cold. Let us go in, though, and, by the way, what is your name? I know you are called Kolya, but what else?”
“Nikolay—Nikolay Ivanovitch Krassotkin, or, as they say in official documents, ‘Krassotkin son.’ ”
Kolya laughed for some reason, but added suddenly, “Of course I hate my name Nikolay.”
“Why so?”
“It’s so trivial, so ordinary.”
“You are thirteen?” asked Alyosha.
“No, fourteen—that is, I shall be fourteen very soon, in a fortnight. I’ll confess one weakness of mine, Karamazov, just to you, since it’s our first meeting, so that you may understand my character at once. I hate being asked my age, more than that … and in fact … there’s a libelous story going about me, that last week I played robbers with the preparatory boys. It’s a fact that I did play with them, but it’s a perfect libel to