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What are you doing? Oh, let me go!" "I sha'n't let you go, and you need not expect any mercy. If you're afraid to-day, we'll try again to-morrow. Alexis, where's the knife?" "David," roared Wassily, "don't commit a murder. What do you mean? And the watch! Well, I was joking. I I'll fetch it this minute. What a fellow you are! First you want to cut open Chrisauf Lukitsch; then me. Leave me, David.
Wassily had not told about us, as David supposed he did not want to do that, he had been too badly frightened but one of the servant-girls had seen the watch in his hands and had told my aunt. Then all the fat was in the fire. So we ran along the street in the carriage-way. The people who met us stood still or got out of our way, without knowing what was going on.
The door opens wide, and my father in his dressing-gown, without a cravat, my aunt in a dressing-sack, Trankwillitatin, Wassily, Juschka, another young fellow, Agapit the cook, all hustle into the room. "You fiends!" cries my father almost breathless, "at last we have found you out!" And, catching a glimpse of the watch in David's hand, he cries out, "Give me the watch give it to me!"
"He'll be there in a moment: then he'll be better," continued Wassily. If not, I'll take him by the head and some one else by the heels." "Hold on! here's a mat: lay him on it. All right: it's as comfortable as a carriage." And a few minutes later, David, lying on a litter, made his entrance into the house. He was undressed and put into bed.
Raissa ran past Wassily, my aunt, and even Trankwilhtatin, into the room in which David was lying, and threw herself on his breast. "Oh, oh, David!" came her voice forth from under her loosened hair. And raising his arms he embraced her and let his head rest on her shoulder. "Forgive me, dear," I heard him say, and both nearly died with joy. "But why did you go home, Raissa? Why didn't you wait?"
Many years have passed since this happened, and I have often thought it over, and to this day I cannot comprehend the fury which possessed my father, who not long before had forbidden any one's speaking about the watch because it bored him, any more than I can David's wrath when he heard that Wassily had taken it. I can't help thinking it had some mysterious power.
You have the watch: give it to me." "No. I haven't got your watch." "And in the drinking-house you " I began, but David held me back. "Wassily Tarentiev," he said in a low, threatening voice, "we know for certain that you have the watch. I am in earnest. Give me the watch, and if you don't give it to me " Wassily sniffed insolently: "And what will you do with me, then?" "What?
David closed the door behind him, laid the watch down on the table, folded his hands, and, strange to say, burst out laughing. I looked at him and laughed too. "It's a most extraordinary thing," he began: "we can't get rid of this watch in any way. It's really bewitched. And why did I suddenly get so angry?" "Yes, why?" I repeated. "If you'd left it with Wassily "
"Just hear what they planned between them!" said Wassily, whom I could not see, though I heard him distinctly: he was probably sitting drinking tea with a friend close by the window, and, as people in a closed room often do, spoke loud, without thinking that every passer-by could hear each word. "What did they plan? They buried it in the earth." "You lie!" said the other voice.
Then I began to tremble: I cried out as loud as I could, and ran toward the boat, forcing my way through the crowd. But as I came near I lost my courage and began to look behind me. Among the people standing about I recognized Trankwillitatin, the cook Agapit with a boot in his hand, Juschka, Wassily. The wet man was lifting David out of the boat.
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