they had been hoofs, did not laugh but neighed, opening
his jaws till you could see right down his throat—and
he had a long face, a hooked nose and big, flat jaw-bones;
he wore a shaggy frieze, full-skirted coat, and smelt
of raw meat. My aunt idolised him and called him
a good-looking man, a cavalier and even a grenadier.
He had a habit of tapping children on the forehead
with the nails of his long fingers, hard as stones
(he used to do it to me when I was younger), and as
he tapped he would chuckle and say with surprise:
“How your head resounds, it must be empty.”
And this lout was to possess my watch!—No,
indeed, I determined in my own mind as I ran out of
the drawing-room and flung myself on my bed, while
my cheek glowed crimson from the slap I had received
and my heart, too, was aglow with the bitterness of
the insult and the thirst for revenge—no,
indeed! I would not allow that cursed Hrisashka
to jeer at me.... He would put on the watch,
let the chain hang over his stomach, would neigh with
delight; no, indeed!
“Quite so, but how was it to be done, how to
prevent it?”
I determined to steal the watch from my aunt.
Luckily Trankvillitatin was away from the town at
the time: he could not come to us before the
next day; I must take advantage of the night!
My aunt did not lock her bedroom door and, indeed,
none of the keys in the house would turn in the locks;
but where would she put the watch, where would she
hide it? She kept it in her pocket till the evening
and even took it out and looked at it more than once;
but at night—where would it be at night?—Well,
that was just my work to find out, I thought, shaking
my fists.
I was burning with boldness and terror and joy at
the thought of the approaching crime. I was continually
nodding to myself; I knitted my brows. I whispered:
“Wait a bit!” I threatened someone, I was
wicked, I was dangerous ... and I avoided David!—no
one, not even he, must have the slightest suspicion
of what I meant to do....
I would act alone and alone I would answer for it!
Slowly the day lagged by, then the evening, at last
the night came. I did nothing; I even tried not
to move: one thought was stuck in my head like
a nail. At dinner my father, who was, as I have
said, naturally gentle, and who was a little ashamed
of his harshness—boys of sixteen are not
slapped in the face—tried to be affectionate
to me; but I rejected his overtures, not from slowness
to forgive, as he imagined at the time, but simply
that I was afraid of my feelings getting the better
of me; I wanted to preserve untouched all the heat
of my vengeance, all the hardness of unalterable determination.
I went to bed very early; but of course I did not
sleep and did not even shut my eyes, but on the contrary
opened them wide, though I did pull the quilt over
my head. I did not consider beforehand how to
