Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876

Juschka, in fact, as I afterward learned, had in the simplicity of his heart sold my watch to a neighboring watchmaker. The watchmaker had hung it up in his window, where Nastasa had seen it. He bought it and brought it back to us. Juschka and I were not detained long: my father got out of breath and began to cough, and besides it was not his way to be cross.

"Brother," said my aunt, who noticed with regret that he was getting over his wrath, "don't trouble yourself any more about this matter: it's not worth dirtying your hands about. And listen to my proposal: if Nastasa consents, in view of your son's great ingratitude, I will take charge of the watch myself, and since he has shown by his behavior that he is no longer worthy of wearing it, I will give it in your name to a person who will know how to value your kindness as it deserves."

"Who is that?" asked my father.

"Christian Lukitsch," answered my aunt with a little hesitation.

"Christian?" asked my father; and then added with a wave of the hand, "It's all the same to me: you may throw it into the fire, for all I care."

He buttoned his waistcoat, which had come undone, and went out, doubled up with coughing.

"And you, cousin, do you agree?" said my aunt, turning to Nastasa.

"Entirely," he answered. During the whole scene he had not stirred from his stool, but there he sat, breathing audibly, rubbing the tips of his fingers together, and turning his fox eyes by turns on me, my father and Juschka. We gave him a great deal of amusement.

My aunt's proposal stirred me to the depths of my soul. I did not care for the watch, but I had a great dislike for the person to whom she proposed giving it. This Christian Lukitsch, whose family name was Trankwillitatin, a lanky blockhead of a student, had the habit of coming to see us, the deuce knows why. To see about the children's education, my aunt used to say; but he could not do anything of the sort, because he was very ignorant and as stupid as a horse. He was like a horse, too, in other ways: he used to stamp his feet like hoofs, he neighed rather than laughed, and opened his jaws when he did so till you could see down his throat; and he had a long face with a curved nose and large, flat check-bones: he wore a rough coat and smelt of raw meat. My aunt called him a respectable man, a cavalier, and even a grenadier. He had a way of tapping children on the forehead with the hard nails of his long fingers (he used to do it to me when I was younger) and saying, "Hear how empty your head sounds," and then laughing at his own wit. And this idiot was to have my watch? Never! was what I determined as I rushed from the room and flung myself at full length on my bed, my cheeks burning with the box on the ear I had just received. But in my heart was burning the bitterness of outraged dignity and thirst for revenge. Never would I let him triumph over me—wear the watch, hang the chain over his waistcoat, and neigh with joy. That was all very well, but how prevent it? I determined to steal the watch from my aunt.

VIII

Fortunately, Trankwillitatin was just at this time out of town. He could not come to see us before the next day: advantage must be taken of the intervening night. My aunt did not sleep with her door locked—indeed, throughout the house we had no keys in the doors—but where did she hide the watch? Until evening she carried it about in her pocket, and so ensured its safety, but at night where will she put it? Well, that's just what I must find out, I thought, and clenched my fist. I was glowing with audacity and fear and joy at the idea of the crime I was about to commit. I kept nodding my head, I wrinkled my forehead, I whispered to myself, "Just wait!" I kept threatening every one: I was cross, I was dangerous; and I even avoided David. No one, and particularly not he, should have any suspicion of what I was about to do. I would act alone, and bear the whole responsibility. Slowly the day crept by, then the evening: at last night came. I did nothing: I scarcely moved. One thought filled my head. At supper my father, whose anger never lasted very long, and who was already a little sorry for his violence, tried to bring me back to my good-humor, but I repelled his advances—not, as he thought, because I could not conquer my wrath, but simply because I feared becoming sentimental. I must preserve undiminished the whole glow of my indignation, the whole vigor of an unalterable determination. I went to bed early, but you may well believe I did not close my eyes. I kept them wide open, although I had pulled the bed-clothes over my head. I had not thought over beforehand what I should do: I had no fixed plan. I was only waiting for the house to get quiet. The only precaution I took was to keep on my stockings. My aunt's chamber was in the second story. I should have to go through the dining-room, the ante-room, up a flight of stairs, along an entry, and on the right was the door. It was not necessary to take a candle or lantern: I knew that in the corner of my aunt's chamber there was a shrine with a light always burning before it, so I should be able to see well enough. I lay with my eyes wide open, my mouth open and dry: the blood throbbing in my temples, my ears, throat, back, throughout my whole body. I waited, but it seemed to me as if a demon were tormenting me. Time went by, but the house did not get quiet.

IX

Never, it seemed to me, had David been so long in going to sleep: David, the taciturn David, even talked to me. Never did the people in the house clatter and walk about and talk so late. And what are they talking about now? thought I. Haven't they had time enough since morning? Outdoors, too, the noise kept up very late. A dog would bark with long-protracted howls; then a drunken man would go by with a racket; then a rattling wagon would seem as if it took for ever to get past the house. But these outdoor noises did not vex me: on the contrary, I was glad to hear them. They would make the people in the house indifferent to sounds. But at last it seems as if everything were quiet. Only the pendulum of an old clock ticks loudly and solemnly in the dining-room: one can hear the heavy, long-drawn, even breathing of the sleepers. I am just going to get up when something buzzes in my ears: suddenly there is a creaking sound, and something soft falls, and the sound spreads itself in waves along the walls of the room. Or was it nothing, after all, but fancy? At last it has all died away, and the darkness and churchyard stillness of night descend. Now is the time! Cold with anticipation, I throw off the bed-clothes, let my feet glide down to the floor, stand up: one step—a second—I creep along; the soles of my feet don't seem to belong to me; they are heavy and my steps are weak and uncertain. Stop! what is that noise? Is it some one filing, scraping or snoring? I listen with a feeling as if ants were running over my cheeks, my eyes filling with cold tears. It is nothing. I creep along again. It is dark, but I know the way. Suddenly I hit against a chair. What a racket! and how it hurts! I hit just on my knee-pan. I shall die here. Now will they wake up? Well, let them! Boldness and crossness come to my aid. Forward! Now I have passed through the dining-room: I reach the door and shove it open, but the confounded hinge creaks. Never mind! Now I'm going up the stairs—one! two! one! two! One step creaks beneath my tread: I look down angrily, as if I could see it. Now the second door! I seize the handle: it does not rattle. It swings softly open. Thank Heaven! I'm in the entry at last. In the upper entry is a little window beneath the roof. The faint light of the night-sky shines through the dim panes, and by the uncertain light I make out our maid-servant lying on a fur robe on the floor, her tangled head supported by both hands. She sleeps soundly, with light, quick breathing, and just behind her head is the fatal door. I step over the robe, over the girl. Who was it opened the door? I don't know, but I am in my aunt's room. There is the lamp in one corner and the bed in the other, and my aunt in night-gown and cap in bed with her face toward me. She is asleep; she does not stir; even her breathing is inaudible. The flame of the lamp wavers slightly with the fresh draught, and the shadows dance through the whole room and on my aunt's yellow, waxen hair.

And there is the watch! It is hanging behind the bed in an embroidered watch-pocket on the wall. That's lucky! I hesitate, but there is no use in delaying. But what are these—soft, quick footsteps behind me? Oh no, it is only my heart beating. I take a step forward. Heavens! Something round and quite large touches me just below the knee once and then again. I am on the point of crying out: I am near sinking to the ground with terror. A striped cat, our cat, stands before me with her back curved and her tail in the air. Now she jumps on the bed—heavily but softly—turns round and sits without purring, looking at me with her yellow eyes as grave as a judge. "Puss! puss!" I whisper hardly above my breath, and leaning over her and over my aunt, I take hold of the watch. Suddenly my aunt raises herself, and opens her eyes wide. Heavens! what is going to happen now? But the lids quiver and close, and with a gentle murmur her head sinks back on the cushion. Another moment and I am back in my own room, in bed, with the watch in my hand. I come back lighter than a feather. I am a man; I am a thief; I am a hero. I am breathless with joy; I glow with pride; I am happy, and I will wake up David and tell him all about it; and then, strange to say, I fall asleep and sleep like the dead. At last I open my eyes; it is light in my room; the sun has already risen. Fortunately, no one is yet awake. I spring up as if I were shot: I wake David and confide the whole story to him. He listens and smiles.

"Do you know what we'll do?" he said at last: "we'll bury this stupid watch in the ground, so that there shall be nothing left of it."

I consider this an admirable plan, and in a few minutes we dress ourselves, run into the orchard behind the house, and when we have dug a deep hole in the soft earth with David's knife, we bury beneath an old apple tree my godfather's hated present, which now will never fall into the hands of the disagreeable Trankwillitatin. We throw back the earth, sprinkle rubbish over the spot, and, proud and happy, without being seen, we return to the house, go back to bed, and enjoy for another hour a light, happy sleep.

X

You can imagine what a row there was the next morning when my aunt woke up and missed the watch. To this day her piercing cry resounds in my ears. "Help! robbers!" she shrieked, and alarmed the whole house. But David and I only smiled quietly to ourselves, and our smiles were sweet. "Every one must be punished," screamed my aunt. "The watch has been taken from beneath my head—from beneath my pillow!" We were prepared for everything, for the worst, but, contrary to our expectations, it all blew over.

At first my father was very angry: he even spoke of the police, but the trial of the day before must have tired him a good deal, and suddenly, to my aunt's indescribable astonishment, he vented his wrath on her instead of us. "You have given me enough trouble already about the watch, Pulcheria Petrovna," he cried: "I don't want to hear anything more about it. It did not take itself off by magic, and what do I care if it did? They stole it from you? That was your lookout. 'What will Nastasa say?' Confound Nastasa! He does nothing but cheat and practice dirty tricks. Don't dare to bother me any more with this: do you hear?"

My father then went to his room, slamming the door behind him. David and I did not at first understand what his last words referred to: we found out later that my father was at that time much vexed with Nastasa, who had snapped up some paying piece of business which had belonged to him. So my aunt had to withdraw with a long face. She was nearly bursting with rage, but there was nothing to do, and she was obliged to content herself with whispering hoarsely, "Rascal! rascal! jailbird! thief!" whenever she passed me. My aunt's reproaches were a great delight to me, and it was also very pleasant whenever we went by the garden fence to throw an apparently indifferent glance at the spot beneath the apple tree where the watch rested, and also, if David was by, to exchange with him a knowing wink.

My aunt first tried to set Trankwillitatin against me, but I made David help me. He spoke up to the tall student, and told him he'd cut him open with a knife if he didn't leave me alone. Trankwillitatin was frightened, for, although my aunt called him a grenadier and a cavalier, he was not remarkable for bravery.

But you don't suppose I have come to the end of my story yet? No, it's not yet finished; only, in order to continue it, I must introduce a new person, and to introduce this new person I must go back a little.

XI

My father was for a long time on very friendly and even intimate terms with a former official, named Latkin, a poor man, slightly lame, with shy, queer manners—one of those beings of whom people say the hand of God is upon them. He had the same business as my father and Nastasa: he was also a private "agent" and commissioner, but as he had neither an imposing exterior nor a fluent tongue, nor much self-confidence, he could not make up his mind to act independently, and so formed a partnership with my father. His handwriting was wonderful, he had a thorough knowledge of law, and was perfectly at home in all the ins and outs of lawsuits and office-practice. He was connected with my father in several business operations, and they shared their gains and losses, so that it seemed as if nothing could impair their friendship. But one day it was brought to an abrupt conclusion once for all: my father quarreled irreconcilably with his former associate. If Latkin had snapped a profitable bit of my father's business, as Nastasa did afterward, he would have been no more angry with him than he was with Nastasa, perhaps even less. But Latkin, under the influence of some unexplained, incomprehensible feeling of envy or greed, and perhaps also moved by a momentary feeling of honesty, had played him false in exposing him to their patron, a rich young merchant, by opening the careless young man's eyes to some sharp practice by which my father expected to make a very pretty sum. It was not the loss of the money, however much it may have been—no, it was the treachery—which embittered and enraged my father. He could not forgive swindling.

"See there! we have discovered a new saint," said he, trembling with rage and his teeth chattering as if he had a chill. (I happened to be in the room, a witness of this painful scene.) "Very well, from this day forth all is over between us. The heavens are above us, and there is the door. I have nothing more to do with you, nor you with me. You are too honest for me, sir: how could we get along together? But you sha'n't have a bit of ground to stand on, nor a roof over your head."

In vain did Latkin beg for mercy and fling himself on the ground before him: in vain did he try to explain what had filled his own soul with painful astonishment. "Just consider, Porphyr Petrovitch," he stammered forth. "I did it without any hope of gain: I cut my own throat."

My father was immovable, and Latkin never more set foot in the house. It seemed as if fate had determined to fulfill my father's last evil wishes. Soon after the breach between them, which took place about two years before my story began, Latkin's wife died: it is true, however, that she had for a long time been ill. His second daughter, a child of three years, became deaf and dumb one day from fright: a swarm of bees lit on her head. Latkin himself had a stroke of paralysis and fell into the most extreme misery. How he managed to scrape along at all, what he lived on, it was hard to imagine. He dwelt in a tumbledown hovel but a short distance from our house. His eldest daughter, Raissa, lived with him and managed for him as well as she could. This very Raissa is the new person whom I must introduce into my story.

XII

So long as her father was on friendly terms with mine we used to see her continually: she would sometimes spend whole days at our house, sewing or knitting with her swift, delicate fingers. She was a tall, somewhat slender girl, with thoughtful gray eyes in a pale oval face. She spoke little, but what she said was sensible, and she uttered it in a low, clear voice, without opening her mouth much and without showing her teeth: when she laughed—which was seldom—she showed them all suddenly, large and white as almonds. I also remember her walk, which was light and elastic, with a little spring in every step: it seemed to me always as if she were going up stairs, even when she was on level ground. She held herself erect, with her hands folded, and whatever she did, whatever she undertook—if she only threaded a needle or smoothed her dress—was well and gracefully done. You will hardly believe it, but there was something touching in her way of doing things. Her baptismal name was Raissa, but we called her "Little Black-Lip," for she had a little mole, like a berry-stain, on her upper lip, but this did not disfigure her; indeed, it had the contrary effect. She was just a year older than David. I had for her a feeling akin to reverence, but she had very little to do with me. Between her and David, on the other hand, there existed a friendship—a childish but warm if somewhat strange friendship. They suited one another well: sometimes for hours they would not exchange a word, but every one felt that they were enjoying themselves merely because they were together. I have really never met another girl like her. There was in her something questioning, yet decided—something honest, and sad, and dear. I never heard her say anything clever, and also nothing commonplace, and I have never seen anything more intelligent than her eyes. When the breach between her family and mine came I began to see her seldom. My father positively forbade my seeing the Latkins, and she never appeared at our house; but I used to meet her in the street, at church, and Little Black-Lip used to inspire me with the same feeling—esteem, and even a sort of admiration, rather than pity. She bore her misfortunes well. "The girl is a stone," the coarse Trankwillitatin once said of her. But in truth one could not help sympathizing with her. Her face wore a troubled, wearied expression, and her eyes grew deeper: a burden beyond her strength was laid on her young shoulders. David used to see her much oftener than I did. My father troubled himself very little about him: he knew that David never listened to him. And Raissa used to appear from time to time at the gate between our garden and the street, and meet David there. She did not chatter with David, but merely told him of some new loss or misfortune that had happened to them, and begged for his advice.

The after-consequences of Latkin's paralysis were very strange: his hands and feet became weak, but still he could use them. Even his brain worked normally, but his tongue was confused and used to utter one word in the place of another: you had to guess at what he really meant to say. "Choo, choo, choo," he would with difficulty stammer forth—he always began with "Choo, choo, choo"—"the scissors, the scissors," but the scissors meant "bread." He hated my father with all the strength that was left him: he ascribed his sufferings to my father's curses, and called him sometimes "the butcher," and sometimes the "jeweler." "Choo, choo, don't you dare to go to the butcher, Wassilievna:" by this name he called his daughter. Every day he grew more exacting: his needs increased; and how should his needs be satisfied? where get the money? Sorrows soon make people old, but it was painful to hear these questions from the lips of a sixteen-year-old girl.

XIII

I remember I happened to be present at her conversation with David by the hedge on the day her mother died.

"Mother died this morning," first letting her dark, expressive eyes wander around and then fall on the ground. "The cook has undertaken to buy a cheap coffin, but she is not to be trusted: she may spend the money in drink. You must come and look after her, David: she is afraid of you."

"I will come," answered David: "I will see to it. And your father?"

"He cries and says, 'You'll spoil me, too!'—he means bury him. Now he has gone to sleep." Raissa suddenly drew a deep sigh: "Oh, David! David!" She drew her half-closed hand across her brow and eyes, a gesture graceful and sad, like all her movements.

"But you must take care of yourself," said David. "You can't have slept at all; and why cry? It won't help matters."

"I have no time to cry," answered Raissa.

"The rich can indulge themselves in the luxury of crying," said David.

Raissa started to go, but she turned back: "We are thinking of selling the yellow shawl: you know the one that belonged to mother's trousseau. We have been offered twelve rubles for it. I think that is too little."

"Yes, indeed, much too little."

"We wouldn't sell it," said Raissa after a short pause, "if we didn't need money for the funeral."

"Yes, of course, but you mustn't throw money away. These priests—it's a shame! But wait: I'll be there. Are you going? I'll be there soon. Good-bye, little dove!"

"Good-bye, brother, dear heart!"

"And don't cry."

"Cry? Cook or cry, one of the two."

"What! does she do the cooking?" I asked of David when Raissa had gone. "Does she do the cooking herself?"

"You heard what she said: the cook has gone out to buy the coffin."

She cooks, I thought to myself, and she always has such clean hands and dresses so neatly! I should like to see her in the kitchen. She's a strange girl.

I remember another conversation by the hedge. This time Raissa had her little deaf-and-dumb sister with her. She was a pretty child, with great, startled eyes, and a wilderness of short, dark hair on her little head: Raissa had also dark, lustreless hair. It was soon after Latkin's attack of paralysis.

"I don't know what to do," began Raissa: "the doctor has prescribed something for father, and I must go to the apothecary's'; and our serf" (Latkin had still one serf left) "has brought us some wood from the village, and also a goose. But the landlord has taken it away. 'You are in my debt,' he said."