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.
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.
