Away with you at once, or ...'
'Uncle,' David brought out, and he sat up in bed. 'Don't insult Raissa.
She is going away, only don't insult her.'
'And who are you to teach me? I am not insulting her, I am not in ...
sul ... ting her! I am simply turning her out of the house. I have an
account to settle with you, too, presently. You have made away with
other people's property, have attempted to take your own life, have put
me to expense.'
'To what expense?' David interrupted.
'What expense? You have ruined your clothes. Do you count that as
nothing? And I had to tip the men who brought you. You have given the
whole family a fright and are you going to be unruly now? And if this
young woman, regardless of shame and honour itself ...'
David made a dash as though to get out of bed.
'Don't insult her, I tell you.'
'Hold your tongue.'
'Don't dare ...'
'Hold your tongue!'
'Don't dare to insult my betrothed,' cried David at the top of his
voice, 'my future wife!'
'Betrothed!' repeated my father, with round eyes. 'Betrothed! Wife!
Ho, ho, ho! ...' ('Ha, ha, ha,' my aunt echoed behind the door.) 'Why,
how old are you? He's been no time in the world, the milk is hardly
dry on his lips, he is a mere babe and he is going to be married! But
I ... but you ...'
'Let me go, let me go,' whispered Raissa, and she made for the door.
She looked more dead than alive.
'I am not going to ask permission of you,' David went on shouting,
propping himself up with his fists on the edge of the bed, 'but of my
own father who is bound to be here one day soon; he is a law to me,
but you are not; but as for my age, if Raissa and I are not old
enough ... we will bide our time whatever you may say....'
'Aie, aie, Davidka, don't forget yourself,' my father interrupted.
'Just look at yourself. You are not fit to be seen. You have lost all
sense of decency.'
David put his hand to the front of his shirt.
'Whatever you may say...' he repeated.
'Oh, shut his mouth, Porfiry Petrovitch,' piped my aunt from behind
the door, 'shut his mouth, and as for this hussy, this baggage ...
this ...'
But something extraordinary must have cut short my aunt's eloquence at
that moment: her voice suddenly broke off and in its place we heard
another, feeble and husky with old age....
'Brother,' this weak voice articulated, 'Christian soul.'
XXIII
We all turned round.... In the same costume
in which I had just seen him, thin, pitiful
and wild looking, Latkin stood before us like an
apparition.
'God!' he pronounced in a sort of childish way, pointing upwards with
a bent and trembling finger and gazing impotently at my father, 'God
has chastised me, but I have come for Va ... for Ra ... yes, yes, for
Raissotchka.... What ... tchoo! what is there for me? Soon
underground--and what do you call it? One little stick, another ...
cross-beam--that's what I ... want, but you, brother, diamond-merchant
... mind ... I'm a man, too!'
Raissa crossed the room without a word and taking his arm buttoned his
vest.
'Let us go, Vassilyevna,' he said; 'they are all saints here, don't
come to them and he lying there in his case'--he pointed to David--'is
a saint, too, but you and I are sinners, brother. Come. Tchoo....
