying and began “training” him, alternating warmth and calculated coldness to shape his character. Ilusha confessed a cruel prank taught by Smerdyakov—throwing bread with a pin to the hungry dog Zhutchka—which left Ilusha tormented with remorse.

To teach a lesson, Kolya theatrically renounced Ilusha for a time. Ilusha, inflamed by pride and mounting humiliations at school and at home, defied Kolya and later, in a frenzy, slashed Kolya’s thigh with a penknife before breaking down in tears. Kolya kept the incident secret, and soon after Ilusha, distraught, also injured Alyosha.

Alyosha reveals Ilusha’s fixation that God is punishing him for killing Zhutchka, and that proof of the dog’s survival might revive his spirits. Kolya, impressed by Alyosha’s insight into human nature and defense of children’s games as early art, shares his plan to amuse Ilusha with his own dog, Perezvon, staging a little performance.

Before entering the cramped, hot room, Kolya arranges for Perezvon to wait outside and rush in on Kolya’s whistle, hoping to delight Ilusha more than the mastiff pup his father just brought. Kolya also probes Alyosha’s view of Snegiryov, accepting Alyosha’s tragic reading of the father’s buffoonery as wounded dignity centered wholly on his son.