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
