Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories Part 31

David shut the door after him, put the watch on the table, folded his arms and--oh, wonder!--laughed. Looking at him I laughed, too.

"What a wonderful performance!" he began. "We can't get rid of this watch anyway. It's bewitched, really. And why was I so furious about it?"

"Yes, why?" I repeated. "You ought to have let Va.s.sily keep it...."

"Well, no," interposed David. "That's nonsense. But what are we to do with it?"

"Yes! what?"

We both stared at the watch and pondered. Adorned with a chain of pale blue beads (the luckless Va.s.sily in his haste had not removed this chain which belonged to him) it was calmly doing its work: ticking somewhat irregularly, it is true, and slowly moving its copper minute hand.

"Shall we bury it again? Or put it in the stove," I suggested at last.

"Or, I tell you what: shouldn't we take it to Latkin?"

"No," answered David. "That's not the thing. I know what: they have set up a committee at the governor's office and are collecting subscriptions for the benefit of the people of Kasimov. The town has been burnt to ashes with all its churches. And I am told they take anything, not only bread and money, but all sorts of things. Shall we send the watch there?"

"Yes! yes!" I answered. "A splendid idea. But I thought that since your friends are in want...."

"No, no; to the committee; the Latkins will manage without it. To the committee."

"Well, if it is to be the committee, let it be. Only, I imagine, we must write something to the governor."

David glanced at me. "Do you think so?"

"Yes, of course; there is no need to write much. But just a few words."

"For instance?"

"For instance ... begin like this: 'Being' ... or better: 'Moved by' ..."

"'Moved by' ... very good."

"Then we must say: 'herewith our mite' ..."

"'Mite' ... that's good, too. Well, take your pen, sit down and write, fire away!"

"First I must make a rough copy," I observed.

"All right, a rough copy, only write, write.... And meanwhile I will clean it with some whitening."

I took a sheet of paper, mended a pen, but before I had time to write at the top of the sheet "To His Excellency, the ill.u.s.trious Prince"

(our governer was at that time Prince X), I stopped, struck by the extraordinary uproar ... which had suddenly arisen in the house. David noticed the hubbub, too, and he, too, stopped, holding the watch in his left hand and a rag with whitening in his right. We looked at each other. What was that shrill cry. It was my aunt shrieking ... and that? It was my father's voice, hoa.r.s.e with anger. "The watch! the watch!" bawled someone, surely Trankvillitatin. We heard the thud of feet, the creak of the floor, a regular rabble running ... moving straight upon us. I was numb with terror and David was as white as chalk, but he looked proud as an eagle. "Va.s.sily, the scoundrel, has betrayed us," he whispered through his teeth. The door was flung wide open, and my father in his dressing gown and without his cravat, my aunt in her dressing jacket, Trankvillitatin, Va.s.sily, Yushka, another boy, and the cook, Agapit--all burst into the room.

"Scoundrels!" shouted my father, gasping for breath.... "At last we have found you out!" And seeing the watch in David's hands: "Give it here!" yelled my father, "give me the watch!"

But David, without uttering a word, dashed to the open window and leapt out of it into the yard and then off into the street.

Accustomed to imitate my paragon in everything, I jumped out, too, and ran after David....

"Catch them! Hold them!" we heard a medley of frantic shouts behind us.

But we were already racing along the street bareheaded, David in advance and I a few paces behind him, and behind us the clatter and uproar of pursuit.

XIX

Many years have pa.s.sed since the date of these events; I have reflected over them more than once--and to this day I can no more understand the cause of the fury that took possession of my father (who had so lately been so sick of the watch that he had forbidden it to be mentioned in his hearing) than I can David's rage at its having been stolen by Va.s.sily! One is tempted to imagine that there was some mysterious power connected with it. Va.s.sily had not betrayed us as David a.s.sumed--he was not capable of it: he had been too much scared--it was simply that one of our maids had seen the watch in his hands and had promptly informed our aunt. The fat was in the fire!

And so we darted down the street, keeping to the very middle of it.

The pa.s.sers-by who met us stopped or stepped aside in amazement. I remember a retired major craned out of the window of his flat--and, crimson in the face, his bulky person almost overbalancing, hallooed furiously. Shouts of "Stop! hold them" still resounded behind us.

David ran flourishing the watch over his head and from time to time leaping into the air; I jumped, too, whenever he did.

"Where?" I shouted to David, seeing that he was turning into a side street--and I turned after him.

"To the Oka!" he shouted. "To throw it into the water, into the river.

To the devil!"

"Stop! stop!" they shouted behind.

But we were already flying along the side street, already a whiff of cool air was meeting us--and the river lay before us, and the steep muddy descent to it, and the wooden bridge with a train of waggons stretching across it, and a garrison soldier with a pike beside the flagstaff; soldiers used to carry pikes in those days. David reached the bridge and darted by the soldier who tried to give him a blow on the legs with his pike and hit a pa.s.sing calf. David instantly leaped on to the parapet; he uttered a joyful exclamation.... Something white, something blue gleamed in the air and shot into the water--it was the silver watch with Va.s.sily's blue bead chain flying into the water.... But then something incredible happened. After the watch David's feet flew upwards--and head foremost, with his hands thrust out before him and the lapels of his jacket fluttering, he described an arc in the air (as frightened frogs jump on hot days from a high bank into a pond) and instantly vanished behind the parapet of the bridge ... and then flop! and a tremendous splash below.

What happened to me I am utterly unable to describe. I was some steps from David when he leapt off the parapet ... but I don't even remember whether I cried out; I don't think that I was even frightened: I was stunned, stupefied. I could not stir hand or foot. People were running and hustling round me; some of them seemed to be people I knew. I had a sudden glimpse of Trofimitch, the soldier with the pike dashed off somewhere, the horses and the waggons pa.s.sed by quickly, tossing up their noses covered with string. Then everything was green before my eyes and someone gave me a violent shove on my head and all down my back ... I fell fainting.

I remember that I came to myself afterwards and seeing that no one was paying any attention to me went up to the parapet but not on the side that David had jumped. It seemed terrible to me to approach it, and as I began gazing into the dark blue muddy swollen river, I remember that I noticed a boat moored to the bridge not far from the bank, and several people in the boat, and one of these, who was drenched all over and sparkling in the sun, bending over the edge of the boat was pulling something out of the water, something not very big, oblong, a dark thing which at first I took to be a portmanteau or a basket; but when I looked more intently I saw that the thing was--David. Then in violent excitement I shouted at the top of my voice and ran towards the boat, pushing my way through the people, but when I had run down to it I was overcome with timidity and began looking about me. Among the people who were crowding about it I recognised Trankvillitatin, the cook Agapit with a boot in his hand, Yushka, Va.s.sily ... the wet and shining man held David's body under the arms, drew him out of the boat and laid him on his back on the mud of the bank. Both David's hands were raised to the level of his face as though he were trying to hide himself from strange eyes; he did not stir but lay as though standing at attention, with his heels together and his stomach out.

His face was greenish--his eyes were staring and water was dripping from his hair. The wet man who had pulled him out, a factory hand, judging by his clothes, began describing how he had done it, shivering with cold and continually throwing back his hair from his forehead as he talked. He told his story in a very proper and painstaking way.

"What do I see, friends? This young lad go flying from the bridge....

Well! ... I ran down at once the way of the current for I knew he had fallen into mid-stream and it would carry him under the bridge and there ... talk of the devil! ... I looked: something like a fur cap was floating and it was his head. Well, quick as thought, I was in the water and caught hold of him.... It didn't need much cleverness for that!"

Two or three words of approval were audible in the crowd.

"You ought to have something to warm you now. Come along and we will have a drink," said someone.

But at this point all at once somebody pushed forward abruptly: it was Va.s.sily.

"What are you doing, good Christians?" he cried, tearfully. "We must bring him to by rolling him; it's our young gentleman!"

"Roll him, roll him," shouted the crowd, which was continually growing.

"Hang him up by the feet! it's the best way!"

"Lay him with his stomach on the barrel and roll him backwards and forwards.... Take him, lads."

"Don't dare to touch him," put in the soldier with the pike. "He must be taken to the police station."

"Low brute," Trofimitch's ba.s.s voice rang out.

"But he is alive," I shouted at the top of my voice and almost with horror. I had put my face near to his. "So that is what the drowned look like," I thought, with a sinking heart.... And all at once I saw David's lips stir and a little water oozed from them....