followed him.
"And if they ask you what you have done with it?" he said, turning tome.
"I shall tell them I've lost it," I answered carelessly.
No more was said about the watch between us that day; but I had thefeeling that David not only approved of what I had done but ... was tosome extent surprised by it. He really was!
V
Two days more passed. It happened that no one in the house thought ofthe watch. My father was taken up with a very serious unpleasantnesswith one of his clients; he had no attention to spare for me or mywatch. I, on the other hand, thought of it without ceasing! Even theapproval ... the presumed approval of David did not quite comfort me.He did not show it in any special way: the only thing he said, andthat casually, was that he hadn't expected such recklessness of me.Certainly I was a loser by my sacrifice: it was not counter-balancedby the gratification afforded me by my vanity.
And what is more, as ill-luck would have it, another schoolfellow ofours, the son of the town doctor, must needs turn up and beginboasting of a new watch, a present from his grandmother, and not evena silver, but a pinch-back one....
I could not bear it, at last, and, without a word to anyone, slippedout of the house and proceeded to hunt for the beggar boy to whom Ihad given my watch.
I soon found him; he was playing knucklebones in the churchyard withsome other boys.
I called him aside--and, breathless and stammering, told him that myfamily were angry with me for having given away the watch--and that ifhe would consent to give it back to me I would gladly pay him forit.... To be ready for any emergency, I had brought with me anold-fashioned rouble of the reign of Elizabeth, which represented thewhole of my fortune.
"But I haven't got it, your watch," answered the boy in an angry andtearful voice; "my father saw it and took it away from me; and he wasfor thrashing me, too. 'You must have stolen it from somewhere,' hesaid. 'What fool is going to make you a present of a watch?'"
"And who is your father?"
"My father? Trofimitch."
"But what is he? What's his trade?"
"He is an old soldier, a sergeant. And he has no trade at all. Hemends old shoes, he re-soles them. That's all his trade. That's whathe lives by."
"Where do you live? Take me to him."
"To be sure I will. You tell my father that you gave me the watch. Forhe keeps pitching into me, and calling me a thief! And my mother, too.'Who is it you are taking after,' she says, 'to be a thief?'"
I set off with the boy to his home. They lived in a smoky hut in theback-yard of a factory, which had long ago been burnt down and notrebuilt. We found both Trofimitch and his wife at home. The dischargedsergeant was a tall old man, erect and sinewy, with yellowish greywhiskers, an unshaven chin and a perfect network of wrinkles on hischeeks and forehead. His wife looked older than he. Her red eyes,which looked buried in her unhealthily puffy face, kept blinkingdejectedly. Some sort of dark rags hung about them by way of clothes.
I explained to Trofimitch what I wanted and why I had come. Helistened to me in silence without once winking or moving from me hisstupid and strained--typically soldierly--eyes.
"Whims and fancies!" he brought out at last in a husky, toothlessbass. "Is that the way gentlemen behave? And if Petka really did notsteal the watch--then I'll give him one for that! To teach him not toplay the fool with little gentlemen! And if he did steal it, then Iwould give it to him in a very different style, whack, whack, whack!With the flat of a sword; in horseguard's fashion! No need to thinktwice about it! What's the meaning of it? Eh? Go for them with sabres!Here's a nice business! Tfoo!"
This last interjection Trofimitch pronounced in a falsetto. He wasobviously perplexed.
"If you are willing to restore the watch to me," I explained to him--Idid not dare to address him familiarly in spite of his being asoldier--"I will with pleasure pay you this rouble here. The watch isnot worth more, I imagine."
"Well!" growled Trofimitch, still amazed and, from old habit,devouring me with his eyes as though I were his superior officer."It's a queer business, eh? Well, there it is, no understanding it.Ulyana, hold your tongue!" he snapped out at his wife who was openingher mouth. "Here's the watch," he added, opening the table drawer; "ifit really is yours, take it by all means; but what's the rouble for?Eh?"
"Take the rouble, Trofimitch, you senseless man," wailed his wife. "Youhave gone crazy in your old age! We have not a half-rouble between us,and then you stand on your dignity! It was no good their cutting offyour pigtail, you are a regular old woman just the same! How can yougo on like that--when you know nothing about it? ... Take the money,if you have a fancy to give back the watch!"
"Ulyana, hold your tongue, you dirty slut!" Trofimitch repeated."Whoever heard of such a thing, talking away? Eh? The husband is thehead; and yet she talks! Petka, don't budge, I'll kill you.... Here'sthe 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 stareupon 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 snatched thecoin out of my pocket.
But he did not take it, he still stared at me. I laid the rouble onthe table. He suddenly brushed it into the drawer, thrust the watchinto my hand and wheeling to the left with a loud stamp, he hissed athis wife and his son:
"Get along, you low wretches!"
Ulyana muttered something, but I had already dashed out into the yardand into the street. Thrusting the watch to the very bottom of mypocket and clutching it tightly in my hand, I hurried home.
VI
I had regained the possession of my watch but it afforded me nosatisfaction whatever. I did not venture to wear it, it was above allnecessary to conceal from David what I had done. What would he thinkof me, of my lack of will? I could not even lock up the luckless watchin 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 inhoodwinking David.
One day I took the watch from under a plank in the floor of our roomand proceeded to rub the silver case with an old chamois leatherglove. David had gone off somewhere in the town; I did not at allexpect him to be back quickly.... Suddenly he was in the doorway.
I was so overcome that I almost dropped the watch, and, utterlydisconcerted, my face painfully flushing crimson, I fell to fumblingabout 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'tknow you had your watch again? I saw it the very day you brought itback."
"I assure 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 afirm step I went into the passage, found our page-boy, Yushka, andpresented him with the watch!
Yushka would have refused it, but I declared that if he did not takethe watch from me I would smash it that very minute, trample it underfoot, break it to bits and throw it in the cesspool! He thought amoment, giggled, and took the watch. I went back to our room andseeing David reading there, I told him what I had done.
David did not take his eyes off the page and, again shrugging hisshoulder and smiling to himself, repeated that the watch was mine andthat 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 thereproach of weakness of character, for the watch, the disgustingp
resent from my disgusting godfather, had suddenly grown sodistasteful to me that I was quite incapable of understanding how Icould have regretted it, how I could have begged for it back from thewretched Trofimitch, who had, moreover, the right to think that he hadtreated me with generosity.
Several days passed.... I remember that on one of them the great newsreached 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: thepossibility of seeing--of shortly seeing--his father occurred to himat once. My father was delighted, too.
"They will bring back all the exiles from Siberia now and I expectbrother Yegor will not be forgotten," he kept repeating, rubbing hishands,
Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories Page 27
