Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (370 page)

“You only live, that’s all I want,” David repeated, dropping his voice and not taking his eyes off her. Raissa glanced quickly at him and flushed still more.

“You live and as for spelling, spell as you like.... Oh, the devil, the witch is coming!” (David called my aunt the witch.) “What ill - luck has brought her this way? You must go, darling.”

Raissa glanced at David once more and ran away.

David talked to me of Raissa and her family very rarely and unwillingly, especially from the time when he began to expect his father’s return. He thought of nothing but him and how we should live together afterwards. He had a vivid memory of him and used to describe him to me with particular pleasure.

“He is big and strong; he can lift three hundred - weight with one hand.... When he shouted: ‘Where’s the lad?’ he could be heard all over the house. He’s so jolly and kind ... and a brave man! Nobody can intimidate him. We lived so happily together before we were ruined. They say he has gone quite grey, and in old days his hair was as red as mine. He was a strong man.”

David would never admit that we might remain in Ryazan.

“You will go away,” I observed, “but I shall stay.”

“Nonsense, we shall take you with us.”

“And how about my father?”

“You will cast off your father. You will be ruined if you don’t.”

“How so?”

David made me no answer but merely knitted his white brows.

“So when we go away with father,” he began again, “he will get a good situation and I shall marry.”

“Well, that won’t be just directly,” I said.

“No, why not? I shall marry soon.”

“You?”

“Yes, I; why not?”

“You haven’t fixed on your wife, I suppose.”

“Of course, I have.”

“Who is she?”

David laughed.

“What a senseless fellow you are, really? Raissa, of course.”

“Raissa!” I repeated in amazement; “you are joking!”

“I am not given to joking, and don’t like it.”

“Why, she is a year older than you are.”

“What of it? but let’s drop the subject.”

“Let me ask one question,” I said. “Does she know that you mean to marry her?”

“Most likely.”

“But haven’t you declared your feelings?”

“What is there to declare? When the time comes I shall tell her. Come, that’s enough.”

David got up and went out of the room. When I was alone, I pondered ... and pondered ... and came to the conclusion that David would act like a sensible and practical man; and indeed I felt flattered at the thought of being the friend of such a practical man!

And Raissa in her everlasting black woollen dress suddenly seemed to me charming and worthy of the most devoted love.

XV

David’s father still did not come and did not even send a letter. It had long been summer and June was drawing to its end. We were wearing ourselves out in suspense.

Meanwhile there began to be rumours that Latkin had suddenly become much worse, and that his family were likely to die of hunger or else the house would fall in and crush them all under the roof.

David’s face even looked changed and he became so ill - tempered and surly that there was no going near him. He began to be more often absent from home, too. I did not meet Raissa at all. From time to time, I caught a glimpse of her in the distance, rapidly crossing the street with her beautiful, light step, straight as an arrow, with her arms crossed, with her dark, clever eyes under her long brows, with an anxious expression on her pale, sweet face -
 
- that was all. My aunt with the help of her Trankvillitatin pitched into me as before, and as before reproachfully whispered in my ear: “You are a thief, sir, a thief!” But I took no notice of her; and my father was very busy, and occupied with his writing and driving all over the place and did not want to hear anything.

One day, passing by the familiar apple - tree, more from habit than anything I cast a furtive glance in the direction of the little spot I knew so well, and it suddenly struck me that there was a change in the surface of the soil that concealed our treasure ... as though there were a little protuberance where there had been a hollow, and the bits of rubbish were disarranged. “What does that mean?” I wondered. “Can someone have guessed our secret and dug up the watch?”

I had to make certain with my own eyes. I felt, of course, the most complete indifference in regard to the watch that lay rusting in the bosom of the earth; but was not prepared to let anyone else make use of it! And so next day I got up before dawn again and arming myself with a knife went into the orchard, sought out the marked spot under the apple - tree, began digging -
 
- and after digging a hole a yard deep was forced to the conviction that the watch was gone, that someone had got hold of it, taken it away, stolen it!

But who could have dug it up except David?

Who else knew where it was?

I filled in the hole and went back to the house. I felt deeply injured.

“Supposing,” I thought, “that David needs the watch to save his future wife or her father from dying of starvation.... Say what you like, the watch was worth something.... Why did he not come to me and say: ‘Brother’ (in David’s place I should have certainly begun by saying brother), ‘brother, I need money; you have none, I know, but let me make use of that watch which we buried together under the old apple - tree? It is of no use to anyone and I shall be so grateful to you, brother!’ With what joy I should have consented. But to act secretly, treacherously, not to trust his friend.... No! No passion, no necessity would justify that!”

I repeat, I felt horribly injured. I began by a display of coldness and sulking....

But David was not one of the sort to notice this and be upset by it.

I began dropping hints.

But David appeared not to understand my hints in the least!

I said before him how base in my eyes was the man who having a friend and understanding all that was meant by that sacred sentiment “friendship,” was yet so devoid of generosity as to have recourse to deception; as though it were possible to conceal anything.

As I uttered these last words I laughed scornfully.

But David did not turn a hair. At last I asked him straight out: “What did he think, had our watch gone for some time after being buried in the earth or had it stopped at once?”

He answered me: “The devil only knows! What a thing to wonder about!”

I did not know what to think! David evidently had something on his mind ... but not the abduction of the watch. An unexpected incident showed me his innocence.

XVI

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. Passing the open window of an eating - house, I suddenly heard the voice of our servant, Vassily, a young man of free and easy manners, “a lazy fellow and a scamp,” as my father called him, but also a great conqueror of female hearts which he charmed by his wit, his dancing and his playing on the tambourine.

“And what do you suppose they’ve been up to?” said Vassily, whom I could not see but heard distinctly; he was, most likely, sitting close by, near the window with a companion over the steaming tea -
 
- and as often happens with people in a closed room, spoke in a loud voice without suspecting that anyone passing in the street could hear every word: “They buried it in the ground!”

“Nonsense!” muttered another voice.

“I tell you they did, our young gentlemen are extraordinary! Especially that Davidka, he’s a regular Aesop! I got up at daybreak and went to the window.... I looked out and, what do you think! Our two little dears were coming along the orchard bringing that same watch and they dug a hole under the apple - tree and there they buried it, as though it had been a baby! And they smoothed the earth over afterwards, upon my soul they did, the young rakes!”

“Ah! plague take them,” Vassily’s companion commented. “Too well off, I suppose. Well, did you dig up the watch?”

“To be sure I did. I have got it now. Only it won’t do to show it for a time. There’s been no end of a fuss over it. Davidka stole it that very night from under our old lady’s back.”

“Oh -
 
- oh!”

“I tell you, he did. He’s a desperate fellow. So it won’t do to show it. But when the officers come down I shall sell it or stake it at cards.”

I didn’t stay to hear more: I rushed headlong home and straight to David.

“Brother!” I began, “brother, forgive me! I have wronged you! I suspected you! I blamed you! You see how agitated I am! Forgive me!”

“What’s the matter with you?” asked David. “Explain!”

“I suspected that you had dug up our watch under the apple - tree.”

“The watch again! Why, isn’t it there?”

“It’s not there; I thought you had taken it, to help your friends. And it was all Vassily.”

I repeated to David all that I had overheard under the window of the eating - house.

But how to describe my amazement! I had, of course, expected David to be indignant, but I had not for a moment anticipated the effect it produced on him! I had hardly finished my story when he flew into an indescribable fury! David, who had always taken up a scornful attitude to the whole “vulgar,” as he called it, business of the watch; David, who had more than once declared that it wasn’t worth a rotten egg, jumped up from his seat, got hot all over, ground his teeth and clenched his fists. “We can’t let this pass!” he said at last; “how dare he take someone else’s property? Wait a bit, I’ll show him. I won’t let thieves off so easily!”

I confess I don’t understand to this day what can have so infuriated David. Whether he had been irritated before and Vassily’s action had simply poured oil on the flames, or whether my suspicions had wounded him, I cannot say, but I had never seen him in such excitement. I stood before him with my mouth open merely wondering how it was that his breathing was so hard and laboured.

“What do you intend to do?” I asked at last.

“You shall see after dinner, when your father lies down. I’ll find this scoffer, I’ll talk to him.”

“Well,” thought I, “I should not care to be in that scoffer’s shoes! What will happen? Merciful heavens?”

XVII.

This is what did happen:

As soon as that drowsy, stifling stillness prevailed, which to this day lies like a feather bed on the Russian household and the Russian people in the middle of the day after dinner is eaten, David went to the servants’ rooms (I followed on his heels with a sinking heart) and called Vassily out. The latter was at first unwilling to come, but ended by obeying and following us into the garden.

David stood close in front of him. Vassily was a whole head taller.

“Vassily Terentyev,” my comrade began in a firm voice, “six weeks ago you took from under this very apple - tree the watch we hid there. You had no right to do so; it does not belong to you. Give it back at once!”

Vassily was taken aback, but at once recovered himself.

“What watch? What are you talking about? God bless you! I have no watch!”

“I know what I am saying and don’t tell lies. You’ve got the watch, give it back.”