But at that moment my father walked with a majestic
step into our room.
“You, my fine fellow,” he said, addressing
me, “I shall certainly whip, you need have no
doubt about that, though you are too big to lie on
the bench now.”
Then he went up to the bed on which David was lying.
“In Siberia,” he began in an impressive
and dignified tone, “in Siberia, sir, in penal
servitude, in the mines, there are people living and
dying who are less guilty, less criminal than you.
Are you a suicide or simply a thief or altogether
a fool? Be so kind as to tell me just that!”
“I am not a suicide and I am not a thief,”
answered David, “but the truth’s the truth:
there are good men in Siberia, better than you or
I ... who should know that, if not you?”
My father gave a subdued gasp, drew back a step, looked
intently at David, spat on the floor and, slowly crossing
himself, walked away.
“Don’t you like that?” David called
after him and put his tongue out. Then he tried
to get up but could not.
“I must have hurt myself somehow,” he
said, gasping and frowning. “I remember
the water dashed me against a post.”
“Did you see Raissa?” he added suddenly.
“No. I did not.... Stay, stay, stay!
Now I remember, wasn’t it she standing on the
bank by the bridge? ... Yes ... yes ... a dark
dress ... a yellow kerchief on her head, yes it must
have been Raissa.”
“Well, and afterwards.... Did you see her?”
“Afterwards ... I don’t know, I had
no thought to spare for her.... You jumped in
...”
David was suddenly roused. “Alyosha, darling,
go to her at once, tell her I am all right, that there’s
nothing the matter with me. Tomorrow I shall
be with them. Go as quickly as you can, brother,
for my sake!”
David held out both hands to me.... His red hair,
by now dry, stuck up in amusing tufts.... But
the softened expression of his face seemed the more
genuine for that. I took my cap and went out of
the house, trying to avoid meeting my father and reminding
him of his promise.
“Yes, indeed,” I reflected as I walked
towards the Latkins’, “how was it that
I did not notice Raissa? What became of her?
She must have seen....”
And all at once I remembered that the very moment
of David’s fall, a terrible piercing shriek
had rung in my ears.
“Was not that Raissa? But how was it I
did not see her afterwards?”
Before the little house in which Latkin lodged there
stretched a waste-ground overgrown with nettles and
surrounded by a broken hurdle. I had scarcely
clambered over the hurdle (there was no gate anywhere)
when the following sight met my eyes: Raissa,
with her elbows on her knees and her chin propped
on her clasped hands, was sitting on the lowest step
in front of the house; she was looking fixedly straight
before her; near her stood her little dumb sister with
