Ilusha's crowded room already holds the boys Alyosha brought back one by one without sheepish sentimentality, a consolation the dying child needs while Kolya's absence weighs like the memory of stabbing his only protector. For a fortnight Kolya refused Smurov's messages and chose his own time. The captain weeps in the passage, plays buffoon though Ilusha cannot bear it, and clings to hope; Katya's money, Herzenstube, and a Moscow doctor are on the way. Ilusha frets over a pedigree mastiff pup that is not Zhutchka.
Kolya enters with ceremony, greets the captain's wife and Nina, then stands stricken at Ilusha's wasted face. He plays callous, says Zhutchka is lost, then whistles in Perezvon until Ilusha cries it is Zhutchka, the torn ear and blind eye matching what he described. Kolya glows: the dog spat out the pin and squealed but lived, he trained him in secret, Smurov alone knew. Ilusha buries his face in the shaggy coat while the captain sobs with joy and Alyosha knew how dangerous the shock might be.
The room erupts in tricks, meat on the nose, the bronze cannon and powder that startles mamma until Ilusha gives her the toy, Kolya's chatter about saltpeter, the railway lie, and the goose before the justice. Kartashov names Troy's founders from Smaragdov; Kolya crushes him and lectures on universal history as police measure until Alyosha's faint disagreement flushes his cheeks. Kolya promises not to leave and waits in the passage with Perezvon when Nina cries the doctor has come.
The bearskin doctor arrives in squeamish pomp, puzzled by poverty and washing on the line, as joy thins into examination. Kolya staged redemption late but real; the hero's delay cost Ilusha days of believing God punished him for Zhutchka.
Coming Up in Chapter 68
In the passage while the doctor examines Ilusha, Kolya asks what he will say and calls medicine a fraud; Alyosha quietly answers that the boy is dying, and the precocious schoolboy begins the talk he wanted with Karamazov for so long.
