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“Yes, of course; there is no need to write much. But just a few words.”

“For instance?”

“For instance … begin like this: ‘Being’ … or better: ‘Moved by’ …”

“‘Moved by’ … very good.”

“Then we must say: ‘herewith our mite’ …”

“‘Mite’ … that’s good, too. Well, take your pen, sit down and write, fire away!”

“First I must make a rough copy,” I observed.

“All right, a rough copy, only write, write…. And meanwhile I will clean it with some whitening.”

I took a sheet of paper, mended a pen, but before I had time to write at the top of the sheet “To His Excellency, the illustrious Prince” (our governer was at that time Prince X), I stopped, struck by the extraordinary uproar … which had suddenly arisen in the house. David noticed the hubbub, too, and he, too, stopped, holding the watch in his left hand and a rag with whitening in his right. We looked at each other. What was that shrill cry. It was my aunt shrieking … and that? It was my father’s voice, hoarse with anger. “The watch! the watch!” bawled someone, surely Trankvillitatin. We heard the thud of feet, the creak of the floor, a regular rabble running … moving straight upon us. I was numb with terror and David was as white as chalk, but he looked proud as an eagle. “Vassily, the scoundrel, has betrayed us,” he whispered through his teeth. The door was flung wide open, and my father in his dressing gown and without his cravat, my aunt in her dressing jacket, Trankvillitatin, Vassily, Yushka, another boy, and the cook, Agapit–all burst into the room.

“Scoundrels!” shouted my father, gasping for breath…. “At last we have found you out!” And seeing the watch in David’s hands: “Give it here!” yelled my father, “give me the watch!”

But David, without uttering a word, dashed to the open window and leapt out of it into the yard and then off into the street.

Accustomed to imitate my paragon in everything, I jumped out, too, and ran after David….

“Catch them! Hold them!” we heard a medley of frantic shouts behind us.

But we were already racing along the street bareheaded, David in advance and I a few paces behind him, and behind us the clatter and uproar of pursuit.

XIX

Many years have passed since the date of these events; I have reflected over them more than once–and to this day I can no more understand the cause of the fury that took possession of my father (who had so lately been so sick of the watch that he had forbidden it to be mentioned in his hearing) than I can David’s rage at its having been stolen by Vassily! One is tempted to imagine that there was some mysterious power connected with it. Vassily had not betrayed us as David assumed–he was not capable of it: he had been too much scared–it was simply that one of our maids had seen the watch in his hands and had promptly informed our aunt. The fat was in the fire!

And so we darted down the street, keeping to the very middle of it. The passers-by who met us stopped or stepped aside in amazement. I remember a retired major craned out of the window of his flat–and, crimson in the face, his bulky person almost overbalancing, hallooed furiously. Shouts of “Stop! hold them” still resounded behind us.

David ran flourishing the watch over his head and from time to time leaping into the air; I jumped, too, whenever he did.

“Where?” I shouted to David, seeing that he was turning into a side street–and I turned after him.

“To the Oka!” he shouted. “To throw it into the water, into the river. To the devil!”

“Stop! stop!” they shouted behind.

But we were already flying along the side street, already a whiff of cool air was meeting us–and the river lay before us, and the steep muddy descent to it, and the wooden bridge with a train of waggons stretching across it, and a garrison soldier with a pike beside the flagstaff; soldiers used to carry pikes in those days. David reached the bridge and darted by the soldier who tried to give him a blow on the legs with his pike and hit a passing calf. David instantly leaped on to the parapet; he uttered a joyful exclamation…. Something white, something blue gleamed in the air and shot into the water–it was the silver watch with Vassily’s blue bead chain flying into the water…. But then something incredible happened. After the watch David’s feet flew upwards–and head foremost, with his hands thrust out before him and the lapels of his jacket fluttering, he described an arc in the air (as frightened frogs jump on hot days from a high bank into a pond) and instantly vanished behind the parapet of the bridge … and then flop! and a tremendous splash below.