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

XX

He was undressed and put into bed. Already, while carried through the street, he had given signs of life, sighing and moving his hands: in his chamber he came to full consciousness. But as soon as he was out of danger and was no longer in need of their care, dissatisfaction asserted itself. Every one withdrew from him as from a leper. "May Heaven punish him, the red-headed devil!" roared my aunt through the whole house. "Send him away somewhere, Porphyr Petrovitch, or he'll be the ruin of you yet."

"He is indeed a viper, and the devil is in him," added Trankwillitatin sympathetically.

"And such viciousness!" shouted my aunt, passing close by our door, so that David could not help hearing her. "First he stole the watch, and then into the water with it, so that no one should have it. Yes, yes, redhead!"

"David," asked I as soon as we were alone, "why did you do that?"

"And you too!" he answered, still with a feeble voice. His lips were blue, and he looked all puffed up. "What did I do?"

"Why did you jump into the water?"

"Jump? I couldn't stand on the railing, that's all. If I had known how to swim—if I had jumped on purpose—I shall learn at once. But the watch is gone."

But my father entered the room with a solemn step. "As for you, my young sir," he said to me, "you can expect a sound thrashing, even if you are too big for me to take you across my knee." Then he walked up to the bed on which David lay, "In Siberia," he began in an earnest and serious tone—"in Siberia, in the house of correction, in the mines, live and die people who are less guilty, who are less criminal, than you. Are you a suicide, or only a thief, or a perfect fool? Just tell me that, if you please."

"I am neither a suicide nor a thief," answered David, "but what is true is true: in Siberia there are good people, better than you and I. Who knows that better than you do?"

My father uttered a little cry, took a step back, looked at David, spat on the floor, crossed himself and went out.

"Didn't you like that?" asked David, sticking out his tongue. Then he tried to rise, but he was still too weak. "I must have hit something," he said, groaning and frowning. "I remember the current carried me against a pier.—Have you seen Raissa?" he asked suddenly.

"No I have not seen her. Stop! I remember now. Wasn't she standing on the shore near the bridge? Yes—a black dress, a yellow handkerchief on her head—that was she."

"Well, you did see her?"

"I don't know. After that—I—you jumped in then."

David became restless: "Alexis, my dear friend, go to her at once: tell her I'm well—that there's nothing the matter. To-morrow I'll go and see hen Go at once, please, to oblige me." He stretched out both arms toward me. His red hair had dried into all sorts of funny ringlets, but his look of entreaty was only the more genuine. I took my hat and left the house, trying to avoid my father's eye lest I should remind him of his promise.

XXI

And indeed I thought on my way to the Latkins how it was possible that I did not notice Raissa. Where had she disappeared to? She must have seen—Suddenly I remembered that at the very moment David was falling a heartrending shriek had sounded in my ears. Was it not she? But in that case why did I not see her? Before the hovel in which Latkin lived was an empty space covered with nettles and surrounded by a broken, tottering fence. I had hardly got over this fence—for there was no gate or entrance—before my eyes were greeted with this sight: On the lowest step in front of the house sat Raissa, her elbows on her knees and holding her chin in her folded hands: she was looking straight out into vacancy. Near her stood her little dumb sister, playing quietly with a whip, and before the steps, with his back to me, was Latkin in a shabby, torn jacket, his feet in felt slippers, bending over her and brandishing his elbows and stalking about. When he heard my steps he turned round, leant down on the tips of his toes, and then suddenly sprang at me and began to speak with unusual speed in a quivering voice and with an incessant "Choo, choo, choo!" I was amazed. It was long since I had seen him, and I should scarcely have known him if I had met him anywhere else. This wrinkled, red, toothless face, these small, round, dull eyes, this tangled gray hair, these contortions and motions, this senseless, wandering talk,—what does it all mean? What cruel suffering torments this unhappy being? What a dance of death is this!

"Choo, choo, choo," he muttered, bending over continually: "see them, the Wassilievna—she's just come, with a trou—a trough on the roof" (he struck his head with his hand), "and she sits there like a shovel, and cross, cross as Andruscha, the cross Wassilievna" (he meant, probably, "mute"). "Choo; my cross Wassilievna! Now they are both on one last—just see her! I have only these two doctors."

Latkin was evidently aware that he was not saying what he meant, and he made every effort to explain matters to me. Raissa, apparently, did not hear what he was saying, and her little sister went on snapping her whip. My head grew confused. "What does it all mean?" I asked of an old woman who was looking out of the window of the house.

"What does it mean, sir?" answered she in a sing-song voice. "They say some one—Heaven knows who it was—tried to drown himself, and she saw him. That frightened her, but she managed to get home: no one noticed anything strange, and she sat down there on the threshold, and since then she's sat there like an image, whether one speaks to her or not. It's as if she had no tongue."

"Good-bye! good-bye!" repeated Latkin, still with the same gestures.

I walked to Raissa and stood just before her. "Raissa," I cried, "what is the matter?"

She made no answer: it was as if she had not heard me. Her face was no paler, nor in any way different, except that it had a stony look and an expression of slight fatigue.

"She is cross too," Latkin whispered to me.

I took Raissa by the hand. "David is alive." I cried louder than before—"alive and unhurt. David is alive: do you understand? They have taken him out of the water, he is now at home, and he has sent word that he will come to-morrow to see you. He is alive."

Raissa turned her eyes toward me slowly, as if it hurt her: she winked them two or three times, opened them wider: then she turned her head to one side, flushed suddenly, parted her lips, drew a full breath, frowned as if from pain and with great effort, bringing out the words, "Da—Dav—is—al—alive," and rose hastily from the steps and rushed away.

"Where are you going?" I inquired.

But, laughing gently, she flew over the ground. I of course hastened after her, while behind us was a sound of voices—the aged one that of Latkin, and the childish cry that of the deaf mute. Raissa went straight to our house.

"What a day this has been!" I thought to myself as I tried to keep up with the black dress that flew along in front of me.

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?" I asked. She still did not raise her head. "You might have seen that he was saved."

"Oh, I don't know, I don't know: don't ask me. I don't know: I can't recall how I got home. I only remember I was looking into the air, and a blow hit me; but that was—"

"A blow?" repeated David, and we all three burst out laughing, for we were very happy.

"But what's going on here?" roared a threatening voice behind us, the voice of my father. He was standing in the doorway. "Will these monkey-tricks come to an end or not? Where are we living? In the Russian empire or in the French republic?" He came into the room. "Let any one who is turbulent and vicious begone to France.—And how do you dare to enter here?" he asked of Raissa, who, rising a little and turning her face toward him, was evidently alarmed, although she continued to smile gently. "The daughter of my sworn enemy! How have you dared? And to embrace him too! Away with you at once, or—"

"Uncle," said David, raising himself in bed, "don't insult Raissa: she will go, but don't insult her."

"Will you order me about? I am not insulting her, I'm not insulting her: I merely order her out of the house. I shall yet call you to account. You have made away with another's property: you have laid violent hands upon yourself; you have damaged—"

"What have I damaged?" interrupted David.

"What have you damaged? You have ruined your clothes: do you consider that nothing? I had to give money to the people who brought you here. You frightened the whole family, and you still put on your airs. And this girl, who has lost all sense of shame and honor—"

David tried to spring from the bed: "Don't you insult her, I tell you."

"Silence!"

"Don't you dare—"

"Silence!"

"Don't you dare to insult the woman I am going to marry, my future wife," cried David with all his might.

"Going to marry! your wife!" repeated my father, his eyes rolling. "Your wife! ho! ho! ho!" ("Ha! ha! ha!" echoed my aunt outside the door.) "How old are you? A year less one week has he been in this world—he's hardly weaned yet—and he wants to get married! I shall—"

"Let me go! let me go!" whispered Raissa, turning to the door.

"I shall not ask your permission," shouted David, supporting himself on his hands, "but my own father's, who will be back to-day or to-morrow. He can command me, not you; and as for my age, both Raissa and I can wait. You can say what you please: we shall wait."

"David, think a moment," interrupted my father: "take care what you say. You are beside yourself: you have forgotten all respect."

David grasped his shirt where it lay across his breast. "Whatever you may say," he repeated.