I repeat, I felt horribly injured. I began by
a display of coldness 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.
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.”
