Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories Page 20

  by the gratification afforded me by my vanity.

  And what is more, as ill-luck would have it, another schoolfellow of

  ours, the son of the town doctor, must needs turn up and begin

  boasting of a new watch, a present from his grandmother, and not even

  a silver, but a pinch-back one....

  I could not bear it, at last, and, without a word to anyone, slipped

  out of the house and proceeded to hunt for the beggar boy to whom I

  had given my watch.

  I soon found him; he was playing knucklebones in the churchyard with

  some other boys.

  I called him aside--and, breathless and stammering, told him that my

  family were angry with me for having given away the watch--and that if

  he would consent to give it back to me I would gladly pay him for

  it.... To be ready for any emergency, I had brought with me an

  old-fashioned rouble of the reign of Elizabeth, which represented the

  whole of my fortune.

  "But I haven't got it, your watch," answered the boy in an angry and

  tearful voice; "my father saw it and took it away from me; and he was

  for thrashing me, too. 'You must have stolen it from somewhere,' he

  said. 'What fool is going to make you a present of a watch?'"

  "And who is your father?"

  "My father? Trofimitch."

  "But what is he? What's his trade?"

  "He is an old soldier, a sergeant. And he has no trade at all. He

  mends old shoes, he re-soles them. That's all his trade. That's what

  he lives by."

  "Where do you live? Take me to him."

  "To be sure I will. You tell my father that you gave me the watch. For

  he keeps pitching into me, and calling me a thief! And my mother, too.

  'Who is it you are taking after,' she says, 'to be a thief?'"

  I set off with the boy to his home. They lived in a smoky hut in the

  back-yard of a factory, which had long ago been burnt down and not

  rebuilt. We found both Trofimitch and his wife at home. The discharged

  sergeant was a tall old man, erect and sinewy, with yellowish grey

  whiskers, an unshaven chin and a perfect network of wrinkles on his

  cheeks and forehead. His wife looked older than he. Her red eyes,

  which looked buried in her unhealthily puffy face, kept blinking

  dejectedly. Some sort of dark rags hung about them by way of clothes.

  I explained to Trofimitch what I wanted and why I had come. He

  listened to me in silence without once winking or moving from me his

  stupid and strained--typically soldierly--eyes.

  "Whims and fancies!" he brought out at last in a husky, toothless

  bass. "Is that the way gentlemen behave? And if Petka really did not

  steal the watch--then I'll give him one for that! To teach him not to

  play the fool with little gentlemen! And if he did steal it, then I

  would give it to him in a very different style, whack, whack, whack!

  With the flat of a sword; in horseguard's fashion! No need to think

  twice about it! What's the meaning of it? Eh? Go for them with sabres!

  Here's a nice business! Tfoo!"

  This last interjection Trofimitch pronounced in a falsetto. He was

  obviously perplexed.

  "If you are willing to restore the watch to me," I explained to him--I

  did not dare to address him familiarly in spite of his being a

  soldier--"I will with pleasure pay you this rouble here. The watch is

  not worth more, I imagine."

  "Well!" growled Trofimitch, still amazed and, from old habit,

  devouring me with his eyes as though I were his superior officer.

  "It's a queer business, eh? Well, there it is, no understanding it.

  Ulyana, hold your tongue!" he snapped out at his wife who was opening

  her mouth. "Here's the watch," he added, opening the table drawer; "if

  it really is yours, take it by all means; but what's the rouble for?

  Eh?"

  "Take the rouble, Trofimitch, you senseless man," wailed his wife. "You

  have gone crazy in your old age! We have not a half-rouble between us,

  and then you stand on your dignity! It was no good their cutting off

  your pigtail, you are a regular old woman just the same! How can you

  go on like that--when you know nothing about it? ... Take the money,

  if you have a fancy to give back the watch!"

  "Ulyana, hold your tongue, you dirty slut!" Trofimitch repeated.

  "Whoever heard of such a thing, talking away? Eh? The husband is the

  head; and yet she talks! Petka, don't budge, I'll kill you.... Here's

  the watch!"

  Trofimitch held out the watch to me, but did not let go of it.

  He pondered, looked down, then fixed the same intent, stupid stare

  upon me. Then all at once bawled at the top of his voice:

  "Where is it? Where's your rouble?"

  "Here it is, here it is," I responded hurriedly and I snatched the

  coin out of my pocket.

  But he did not take it, he still stared at me. I laid the rouble on

  the table. He suddenly brushed it into the drawer, thrust the watch

  into my hand and wheeling to the left with a loud stamp, he hissed at

  his wife and his son:

  "Get along, you low wretches!"

  Ulyana muttered something, but I had already dashed out into the yard

  and into the street. Thrusting the watch to the very bottom of my

  pocket and clutching it tightly in my hand, I hurried home.

  VI

  I had regained the possession of my watch but it afforded me no

  satisfaction whatever. I did not venture to wear it, it was above all

  necessary to conceal from David what I had done. What would he think

  of me, of my lack of will? I could not even lock up the luckless watch

  in a drawer: we had all our drawers in common. I had to hide it,

  sometimes on the top of the cupboard, sometimes under my mattress,

  sometimes behind the stove.... And yet I did not succeed in

  hoodwinking David.

  One day I took the watch from under a plank in the floor of our room

  and proceeded to rub the silver case with an old chamois leather

  glove. David had gone off somewhere in the town; I did not at all

  expect him to be back quickly.... Suddenly he was in the doorway.

  I was so overcome that I almost dropped the watch, and, utterly

  disconcerted, my face painfully flushing crimson, I fell to fumbling

  about my waistcoat with it, unable to find my pocket.

  David looked at me and, as usual, smiled without speaking.

  "What's the matter?" he brought out at last. "You imagined I didn't

  know you had your watch again? I saw it the very day you brought it

  back."

  "I assure you," I began, almost on the point of tears....

  David shrugged his shoulders.

  "The watch is yours, you are free to do what you like with it."

  Saying these cruel words, he went out.

  I was overwhelmed with despair. This time there could be no doubt!

  David certainly despised me.

  I could not leave it so.

  "I will show him," I thought, clenching my teeth, and at once with a

  firm step I went into the passage, found our page-boy, Yushka, and

  presented him with the watch!

  Yushka would have refused it, but I declared that if he did not take

  the watch from me I would smash it that very minute, trample it under

 
foot, break it to bits and throw it in the cesspool! He thought a

  moment, giggled, and took the watch. I went back to our room and

  seeing David reading there, I told him what I had done.

  David did not take his eyes off the page and, again shrugging his

  shoulder and smiling to himself, repeated that the watch was mine and

  that I was free to do what I liked with it.

  But it seemed to me that he already despised me a little less.

  I was fully persuaded that I should never again expose myself to the

  reproach of weakness of character, for the watch, the disgusting

  present from my disgusting godfather, had suddenly grown so

  distasteful to me that I was quite incapable of understanding how I

  could have regretted it, how I could have begged for it back from the

  wretched Trofimitch, who had, moreover, the right to think that he had

  treated me with generosity.

  Several days passed.... I remember that on one of them the great news

  reached our town that the Emperor Paul was dead and his son Alexandr,

  of whose graciousness and humanity there were such favourable rumours,

  had ascended the throne. This news excited David intensely: the

  possibility of seeing--of shortly seeing--his father occurred to him

  at once. My father was delighted, too.

  "They will bring back all the exiles from Siberia now and I expect

  brother Yegor will not be forgotten," he kept repeating, rubbing his

  hands, coughing and, at the same time, seeming rather nervous.

  David and I at once gave up working and going to the high school; we

  did not even go for walks but sat in a corner counting and reckoning

  in how many months, in how many weeks, in how many days "brother

  Yegor" ought to come back and where to write to him and how to go to

  meet him and in what way we should begin to live afterwards. "Brother

  Yegor" was an architect: David and I decided that he ought to settle

  in Moscow and there build big schools for poor people and we would go

  to be his assistants. The watch, of course, we had completely

  forgotten; besides, David had new cares.... Of them I will speak

  later, but the watch was destined to remind us of its existence again.

  VII

  One morning we had only just finished lunch--I was sitting alone by

  the window thinking of my uncle's release--outside there was the steam

  and glitter of an April thaw--when all at once my aunt, Pelageya

  Petrovna, walked into the room. She was at all times restless and

  fidgetty, she spoke in a shrill voice and was always waving her arms

  about; on this occasion she simply pounced on me.

  "Go along, go to your father at once, sir!" she snapped out. "What

  pranks have you been up to, you shameless boy! You will catch it, both

  of you. Nastasey Nastasyeitch has shown up all your tricks! Go along,

  your father wants you.... Go along this very minute."

  Understanding nothing, I followed my aunt, and, as I crossed the

  threshold of the drawing-room, I saw my father, striding up and down

  and ruffling up his hair, Yushka in tears by the door and, sitting on

  a chair in the corner, my godfather, Nastasey Nastasyeitch, with an

  expression of peculiar malignancy in his distended nostrils and in his

  fiery, slanting eyes.

  My father swooped down upon me as soon as I walked in.

  "Did you give your watch to Yushka? Tell me!"

  I glanced at Yushka.

  "Tell me," repeated my father, stamping.

  "Yes," I answered, and immediately received a stinging slap in the

  face, which afforded my aunt great satisfaction. I heard her gulp, as

  though she had swallowed some hot tea. From me my father ran to

  Yushka.

  "And you, you rascal, ought not to have dared to accept such a

  present," he said, pulling him by the hair: "and you sold it, too, you

  good-for-nothing boy!"

  Yushka, as I learned later had, in the simplicity of his heart, taken

  my watch to a neighbouring watchmaker's. The watchmaker had displayed

  it in his shop-window; Nastasey Nastasyeitch had seen it, as he passed

  by, bought it and brought it along with him.

  However, my ordeal and Yushka's did not last long: my father gasped

  for breath, and coughed till he choked; indeed, it was not in his

  character to be angry long.

  "Brother, Porfiry Petrovitch," observed my aunt, as soon as she

  noticed not without regret that my father's anger had, so to speak,

  flickered out, "don't you worry yourself further: it's not worth

  dirtying your hands over. I tell you what I suggest: with the consent

  of our honoured friend, Nastasey Nastasyeitch, in consideration of the

  base ingratitude of your son--I will take charge of the watch; and

  since he has shown by his conduct that he is not worthy to wear it and

  does not even understand its value, I will present it in your name to

  a person who will be very sensible of your kindness."

  "Whom do you mean?" asked my father.

  "To Hrisanf Lukitch," my aunt articulated, with slight hesitation.

  "To Hrisashka?" asked my father, and with a wave of his hand, he

  added: "It's all one to me. You can throw it in the stove, if you

  like."

  He buttoned up his open vest and went out, writhing from his coughing.

  "And you, my good friend, do you agree?" said my aunt, addressing

  Nastasey Nastasyeitch.

  "I am quite agreeable," responded the latter. During the whole

  proceedings he had not stirred and only snorting stealthily and

  stealthily rubbing the ends of his fingers, had fixed his foxy eyes by

  turns on me, on my father, and on Yushka. We afforded him real

  gratification!

  My aunt's suggestion revolted me to the depths of my soul. It was not

  that I regretted the watch; but the person to whom she proposed to

  present it was absolutely hateful to me. This Hrisanf Lukitch (his

  surname was Trankvillitatin), a stalwart, robust, lanky divinity

  student, was in the habit of coming to our house--goodness knows what

  for!--to help the children with their lessons, my aunt

  asserted; but he could not help us with our lessons because he had

  never learnt anything himself and was as stupid as a horse. He was

  rather like a horse altogether: he thudded with his feet as though

  they had been hoofs, did not laugh but neighed, opening his jaws till

  you could see right down his throat--and he had a long face, a hooked

  nose and big, flat jaw-bones; he wore a shaggy frieze, full-skirted

  coat, and smelt of raw meat. My aunt idolised him and called him a

  good-looking man, a cavalier and even a grenadier. He had a habit of

  tapping children on the forehead with the nails of his long fingers,

  hard as stones (he used to do it to me when I was younger), and as he

  tapped he would chuckle and say with surprise: "How your head

  resounds, it must be empty." And this lout was to possess my

  watch!--No, indeed, I determined in my own mind as I ran out of the

  drawing-room and flung myself on my bed, while my cheek glowed crimson

  from the slap I had received and my heart, too, was aglow with the

  bitterness of the insult and the thirst for revenge--no, indeed! I

  would not allow that cursed Hr
isashka to jeer at me.... He would put

  on the watch, let the chain hang over his stomach, would neigh with

  delight; no, indeed!

  "Quite so, but how was it to be done, how to prevent it?"

  I determined to steal the watch from my aunt.