But at this point all at once somebody pushed forward
abruptly: it was Vassily.
“What are you doing, good Christians?”
he cried, tearfully. “We must 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.
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....”
