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I explained to Trofimitch what I wanted and why I had come. He listened to me in silence without once winking or moving from me his stupid and strained–typically soldierly–eyes.

“Whims and fancies!” he brought out at last in a husky, toothless bass. “Is that the way gentlemen behave? And if Petka really did not steal the watch–then I’ll give him one for that! To teach him not to play the fool with little gentlemen! And if he did steal it, then I would give it to him in a very different style, whack, whack, whack! With the flat of a sword; in horseguard’s fashion! No need to think twice about it! What’s the meaning of it? Eh? Go for them with sabres! Here’s a nice business! Tfoo!”

This last interjection Trofimitch pronounced in a falsetto. He was obviously perplexed.

“If you are willing to restore the watch to me,” I explained to him–I did not dare to address him familiarly in spite of his being a soldier–“I will with pleasure pay you this rouble here. The watch is not worth more, I imagine.”

“Well!” growled Trofimitch, still amazed and, from old habit, devouring me with his eyes as though I were his superior officer. “It’s a queer business, eh? Well, there it is, no understanding it. Ulyana, hold your tongue!” he snapped out at his wife who was opening her mouth. “Here’s the watch,” he added, opening the table drawer; “if it really is yours, take it by all means; but what’s the rouble for? Eh?”

“Take the rouble, Trofimitch, you senseless man,” wailed his wife. “You have gone crazy in your old age! We have not a half-rouble between us, and then you stand on your dignity! It was no good their cutting off your pigtail, you are a regular old woman just the same! How can you go on like that–when you know nothing about it? … Take the money, if you have a fancy to give back the watch!”

“Ulyana, hold your tongue, you dirty slut!” Trofimitch repeated. “Whoever heard of such a thing, talking away? Eh? The husband is the head; and yet she talks! Petka, don’t budge, I’ll kill you…. Here’s the watch!”

Trofimitch held out the watch to me, but did not let go of it.

He pondered, looked down, then fixed the same intent, stupid stare upon me. Then all at once bawled at the top of his voice:

“Where is it? Where’s your rouble?”

“Here it is, here it is,” I responded hurriedly and I snatched the coin out of my pocket.

But he did not take it, he still stared at me. I laid the rouble on the table. He suddenly brushed it into the drawer, thrust the watch into my hand and wheeling to the left with a loud stamp, he hissed at his wife and his son:

“Get along, you low wretches!”

Ulyana muttered something, but I had already dashed out into the yard and into the street. Thrusting the watch to the very bottom of my pocket and clutching it tightly in my hand, I hurried home.

VI

I had regained the possession of my watch but it afforded me no satisfaction whatever. I did not venture to wear it, it was above all necessary to conceal from David what I had done. What would he think of me, of my lack of will? I could not even lock up the luckless watch in a drawer: we had all our drawers in common. I had to hide it, sometimes on the top of the cupboard, sometimes under my mattress, sometimes behind the stove…. And yet I did not succeed in hoodwinking David.

One day I took the watch from under a plank in the floor of our room and proceeded to rub the silver case with an old chamois leather glove. David had gone off somewhere in the town; I did not at all expect him to be back quickly…. Suddenly he was in the doorway.