observed Raissa, and she flushed a
little.
When she flushed she was amazingly pretty at once.
«It may be of use…. How father wrote in his day … wonderfully! He
taught me. Well, now he can hardly make out the letters.»
«You only live, that’s all I want,» David repeated, dropping his voice
and not taking his eyes off her. Raissa glanced quickly at him and
flushed still more.
«You live and as for spelling, spell as you like…. Oh, the devil,
the witch is coming!» (David called my aunt the witch.) «What ill-luck
has brought her this way? You must go, darling.»
Raissa glanced at David once more and ran away.
David talked to me of Raissa and her family very rarely and
unwillingly, especially from the time when he began to expect his
father’s return. He thought of nothing but him and how we should live
together afterwards. He had a vivid memory of him and used to describe
him to me with particular pleasure.
«He is big and strong; he can lift three hundred-weight with one
hand…. When he shouted: ‘Where’s the lad?’ he could be heard all
over the house. He’s so jolly and kind … and a brave man! Nobody can
intimidate him. We lived so happily together before we were ruined.
They say he has gone quite grey, and in old days his hair was as red
as mine. He was a strong man.»
David would never admit that we might remain in Ryazan.
«You will go away,» I observed, «but I shall stay.»
«Nonsense, we shall take you with us.»
«And how about my father?»
«You will cast off your father. You will be ruined if you don’t.»
«How so?»
David made me no answer but merely knitted his white brows.
«So when we go away with father,» he began again, «he will get a good
situation and I shall marry.»
«Well, that won’t be just directly,» I said.
«No, why not? I shall marry soon.»
«You?»
«Yes, I; why not?»
«You haven’t fixed on your wife, I suppose.»
«Of course, I have.»
«Who is she?»
David laughed.
«What a senseless fellow you are, really? Raissa, of course.»
«Raissa!» I repeated in amazement; «you are joking!»
«I am not given to joking, and don’t like it.»
«Why, she is a year older than you are.»
«What of it? but let’s drop the subject.»
«Let me ask one question,» I said. «Does she know that you mean to
marry her?»
«Most likely.»
«But haven’t you declared your feelings?»
«What is there to declare? When the time comes I shall tell her. Come,
that’s enough.»
David got up and went out of the room. When I was alone, I pondered …
and pondered … and came to the conclusion that David would act
like a sensible and practical man; and indeed I felt flattered at the
thought of being the friend of such a practical man!
And Raissa in her everlasting black woollen dress suddenly seemed to
me charming and worthy of the most devoted love.
XV
David’s father still did not come and did not even send a letter. It
had long been summer and June was drawing to its end. We were wearing
ourselves out in suspense.
Meanwhile there began to be rumours that Latkin had suddenly become
much worse, and that his family were likely to die of hunger or
else the house would fall in and crush them all under the roof.
David’s face even looked changed and he became so ill-tempered and
surly that there was no going near him. He began to be more often
absent from home, too. I did not meet Raissa at all. From time to
time, I caught a glimpse of her in the distance, rapidly crossing the
street with her beautiful, light step, straight as an arrow, with her
arms crossed, with her dark, clever eyes under her long brows, with an
anxious expression on her pale, sweet face—that was all. My aunt with
the help of her Trankvillitatin pitched into me as before, and as
before reproachfully whispered in my ear: «You are a thief, sir, a
thief!» But I took no notice of her; and my father was very busy, and
occupied with his writing and driving all over the place and did not
want to hear anything.
One day, passing by the familiar apple-tree, more from habit than
anything I cast a furtive glance in the direction of the little spot I
knew so well, and it suddenly struck me that there was a change in the
surface of the soil that concealed our treasure … as though there
were a little protuberance where there had been a hollow, and the bits
of rubbish were disarranged. «What does that mean?» I wondered. «Can
someone have guessed our secret and dug up the watch?»
I had to make certain with my own eyes. I felt, of course, the most
complete indifference in regard to the watch that lay rusting in the
bosom of the earth; but was not prepared to let anyone else make use
of it! And so next day I got up before dawn again and arming myself
with a knife went into the orchard, sought out the marked spot under
the apple-tree, began digging—and after digging a hole a yard deep
was forced to the conviction that the watch was gone, that someone had
got hold of it, taken it away, stolen it!
But who could have dug it up except David?
Who else knew where it was?
I filled in the hole and went back to the house. I felt deeply
injured.
«Supposing,» I thought, «that David needs the watch to save his future
wife or her father from dying of starvation…. Say what you like, the
watch was worth something…. Why did he not come to me and say:
‘Brother’ (in David’s place I should have certainly begun by saying
brother), ‘brother, I need money; you have none, I know, but let me
make use of that watch which we buried together under the old
apple-tree? It is of no use to anyone and I shall be so grateful to
you, brother!’ With what joy I should have consented. But to act
secretly, treacherously, not to trust his friend…. No! No passion, no
necessity would justify that!»
I repeat, I felt horribly injured. I began by a display of coldness
and sulking….
But David was not one of the sort to notice this and be upset by it.
I began dropping hints.
But David appeared not to understand my hints in the least!
I said before him how base in my eyes was the man who having a friend
and understanding all that was meant by that sacred sentiment
«friendship,» was yet so devoid of generosity as to have recourse to
deception; as though it were possible to conceal anything.
As I uttered these last words I laughed scornfully.
But David did not turn a hair. At last I asked him straight out: «What
did he think, had our watch gone for some time after being buried in
the earth or had it stopped at once?»
He answered me: «The devil only knows! What a thing to wonder about!»
I did not know what to think! David evidently had something on his
mind … but not the abduction of the watch. An unexpected incident
showed me his innocence.
XVI
One day I came home by a side lane which I usually avoided as the
house in which my enemy Trankvillitatin lodged was in it; but on this
occasion Fate itself led me that way. Passing the open window of an
eating-house, I suddenly heard the voice of our servant, Vassily, a
young man of free and easy manners, «a lazy fellow and a scamp,» as my
father called him, but also a great conqueror of female hearts which
he charmed by his wit, his dancing and his playing on the tambourine.
«And what do you suppose they’ve been up to?» said Vassily, whom I
could not see but heard distinctly; he was, most likely, sitting close
by, near the window with a companion over the steaming tea—and as
often happens with people in a closed room, spoke in a loud voice
without suspecting that anyone passing in the street could hear every
word: «They buried it in the ground!»
«Nonsense!» muttered another voice.
«I tell you they did, our young gentlemen are extraordinary!
Especially that Davidka, he’s a regular Aesop! I got up at daybreak
and went to the window…. I looked out and, what do you think! Our
two little dears were coming along the orchard bringing that same
watch and they dug a hole under the apple-tree and there they buried
it, as though it had been a baby! And they smoothed the earth over
afterwards, upon my soul they did, the young rakes!»
«Ah! plague take them,» Vassily’s companion commented. «Too well off,
I suppose. Well, did you dig up the watch?»
«To be sure I did. I have got it now. Only it won’t do to show it for
a time. There’s been no end of a fuss over it. Davidka stole it that
very night from under our old lady’s back.»
«Oh—oh!»
«I tell you, he did. He’s a desperate fellow. So it won’t do to show
it. But when the officers come down I shall sell it or stake it at
cards.»
I didn’t stay to hear more: I rushed headlong home and straight to
David.
«Brother!» I began, «brother, forgive me! I have wronged you! I
suspected you! I blamed you! You see how agitated I am! Forgive me!»
«What’s the matter with you?» asked David. «Explain!»
«I suspected that you had dug up our watch under the apple-tree.»
«The watch again! Why, isn’t it there?»
«It’s not there; I thought you had taken it, to help your friends. And
it was all Vassily.»
I repeated to David all that I had overheard under the window of the
eating-house.
But how to describe my amazement! I had, of course, expected David to
be indignant, but I had not for a moment anticipated the effect it
produced on him! I had hardly finished my story when he flew into an
indescribable fury! David, who had always taken up a scornful attitude
to the whole «vulgar,» as he called it, business of the watch; David,
who had more than once declared that it wasn’t worth a rotten egg,
jumped up from his seat, got hot all over, ground his teeth and
clenched his
