Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories Part 27

VIII

Luckily Trankvillitatin was away from the town at the time: he could not come to us before the next day; I must take advantage of the night! My aunt did not lock her bedroom door and, indeed, none of the keys in the house would turn in the locks; but where would she put the watch, where would she hide it? She kept it in her pocket till the evening and even took it out and looked at it more than once; but at night--where would it be at night?--Well, that was just my work to find out, I thought, shaking my fists.

I was burning with boldness and terror and joy at the thought of the approaching crime. I was continually nodding to myself; I knitted my brows. I whispered: "Wait a bit!" I threatened someone, I was wicked, I was dangerous ... and I avoided David!--no one, not even he, must have the slightest suspicion of what I meant to do....

I would act alone and alone I would answer for it!

Slowly the day lagged by, then the evening, at last the night came. I did nothing; I even tried not to move: one thought was stuck in my head like a nail. At dinner my father, who was, as I have said, naturally gentle, and who was a little ashamed of his harshness--boys of sixteen are not slapped in the face--tried to be affectionate to me; but I rejected his overtures, not from slowness to forgive, as he imagined at the time, but simply that I was afraid of my feelings getting the better of me; I wanted to preserve untouched all the heat of my vengeance, all the hardness of unalterable determination. I went to bed very early; but of course I did not sleep and did not even shut my eyes, but on the contrary opened them wide, though I did pull the quilt over my head. I did not consider beforehand how to act. I had no plan of any kind; I only waited till everything should be quiet in the house. I only took one step: I did not remove my stockings. My aunt's room was on the second floor. One had to pa.s.s through the dining-room and the hall, go up the stairs, pa.s.s along a little pa.s.sage and there ... on the right was the door! I must not on any account take with me a candle or a lantern; in the corner of my aunt's room a little lamp was always burning before the ikon shrine; I knew that. So I should be able to see. I still lay with staring eyes and my mouth open and parched; the blood was throbbing in my temples, in my ears, in my throat, in my back, all over me! I waited ... but it seemed as though some demon were mocking me; time pa.s.sed and pa.s.sed but still silence did not reign.

IX

Never, I thought, had David been so late getting to sleep.... David, the silent David, even began talking to me! Never had they gone on so long banging, talking, walking about the house! And what could they be talking about? I wondered; as though they had not had the whole day to talk in! Sounds outside persisted, too; first a dog barked on a shrill, obstinate note; then a drunken peasant was making an uproar somewhere and would not be pacified; then gates kept creaking; then a wretched cart on racketty wheels kept pa.s.sing and pa.s.sing and seeming as though it would never pa.s.s! However, these sounds did not worry me: on the contrary, I was glad of them; they seemed to distract my attention. But now at last it seemed as though all were tranquil. Only the pendulum of our old clock ticked gravely and drowsily in the dining-room and there was an even drawn-out sound like the hard breathing of people asleep. I was on the point of getting up, then again something rustled ... then suddenly sighed, something soft fell down ... and a whisper glided along the walls.

Or was there nothing of the sort--and was it only imagination mocking me?

At last all was still. It was the very heart, the very dead of night.

The time had come! Chill with antic.i.p.ation, I threw off the bedclothes, let my feet down to the floor, stood up ... one step; a second.... I stole along, my feet, heavy as though they did not belong to me, trod feebly and uncertainly. Stay! what was that sound? Someone sawing, somewhere, or sc.r.a.ping ... or sighing? I listened ... I felt my cheeks twitching and cold watery tears came into my eyes. Nothing! ...

I stole on again. It was dark but I knew the way. All at once I stumbled against a chair.... What a bang and how it hurt! It hit me just on my leg.... I stood stock still. Well, did that wake them? Ah!

here goes! Suddenly I felt bold and even spiteful. On! On! Now the dining-room was crossed, then the door was groped for and opened at one swing. The cursed hinge squeaked, bother it! Then I went up the stairs, one! two! one! two! A step creaked under my foot; I looked at it spitefully, just as though I could see it. Then I stretched for the handle of another door. This one made not the slightest sound! It flew open so easily, as though to say, "Pray walk in." ... And now I was in the corridor!

In the corridor there was a little window high up under the ceiling, a faint light filtered in through the dark panes. And in that glimmer of light I could see our little errand girl lying on the floor on a mat, both arms behind her tousled head; she was sound asleep, breathing rapidly and the fatal door was just behind her head. I stepped across the mat, across the girl ... who opened that door? ... I don't know, but there I was in my aunt's room. There was the little lamp in one corner and the bed in the other and my aunt in her cap and night jacket on the bed with her face towards me. She was asleep, she did not stir, I could not even hear her breathing. The flame of the little lamp softly flickered, stirred by the draught of fresh air, and shadows stirred all over the room, even over the motionless wax-like yellow face of my aunt....

And there was the watch! It was hanging on a little embroidered cushion on the wall behind the bed. What luck, only think of it!

Nothing to delay me! But whose steps were those, soft and rapid behind my back? Oh! no! it was my heart beating! ... I moved my legs forward.... Good G.o.d! something round and rather large pushed against me below my knee, once and again! I was ready to scream, I was ready to drop with horror.... A striped cat, our own cat, was standing before me arching his back and wagging his tail. Then he leapt on the bed--softly and heavily--turned round and sat without purring, exactly like a judge; he sat and looked at me with his golden pupils. "Puss, puss," I whispered, hardly audibly. I bent across my aunt, I had already s.n.a.t.c.hed the watch. She suddenly sat up and opened her eyelids wide.... Heavenly Father, what next? ... but her eyelids quivered and closed and with a faint murmur her head sank on the pillow.

A minute later I was back again in my own room, in my own bed and the watch was in my hands....

More lightly than a feather I flew back! I was a fine fellow, I was a thief, I was a hero, I was gasping with delight, I was hot, I was gleeful--I wanted to wake David at once to tell him all about it--and, incredible as it sounds, I fell asleep and slept like the dead! At last I opened my eyes.... It was light in the room, the sun had risen.

Luckily no one was awake yet. I jumped up as though I had been scalded, woke David and told him all about it. He listened, smiled.

"Do you know what?" he said to me at last, "let's bury the silly watch in the earth, so that it may never be seen again." I thought his idea best of all. In a few minutes we were both dressed; we ran out into the orchard behind our house and under an old apple tree in a deep hole, hurriedly scooped out in the soft, springy earth with David's big knife, my G.o.dfather's hated present was hidden forever, so that it never got into the hands of the disgusting Trankvillitatin after all!

We stamped down the hole, strewed rubbish over it and, proud and happy, unnoticed by anyone, went home again, got into our beds and slept another hour or two--and such a light and blissful sleep!

X

You can imagine the uproar there was that morning, as soon as my aunt woke up and missed the watch! Her piercing shriek is ringing in my ears to this day. "Help! Robbed! Robbed!" she squealed, and alarmed the whole household. She was furious, while David and I only smiled to ourselves and sweet was our smile to us. "Everyone, everyone must be well thrashed!" bawled my aunt. "The watch has been stolen from under my head, from under my pillow!" We were prepared for anything, we expected trouble.... But contrary to our expectations we did not get into trouble at all. My father certainly did fume dreadfully at first, he even talked of the police; but I suppose he was bored with the enquiry of the day before and suddenly, to my aunt's indescribable amazement, he flew out not against us but against her.

"You sicken me worse than a bitter radish, Pelageya Petrovna," he shouted, "with your watch. I don't want to hear any more about it! It can't be lost by magic, you say, but what's it to do with me? It may be magic for all I care! Stolen from you? Well, good luck to it then!

What will Nastasey Nastasyeitch say? d.a.m.nation take him, your Nastasyeitch! I get nothing but annoyances and unpleasantness from him! Don't dare to worry me again! Do you hear?"

My father slammed the door and went off to his own room. David and I did not at first understand the allusion in his last words; but afterwards we found out that my father was just then violently indignant with my G.o.dfather, who had done him out of a profitable job.

So my aunt was left looking a fool. She almost burst with vexation, but there was no help for it. She had to confine herself to repeating in a sharp whisper, twisting her mouth in my direction whenever she pa.s.sed me, "Thief, thief, robber, scoundrel." My aunt's reproaches were a source of real enjoyment to me. It was very agreeable, too, as I crossed the flower-garden, to let my eye with a.s.sumed indifference glide over the very spot where the watch lay at rest under the apple-tree; and if David were close at hand to exchange a meaning grimace with him....

My aunt tried setting Trankvillitatin upon me; but I appealed to David. He told the stalwart divinity student bluntly that he would rip up his belly with a knife if he did not leave me alone....

Trankvillitatin was frightened; though, according to my aunt, he was a grenadier and a cavalier he was not remarkable for valour. So pa.s.sed five weeks.... But do you imagine that the story of the watch ended there? No, it did not; only to continue my story I must introduce a new character; and to introduce that new character I must go back a little.

XI

My father had for many years been on very friendly, even intimate terms with a retired government clerk called Latkin, a lame little man in poor circ.u.mstances with queer, timid manners, one of those creatures of whom it is commonly said that they are crushed by G.o.d Himself. Like my father and Nastasey, he was engaged in the humbler cla.s.s of legal work and acted as legal adviser and agent. But possessing neither a presentable appearance nor the gift of words and having little confidence in himself, he did not venture to act independently but attached himself to my father. His handwriting was "regular beadwork," he knew the law thoroughly and had mastered all the intricacies of the jargon of pet.i.tions and legal doc.u.ments. He had managed various cases with my father and had shared with him gains and losses and it seemed as though nothing could shake their friendship, and yet it broke down in one day and forever. My father quarrelled with his colleague for good. If Latkin had s.n.a.t.c.hed a profitable job from my father, after the fashion of Nastasey, who replaced him later on, my father would have been no more indignant with him than with Nastasey, probably less. But Latkin, under the influence of an unexplained, incomprehensible feeling, envy, greed--or perhaps even a momentary fit of honesty--"gave away" my father, betrayed him to their common client, a wealthy young merchant, opening this careless young man's eyes to a certain--well, piece of sharp practice, destined to bring my father considerable profit. It was not the money loss, however great--no--but the betrayal that wounded and infuriated my father; he could not forgive treachery.

"So he sets himself up for a saint!" he repeated, trembling all over with anger, his teeth chattering as though he were in a fever. I happened to be in the room and was a witness of this ugly scene.

"Good. Amen, from today. It's all over between us. There's the ikon and there's the door! Neither you in my house nor I in yours. You are too honest for us. How can we keep company with you? But may you have no house nor home!"

It was in vain that Latkin entreated my father and bowed down before him; it was in vain that he tried to explain to him what filled his own soul with painful perplexity. "You know it was with no sort of profit to myself, Porfiry Petrovitch," he faltered: "why, I cut my own throat!" My father remained implacable. Latkin never set foot in our house again. Fate itself seemed determined to carry out my father's last cruel words. Soon after the rupture (which took place two years before the beginning of my story), Latkin's wife, who had, it is true, been ill for a long time, died; his second daughter, a child three years old, became deaf and dumb in one day from terror; a swarm of bees had settled on her head; Latkin himself had an apoplectic stroke and sank into extreme and hopeless poverty. How he struggled on, what he lived upon--it is hard to imagine. He lived in a dilapidated hovel at no great distance from our house. His elder daughter Raissa lived with him and kept house, so far as that was possible. This Raissa is the character whom I must now introduce into our story.

XII

When her father was on friendly terms with mine, we used to see her continually. She would sit with us for hours at a time, either sewing, or spinning with her delicate, rapid, clever fingers. She was a well-made, rather thin girl, with intelligent brown eyes and a long, white, oval face. She talked little but sensibly in a soft, musical voice, barely opening her mouth and not showing her teeth. When she laughed--which happened rarely and never lasted long--they were all suddenly displayed, big and white as almonds. I remember her gait, too, light, elastic, with a little skip at each step. It always seemed to me that she was going down a flight of steps, even when she was walking on level ground. She held herself erect with her arms folded tightly over her bosom. And whatever she was doing, whatever she undertook, if she were only threading a needle or ironing a petticoat--the effect was always beautiful and somehow--you may not believe it--touching. Her Christian name was Raissa, but we used to call her Black-lip: she had on her upper lip a birthmark; a little dark-bluish spot, as though she had been eating blackberries; but that did not spoil her: on the contrary. She was just a year older than David. I cherished for her a feeling akin to respect, but we were not great friends. But between her and David a friendship had sprung up, a strange, unchildlike but good friendship. They somehow suited each other.

Sometimes they did not exchange a word for hours together, but both felt that they were happy and happy because they were together. I had never met a girl like her, really. There was something attentive and resolute about her, something honest and mournful and charming. I never heard her say anything very intelligent, but I never heard her say anything commonplace, and I have never seen more intelligent eyes.

After the rupture between her family and mine I saw her less frequently: my father sternly forbade my visiting the Latkins, and she did not appear in our house again. But I met her in the street, in church and Black-lip always aroused in me the same feeling--respect and even some wonder, rather than pity. She bore her misfortunes very well indeed. "The girl is flint," even coa.r.s.e-witted, Trankvillitatin said about her once, but really she ought to have been pitied: her face acquired a careworn, exhausted expression, her eyes were hollow and sunken, a burden beyond her strength lay on her young shoulders.

David saw her much oftener than I did; he used to go to their house.

My father gave him up in despair: he knew that David would not obey him, anyway. And from time to time Raissa would appear at the hurdle fence of our garden which looked into a lane and there have an interview with David; she did not come for the sake of conversation, but told him of some new difficulty or trouble and asked his advice.

The paralysis that had attacked Latkin was of a rather peculiar kind.

His arms and legs had grown feeble, but he had not lost the use of them, and his brain indeed worked perfectly; but his speech was muddled and instead of one word he would p.r.o.nounce another: one had to guess what it was he wanted to say.... "Tchoo--tchoo--tchoo," he would stammer with an effort--he began every sentence with "Tchoo--tchoo--tchoo, some scissors, some scissors," ... and the word scissors meant bread.... My father, he hated with all the strength left him--he attributed all his misfortunes to my father's curse and called him alternately the butcher and the diamond-merchant. "Tchoo, tchoo, don't you dare to go to the butcher's, Va.s.silyevna." This was what he called his daughter though his own name was Martinyan. Every day he became more exacting; his needs increased.... And how were those needs to be satisfied? Where could the money be found? Sorrow soon makes one old: but it was horrible to hear some words on the lips of a girl of seventeen.

XIII

I remember I happened to be present at a conversation with David over the fence, on the very day of her mother's death.

"Mother died this morning at daybreak," she said, first looking round with her dark expressive eyes and then fixing them on the ground.

"Cook undertook to get a coffin cheap but she's not to be trusted; she may spend the money on drink, even. You might come and look after her, Davidushka, she's afraid of you."

"I will come," answered David. "I will see to it. And how's your father?"

"He cries; he says: 'you must spoil me, too.' Spoil must mean bury.

Now he has gone to sleep." Raissa suddenly gave a deep sigh. "Oh, Davidushka, Davidushka!" She pa.s.sed her half-clenched fist over her forehead and her eyebrows, and the action was so bitter ... and as sincere and beautiful as all her actions.

"You must take care of yourself, though," David observed; "you haven't slept at all, I expect.... And what's the use of crying? It doesn't help trouble."

"I have no time for crying," answered Raissa.

"That's a luxury for the rich, crying," observed David.

Raissa was going, but she turned back.

"The yellow shawl's being sold, you know; part of mother's dowry. They are giving us twelve roubles; I think that is not much."

"It certainly is not much."

"We shouldn't sell it," Raissa said after a brief pause, "but you see we must have money for the funeral."

"Of course you must. Only you mustn't spend money at random. Those priests are awful! But I say, wait a minute. I'll come. Are you going?

I'll be with you soon. Goodbye, darling."

"Good-bye, Davidushka, darling."

"Mind now, don't cry!"