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"Upon my word, he is a viper; he is possessed with a devil," Trankvillitatin chimed in. "The wickedness, the wickedness!" cackled my aunt, going close to the door of our room so that David might be sure to hear her. "First of all he stole the watch and then flung it into the water ... as though to say, no one should get it...." Everyone, everyone was indignant.
One day I came home by a side lane which I usually avoided as the house in which my enemy Trankvillitatin lodged was in it; but on this occasion Fate itself led me that way.
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 passed five weeks.... But do you imagine that the story of the watch ended there?
"Vassily, 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, Vassily, 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!"
"The girl is flint," even coarse-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.
"No, no, stay," shouted Vassily. "Take him home.... Take him home!" "Take him home," Trankvillitatin himself chimed in. "We will bring him to. If not we must take him by his head and his feet...." "Stay! Here's a sack! Lay him on it! Catch hold! Start! That's fine. As though he were driving in a chaise."
It was very agreeable, too, as I crossed the flower-garden, to let my eye with assumed 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.
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.
It was my aunt shrieking ... and that? It was my father's voice, hoarse 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.
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?
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