Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories Part 34

"Me, oh, Lor ... me, oh, Lor ... mercy!" Latkin repeated. "I am a man."

"Good-bye, Davidushka," said Raissa, and she, too, went out of the room with the old man.

"I will be with you tomorrow," David called after her, and, turning his face to the wall, he whispered: "I am very tired; it will be as well to have some sleep now," and was quiet.

It was a long while before I went out of the room. I kept in hiding. I could not forget my father's threats. But my apprehensions turned out to be unnecessary. He met me and did not utter a word. He seemed to feel awkward himself. But night soon came on and everything was quiet in the house.

XXIV

Next morning David got up as though nothing were the matter and not long after, on the same day, two important events occurred: in the morning old Latkin died, and towards evening my uncle, Yegor, David's father, arrived in Ryazan. Without sending any letter in advance, without warning anyone, he descended on us like snow on our heads. My father was completely taken aback and did not know what to offer to his dear guest and where to make him sit. He rushed about as though delirious, was fl.u.s.tered as though he were guilty; but my uncle did not seem to be much touched by his brother's fussy solicitude; he kept repeating: "What's this for?" or "I don't want anything." His manner with my aunt was even colder; she had no great liking for him, indeed.

In her eyes he was an infidel, a heretic, a Voltairian ... (he had in fact learnt French to read Voltaire in the original). I found my Uncle Yegor just as David had described him. He was a big heavy man with a broad pock-marked face, grave and serious. He always wore a hat with feathers in it, cuffs, a frilled shirt front and a snuff-coloured vest and a sword at his side. David was unspeakably delighted to see him-- he actually looked brighter in the face and better looking, and his eyes looked different: merrier, keener, more shining; but he did his utmost to moderate his joy and not to show it in words: he was afraid of being too soft. The first night after Uncle Yegor's arrival, father and son shut themselves up in the room that had been a.s.signed to my uncle and spent a long time talking together in a low voice; next morning I saw that my uncle looked particularly affectionately and trustfully at his son: he seemed very much pleased with him. David took him to the requiem service for Latkin; I went to it, too, my father did not hinder my going but remained at home himself. Raissa impressed me by her calm: she looked pale and much thinner but did not shed tears and spoke and behaved with perfect simplicity; and with all that, strange to say, I saw a certain grandeur in her; the unconscious grandeur of sorrow forgetful of itself! Uncle Yegor made her acquaintance on the spot, in the church porch; from his manner to her, it was evident that David had already spoken of her. He was as pleased with her as with his son: I could read that in David's eyes when he looked at them both. I remember how his eyes sparkled when his father said, speaking of her: "She's a clever girl; she'll make a capable woman." At the Latkins' I was told that the old man had quietly expired like a candle that has burnt out, and that until he had lost power and consciousness, he kept stroking his daughter's head and saying something unintelligible but not gloomy, and he was smiling to the end. My father went to the funeral and to the service in the church and prayed very devoutly; Trankvillitatin actually sang in the choir.

Beside the grave Raissa suddenly broke into sobs and sank forward on the ground; but she soon recovered herself. Her little deaf and dumb sister stared at everyone and everything with big, bright, rather wild-looking eyes; from time to time she huddled up to Raissa, but there was no sign of terror about her. The day after the funeral Uncle Yegor, who, judging from appearances, had not come back from Siberia with empty hands (he paid for the funeral and liberally rewarded David's rescuer) but who told us nothing of his doings there or of his plans for the future, Uncle Yegor suddenly informed my father that he did not intend to remain in Ryazan, but was going to Moscow with his son. My father, from a feeling of propriety, expressed regret and even tried--very faintly it is true--to induce my uncle to alter his decision, but at the bottom of his heart, I think he was really much relieved.

The presence of his brother with whom he had very little in common, who did not even condescend to reproach him, whose feeling for him was more one of simple disgust than disdain--oppressed him ... and parting with David could not have caused him much regret. I, of course, was utterly crushed by the separation; I was utterly desolate at first and lost all support in life and all interest in it.

And so my uncle went away and took with him not only David but, to the great astonishment and even indignation of our whole street, Raissa and her little sister, too.... When she heard of this, my aunt promptly called him a Turk, and called him a Turk to the end of her days.

And I was left alone, alone ... but this story is not about me.

XXV

So this is the end of my tale of the watch. What more have I to tell you? Five years after David was married to his Black-lip, and in 1812, as a lieutenant of artillery, he died a glorious death on the battlefield of Borodino in defence of the Shevardinsky redoubt.

Much water has flowed by since then and I have had many watches; I have even attained the dignity of a real repeater with a second hand and the days of the week on it. But in a secret drawer of my writing table there is preserved an old-fashioned silver watch with a rose on the face; I bought it from a Jewish pedlar, struck by its likeness to the watch which was once presented to me by my G.o.dfather. From time to time, when I am alone and expect no one, I take it out of the drawer and looking at it remember my young days and the companion of those days that have fled never to return.

Paris.--1875.