I shall be with them. Go as quickly as you can, brother, for my sake!"
David held out both hands to me.... His red hair, by now dry, stuck up
in amusing tufts.... But the softened expression of his face seemed
the more genuine for that. I took my cap and went out of the house,
trying to avoid meeting my father and reminding him of his promise.
XXI
"Yes, indeed," I reflected as I walked towards the Latkins', "how was
it that I did not notice Raissa? What became of her? She must have
seen...."
And all at once I remembered that the very moment of David's fall, a
terrible piercing shriek had rung in my ears.
"Was not that Raissa? But how was it I did not see her afterwards?"
Before the little house in which Latkin lodged there stretched a
waste-ground overgrown with nettles and surrounded by a broken hurdle.
I had scarcely clambered over the hurdle (there was no gate anywhere)
when the following sight met my eyes: Raissa, with her elbows on her
knees and her chin propped on her clasped hands, was sitting on the
lowest step in front of the house; she was looking fixedly straight
before her; near her stood her little dumb sister with the utmost
composure brandishing a little whip, while, facing the steps with his
back to me, old Latkin, in torn and shabby drawers and high felt
boots, was trotting and prancing up and down, capering and jerking his
elbows. Hearing my footsteps he suddenly turned round and squatted
on his heels--then at once, skipping up to me, began speaking
very rapidly in a trembling voice, incessantly repeating,
"Tchoo--tchoo--tchoo!" I was dumbfoundered. I had not seen him for a
long time and should not, of course, have known him if I had met him
anywhere else. That red, wrinkled, toothless face, those lustreless
round eyes and touzled grey hair, those jerks and capers, that
senseless halting speech! What did it mean? What inhuman despair was
torturing this unhappy creature? What dance of death was this?
"Tchoo--tchoo," he muttered, wriggling incessantly. "See Vassilyevna
here came in tchoo--tchoo, just now.... Do you hear? With a trough on
the roof" (he slapped himself on the head with his hand), "and there
she sits like a spade, and she is cross-eyed, cross-eyed, like
Andryushka; Vassilyevna is cross-eyed" (he probably meant to say
dumb), "tchoo! My Vassilyevna is cross-eyed! They are both on the same
cork now. You may wonder, good Christians! I have only these two
little boats! Eh?"
Latkin was evidently conscious that he was not saying the right thing
and made terrible efforts to explain to me what was the matter. Raissa
did not seem to hear what her father was saying and the little sister
went on lashing the whip.
"Good-bye, diamond-merchant, good-bye, good-bye," Latkin drawled
several times in succession, making a low bow, seeming delighted at
having at last got hold of an intelligible word.
My head began to go round.
"What does it all mean?" I asked of an old woman who was looking out
of the window of the little house.
"Well, my good gentleman," she answered in a sing-song voice, "they
say some man--the Lord only knows who--went and drowned himself and
she saw it. Well, it gave her a fright or something; when she came
home she seemed all right though; but when she sat down on the
step--here, she has been sitting ever since like an image, it's no good
talking to her. I suppose she has lost her speech, too. Oh, dear! Oh,
dear!"
"Good-bye, good-bye," Latkin kept repeating, still with the same bow.
I went up to Raissa and stood directly facing her.
"Raissa, dear, what's the matter with you?"
She made no answer, she seemed not to notice me. Her face had not
grown pale, had not changed--but had turned somehow stony and there
was a look in it as though she were just falling asleep.
"She is cross-eyed, cross-eyed," Latkin muttered in my ear.
I took Raissa by the hand. "David is alive," I cried, more loudly than
before. "Alive and well; David's alive, do you understand? He was
pulled out of the water; he is at home now and told me to say that he
will come to you to-morrow; he is alive!" As it were with effort
Raissa turned her eyes on me; she blinked several times, opening them
wider and wider, then leaned her head on one side and flushed slightly
all over while her lips parted ... she slowly drew in a deep breath,
winced as though in pain and with fearful effort articulated:
"Da ... Dav ... a ... alive," got up impulsively and rushed away.
"Where are you going?" I exclaimed. But with a faint laugh she ran
staggering across the waste-ground....
I, of course, followed her, while behind me a wail rose up in unison
from the old man and the child.... Raissa darted straight to our
house.
"Here's a day!" I thought, trying not to lose sight of the black dress
that was fluttering before me. "Well!"
XXII
Passing Vassily, my aunt, and even Trankvillitatin, Raissa ran into
the room where David was lying and threw herself on his neck. "Oh...
oh ... Da ... vidushka," her voice rang out from under her loose
curls, "oh!"
Flinging wide his arms David embraced her and nestled his head against
her.
"Forgive me, my heart," I heard his voice saying.
And both seemed swooning with joy.
"But why did you go home, Raissa, why didn't you stay?" I said to
her.... She still kept her head bowed. "You would have seen that he
was saved...."
"Ah, I don't know! Ah, I don't know. Don't ask. I don't know, I don't
remember how I got home. I only remember: I saw you in the air ...
something seemed to strike me... and what happened afterwards..."
"Seemed to strike you," repeated David, and we all three suddenly
burst out laughing together. We were very happy.
"What may be the meaning of this, may I ask," we heard behind us a
threatening voice, the voice of my father. He was standing in the
doorway. "Will there ever be an end to these fooleries? Where are we
living? Are we in the Russian Empire or the French Republic?"
He came into the room.
"Anyone who wants to be rebellious and immoral had better go to France!
And how dare you come here?" he said, turning to Raissa, who,