Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories Part 26

"Whoever heard of such a thing, talking away? Eh? The husband is the head; and yet she talks! Petka, don't budge, I'll kill you.... Here's the watch!"

Trofimitch held out the watch to me, but did not let go of it.

He pondered, looked down, then fixed the same intent, stupid stare upon me. Then all at once bawled at the top of his voice:

"Where is it? Where's your rouble?"

"Here it is, here it is," I responded hurriedly and I s.n.a.t.c.hed the coin out of my pocket.

But he did not take it, he still stared at me. I laid the rouble on the table. He suddenly brushed it into the drawer, thrust the watch into my hand and wheeling to the left with a loud stamp, he hissed at his wife and his son:

"Get along, you low wretches!"

Ulyana muttered something, but I had already dashed out into the yard and into the street. Thrusting the watch to the very bottom of my pocket and clutching it tightly in my hand, I hurried home.

VI

I had regained the possession of my watch but it afforded me no satisfaction whatever. I did not venture to wear it, it was above all necessary to conceal from David what I had done. What would he think of me, of my lack of will? I could not even lock up the luckless watch in a drawer: we had all our drawers in common. I had to hide it, sometimes on the top of the cupboard, sometimes under my mattress, sometimes behind the stove.... And yet I did not succeed in hoodwinking David.

One day I took the watch from under a plank in the floor of our room and proceeded to rub the silver case with an old chamois leather glove. David had gone off somewhere in the town; I did not at all expect him to be back quickly.... Suddenly he was in the doorway.

I was so overcome that I almost dropped the watch, and, utterly disconcerted, my face painfully flushing crimson, I fell to fumbling about my waistcoat with it, unable to find my pocket.

David looked at me and, as usual, smiled without speaking.

"What's the matter?" he brought out at last. "You imagined I didn't know you had your watch again? I saw it the very day you brought it back."

"I a.s.sure you," I began, almost on the point of tears....

David shrugged his shoulders.

"The watch is yours, you are free to do what you like with it."

Saying these cruel words, he went out.

I was overwhelmed with despair. This time there could be no doubt!

David certainly despised me.

I could not leave it so.

"I will show him," I thought, clenching my teeth, and at once with a firm step I went into the pa.s.sage, found our page-boy, Yushka, and presented him with the watch!

Yushka would have refused it, but I declared that if he did not take the watch from me I would smash it that very minute, trample it under foot, break it to bits and throw it in the cesspool! He thought a moment, giggled, and took the watch. I went back to our room and seeing David reading there, I told him what I had done.

David did not take his eyes off the page and, again shrugging his shoulder and smiling to himself, repeated that the watch was mine and that I was free to do what I liked with it.

But it seemed to me that he already despised me a little less.

I was fully persuaded that I should never again expose myself to the reproach of weakness of character, for the watch, the disgusting present from my disgusting G.o.dfather, had suddenly grown so distasteful to me that I was quite incapable of understanding how I could have regretted it, how I could have begged for it back from the wretched Trofimitch, who had, moreover, the right to think that he had treated me with generosity.

Several days pa.s.sed.... I remember that on one of them the great news reached our town that the Emperor Paul was dead and his son Alexandr, of whose graciousness and humanity there were such favourable rumours, had ascended the throne. This news excited David intensely: the possibility of seeing--of shortly seeing--his father occurred to him at once. My father was delighted, too.

"They will bring back all the exiles from Siberia now and I expect brother Yegor will not be forgotten," he kept repeating, rubbing his hands, coughing and, at the same time, seeming rather nervous.

David and I at once gave up working and going to the high school; we did not even go for walks but sat in a corner counting and reckoning in how many months, in how many weeks, in how many days "brother Yegor" ought to come back and where to write to him and how to go to meet him and in what way we should begin to live afterwards. "Brother Yegor" was an architect: David and I decided that he ought to settle in Moscow and there build big schools for poor people and we would go to be his a.s.sistants. The watch, of course, we had completely forgotten; besides, David had new cares.... Of them I will speak later, but the watch was destined to remind us of its existence again.

VII

One morning we had only just finished lunch--I was sitting alone by the window thinking of my uncle's release--outside there was the steam and glitter of an April thaw--when all at once my aunt, Pelageya Petrovna, walked into the room. She was at all times restless and fidgetty, she spoke in a shrill voice and was always waving her arms about; on this occasion she simply pounced on me.

"Go along, go to your father at once, sir!" she snapped out. "What pranks have you been up to, you shameless boy! You will catch it, both of you. Nastasey Nastasyeitch has shown up all your tricks! Go along, your father wants you.... Go along this very minute."

Understanding nothing, I followed my aunt, and, as I crossed the threshold of the drawing-room, I saw my father, striding up and down and ruffling up his hair, Yushka in tears by the door and, sitting on a chair in the corner, my G.o.dfather, Nastasey Nastasyeitch, with an expression of peculiar malignancy in his distended nostrils and in his fiery, slanting eyes.

My father swooped down upon me as soon as I walked in.

"Did you give your watch to Yushka? Tell me!"

I glanced at Yushka.

"Tell me," repeated my father, stamping.

"Yes," I answered, and immediately received a stinging slap in the face, which afforded my aunt great satisfaction. I heard her gulp, as though she had swallowed some hot tea. From me my father ran to Yushka.

"And you, you rascal, ought not to have dared to accept such a present," he said, pulling him by the hair: "and you sold it, too, you good-for-nothing boy!"

Yushka, as I learned later had, in the simplicity of his heart, taken my watch to a neighbouring watchmaker's. The watchmaker had displayed it in his shop-window; Nastasey Nastasyeitch had seen it, as he pa.s.sed by, bought it and brought it along with him.

However, my ordeal and Yushka's did not last long: my father gasped for breath, and coughed till he choked; indeed, it was not in his character to be angry long.

"Brother, Porfiry Petrovitch," observed my aunt, as soon as she noticed not without regret that my father's anger had, so to speak, flickered out, "don't you worry yourself further: it's not worth dirtying your hands over. I tell you what I suggest: with the consent of our honoured friend, Nastasey Nastasyeitch, in consideration of the base ingrat.i.tude of your son--I will take charge of the watch; and since he has shown by his conduct that he is not worthy to wear it and does not even understand its value, I will present it in your name to a person who will be very sensible of your kindness."

"Whom do you mean?" asked my father.

"To Hrisanf Lukitch," my aunt articulated, with slight hesitation.

"To Hrisashka?" asked my father, and with a wave of his hand, he added: "It's all one to me. You can throw it in the stove, if you like."

He b.u.t.toned up his open vest and went out, writhing from his coughing.

"And you, my good friend, do you agree?" said my aunt, addressing Nastasey Nastasyeitch.

"I am quite agreeable," responded the latter. During the whole proceedings he had not stirred and only snorting stealthily and stealthily rubbing the ends of his fingers, had fixed his foxy eyes by turns on me, on my father, and on Yushka. We afforded him real gratification!

My aunt's suggestion revolted me to the depths of my soul. It was not that I regretted the watch; but the person to whom she proposed to present it was absolutely hateful to me. This Hrisanf Lukitch (his surname was Trankvillitatin), a stalwart, robust, lanky divinity student, was in the habit of coming to our house--goodness knows what for!--to help the _children_ with their lessons, my aunt a.s.serted; but he could not help us with our lessons because he had never learnt anything himself and was as stupid as a horse. He was rather like a horse altogether: he thudded with his feet as though they had been hoofs, did not laugh but neighed, opening his jaws till you could see right down his throat--and he had a long face, a hooked nose and big, flat jaw-bones; he wore a s.h.a.ggy frieze, full-skirted coat, and smelt of raw meat. My aunt idolised him and called him a good-looking man, a cavalier and even a grenadier. He had a habit of tapping children on the forehead with the nails of his long fingers, hard as stones (he used to do it to me when I was younger), and as he tapped he would chuckle and say with surprise: "How your head resounds, it must be empty." And this lout was to possess my watch!--No, indeed, I determined in my own mind as I ran out of the drawing-room and flung myself on my bed, while my cheek glowed crimson from the slap I had received and my heart, too, was aglow with the bitterness of the insult and the thirst for revenge--no, indeed! I would not allow that cursed Hrisashka to jeer at me.... He would put on the watch, let the chain hang over his stomach, would neigh with delight; no, indeed!

"Quite so, but how was it to be done, how to prevent it?"

I determined to steal the watch from my aunt.