bring him to by rolling him; it's our young gentleman!'
'Roll him, roll him,' shouted the crowd, which was continually
growing.
'Hang him up by the feet! it's the best way!'
'Lay him with his stomach on the barrel and roll him backwards and
forwards.... Take him, lads.'
'Don't dare to touch him,' put in the soldier with the pike. 'He must
be taken to the police station.'
'Low brute,' Trofimitch's bass voice rang out.
'But he is alive,' I shouted at the top of my voice and almost with
horror. I had put my face near to his. 'So that is what the drowned
look like,' I thought, with a sinking heart.... And all at once I saw
David's lips stir and a little water oozed from them....
At once I was pushed back and dragged away; everyone rushed up to him.
'Roll him, roll him,' voices clamoured.
'No, no, stay,' shouted Vassily. 'Take him home.... Take him home!'
'Take him home,' Trankvillitatin himself chimed in.
'We will bring him to. We can see better there,' Vassily went on....
(I have liked him from that day.) 'Lads, haven't you a sack? If not we
must take him by his head and his feet....'
'Stay! Here's a sack! Lay him on it! Catch hold! Start! That's fine.
As though he were driving in a chaise.'
A few minutes later David, borne in triumph on the sack, crossed the
threshold of our house again.
XX
He was undressed and put to bed. He began to give signs of life while
in the street, moaned, moved his hands.... Indoors he came to himself
completely. But as soon as all anxiety for his life was over and there
was no reason to worry about him, indignation got the upper hand
again: everyone shunned him, as though he were a leper.
'May God chastise him! May God chastise him!' my aunt shrieked, to be
heard all over the house. 'Get rid of him, somehow, Porfiry
Petrovitch, or he will do some mischief beyond all bearing.'
'Upon my word, he is a viper; he is possessed with a devil,'
Trankvillitatin chimed in.
'The wickedness, the wickedness!' cackled my aunt, going close to the
door of our room so that David might be sure to hear her. 'First of
all he stole the watch and then flung it into the water ... as though
to say, no one should get it....'
Everyone, everyone was indignant.
'David,' I asked him as soon as we were left alone, 'what did you do
it for?'
'So you are after that, too,' he answered in a voice that was still
weak; his lips were blue and he looked as though he were swollen all
over. 'What did I do?'
'But what did you jump into the water for?'
'Jump! I lost my balance on the parapet, that was all. If I had known
how to swim I should have jumped on purpose. I shall certainly learn.
But the watch now--ah....'
But at that moment my father walked with a majestic step into our
room.
'You, my fine fellow,' he said, addressing me, 'I shall certainly
whip, you need have no doubt about that, though you are too big to lie
on the bench now.'
Then he went up to the bed on which David was lying. 'In Siberia,' he
began in an impressive and dignified tone, 'in Siberia, sir, in penal
servitude, in the mines, there are people living and dying who are
less guilty, less criminal than you. Are you a suicide or simply a
thief or altogether a fool? Be so kind as to tell me just that!'
'I am not a suicide and I am not a thief,' answered David, 'but the
truth's the truth: there are good men in Siberia, better than you or I
... who should know that, if not you?'
My father gave a subdued gasp, drew back a step, looked intently at
David, spat on the floor and, slowly crossing himself, walked away.
