Chapter XXXVI: In Letters of Fire (3)

I repeat it, I was aggrieved. I began to show a coolness, to sulk; but David was not one to notice anything of that sort and be disturbed by it. I began to make references to it, but David did not seem to understand them. I said in his presence, "How contemptible in my eyes is the human being who has a friend, and who comprehends all the significance of that sacred feeling, friendship, and yet is not magnanimous enough to hold himself aloof from slyness! As if anything could be hidden!" As I said these last words I smiled contemptuously. But David paid no attention. At last I asked him directly whether our watch had run long after we buried it, or whether it had stopped at once. He answered, "How the deuce should I know? Shall I think the matter over?"

I did not know what to think. David doubtless had something on his mind, but not the theft of the watch. An unexpected incident convinced me of his innocence.

XVI.

I was once coming home through a narrow little street which I generally avoided, because on it was the wing of; a building in which my enemy Trankwillitatin lived, but this time Fate led me that way. As I was passing beneath the open window of a drinking-house I suddenly heard the voice of our servant Wassily, a young, careless fellow, a big good-for-nothing and a rascal, as my father used to call him, but also a great conqueror of female hearts, which he attacked by his wit, his skill in dancing and his music.

"Just hear what they planned between them!" said Wassily, whom I could not see, though I heard him distinctly: he was probably sitting drinking tea with a friend close by the window, and, as people in a closed room often do, spoke loud, without thinking that every passer-by could hear each word. "What did they plan? They buried it in the earth."

"You lie!" said the other voice.

"I tell you, that's the sort of boy they are, especially that David. He's a sharp one. At daybreak I rose and went to the window, and I saw our two little doves go into the garden, carrying the watch, and under the apple tree they dug a hole, and there they laid it like a baby; and then they smoothed the earth, the crazy fellows!"

"The deuce take 'em!" said Wassily's comrade. "Well, what else? You dug up the watch?"

"Of course I dug it up: I have it now. Only, I can't show it to you. There was a dreadful row about it. David had taken it that very night from his aunt's bed. I tell you, he's a great fellow. So I can't show it to you. But stop: the officers will soon be back. I'll sell it to one of them, and lose the money at cards."

I listened no longer: at full speed I rushed home and went straight to David. "Brother," I began--"Brother, forgive me! I have done you a wrong. I have suspected you: I have blamed you. You see how moved I am: forgive me."

"What's the matter with you?" asked David: "explain yourself."

"I suspected that you had dug up our watch from under the apple tree."

"That watch again! Isn't it there?"

"It is not there. I thought you'd taken it to help your friends, and it was that Wassily."

I told David what I had heard beneath the window. But how describe my astonishment? I thought David would be vexed, but I could not have expected what really happened, I had hardly finished my story when he burst into the most ungovernable rage. David, who held this whole miserable affair, as he called it, of the watch in utter contempt--the same David who had assured me more than once that it was not worth an empty egg-shell--he suddenly sprang up, his face aflame, grinding his teeth and clenching his fist. "That can't be allowed," he said at last. "How does he dare to take another's property? I'll give him a lesson. Only wait: I never forgive a rascal."

To this day I don't see what made David so angry. Was he already full of wrath, and had Wassily's conduct only thrown oil on the flame? Was he vexed at my suspecting him? I cannot say, but I never saw him so aroused. I stood before him open-mouthed, and only wondered why he breathed so hard and heavily.

"What have you decided to do?" I asked finally.

"You'll see after dinner. I'll find that fellow and I'll have a talk with him."

"Well," thought I, "I should not like to be in that fellow's shoes. What in the world is going to happen?"

The following happened. As soon as that sleepy, heavy quiet came which even now falls like a hot feather comforter on a Russian house after dinner, David went, I following him with a beating heart, into the servants' hall and called Wassily out. At first he did not want to come, but finally he concluded to obey and to follow us into the garden. David stood squarely before him: Wassily was a whole head the taller.

"Wassily Tarentiev," began my comrade with a firm voice, "six weeks ago you took from under this apple tree a watch which we had placed there. You had no right to do that: it was not yours. Give it to me at once."

Wassily was somewhat amazed, but he soon collected himself: "What watch? What are you talking about? God knows I haven't any watch."

"I know what I'm saying: don't lie. You have the watch: give it to me."

"No. I haven't got your watch."

"And in the drinking-house you--" I began, but David held me back.

"Wassily Tarentiev," he said in a low, threatening voice, "we know for certain that you have the watch. I am in earnest. Give me the watch, and if you don't give it to me--"

Wassily sniffed insolently: "And what will you do with me, then?"

"What? We will both fight with you until you beat us or we beat you."

Wassily laughed: "Fight? It's not the thing for young gentlemen to fight with a servant."

David quickly took hold of Wassily's waistcoat. "True, we are not going to fight with our fists," he said, grinding his teeth. "Listen! I shall give you a knife and take one myself, and we shall see who--Alexis!" he called to me, "go and bring me my large knife: you know--the one with the bone handle: it is lying on the table. I have the other in my pocket."

Wassily nearly fell to the ground. David still held him by the waistcoat. "Have mercy on me, David," he stammered forth, the tears coming into his eyes. "What does this mean? What are you doing? Oh, let me go!"

"I sha'n't let you go, and you need not expect any mercy. If you're afraid to-day, we'll try again to-morrow.--Alexis, where's the knife?"

"David," roared Wassily, "don't commit a murder. What do you mean? And the watch! Well, I was joking. I--I'll fetch it this minute. What a fellow you are! First you want to cut open Chrisauf Lukitsch; then me. Leave me, David. Be good enough to take the watch; only say nothing about it."

David let go of Wassily's waistcoat. I looked at his face. Really, any one would have been frightened, he looked so fierce and cold and angry. Wassily ran into the house, and at once returned, bringing the watch. Without a word he gave it to David, and only when he had got back again to the house he shouted out from the threshold, "Fie! what a row!" David shook his head and went into our chamber. I still followed him. "Suwarow, just like Suwarow," I thought to myself. At that time, in the year 1801, Suwarow was our first national hero.

XVIII.

David closed the door behind him, laid the watch down on the table, folded his hands, and, strange to say, burst out laughing. I looked at him and laughed too. "It's a most extraordinary thing," he began: "we can't get rid of this watch in any way. It's really bewitched. And why did I suddenly get so angry?"

"Yes, why?" I repeated. "If you'd left it with Wassily---"

"No, no," interrupted David: "that would have been foolish. But what shall we do with it now?"

"Yes, what shall we?"

We both looked at the watch and considered, Adorned with a blue string of pearls (the unhappy Wassily in his terror had not been able to remove this decoration, which belonged to him), it was going quietly. It ticked--to be sure somewhat unevenly--and the minute-hand was slowly advancing.

"Shall we bury it again, or throw it into the river?" I asked at last. "Or shall we not give it to Latkin?"

"No," answered David, "none of those things. But do you know? At the governor's office there is a committee to receive gifts for the benefit of those who were burnt out at Kassimow. They say that the town of Kassimow, with all its churches, has been burned to the ground; and I hear they receive everything--not merely bread and money, but all sorts of things. We'll give the watch, eh?"

"Yes, indeed," I assented. "A capital idea! But I thought since your friend's family was in need---"

"No, no--to the committee! The Latkins will pull through without that. To the committee!"

"Well, to the committee--yes, to the committee. Only, I suppose we must write a line to the governor."

David looked at me: "You suppose?"

"Yes, of course we must write something. Just a few words."

"For example?"

"Well, for example, we might begin, 'Sympathizing,' or, 'Moved by'---"

"'Moved by' will do very well."

"And we must add, 'this mite of ours.'"

"'Mite' is good, too. Now take your pen and sit down and write."

"First a rough draft," I suggested.

"Well, first a rough draft; only write. Meanwhile, I'll polish it up a little with chalk."

I took a sheet of paper, cut a pen, but had not yet written at the head of the page, "To his Excellency, to his Highness Prince" (Prince X---- was the governor of our district), when I started, alarmed by a strange uproar which suddenly arose in the house. David also noticed the noise and started, holding the watch in his left hand and the rag covered with chalk in his right. What was that shrill shriek? It was my aunt screaming. And that? That is my father's voice, hoarse with anger. "The watch! the watch!" some one cries, probably Trankwillitatin. The stamping of feet, the creaking of the stairs, the rush of the crowd, are all coming straight toward us. I am nearly dead with fright, and even David is as pale as a sheet, but his eye is as bold as an eagle's. "That wretched Wassily has betrayed us," he hisses between his teeth. The door opens wide, and my father in his dressing-gown, without a cravat, my aunt in a dressing-sack, Trankwillitatin, Wassily, Juschka, another young fellow, Agapit the cook, all hustle into the room.

"You fiends!" cries my father almost breathless, "at last we have found you out!" And, catching a glimpse of the watch in David's hand, he cries out, "Give me the watch--give it to me!"

But David without a word springs to the open window, from that into the yard, and thence into the street. Since I always, in everything I do, follow my model, also jump from the window and run after David.

"Stop them! hold them!" confused voices cry after us.

But we tear along the street, bareheaded, David in front, I a few steps behind, and in the distance we hear the clatter of their feet and their cries.

XIX.

Many years have passed since this happened, and I have often thought it over, and to this day I cannot comprehend the fury which possessed my father, who not long before had forbidden any one's speaking about the watch because it bored him, any more than I can David's wrath when he heard that Wassily had taken it. I can't help thinking it had some mysterious power. Wassily had not told about us, as David supposed--he did not want to do that, he had been too badly frightened--but one of the servant-girls had seen the watch in his hands and had told my aunt. Then all the fat was in the fire.

So we ran along the street in the carriage-way. The people who met us stood still or got out of our way, without knowing what was going on. I remember an old retired major, who was a great hunter, suddenly appeared at his window, and, his face crimson, leaning halfway out, he cried aloud, "Tally ho!" as if he were at a chase. "Stop them!" they kept crying behind us. David ran, swinging the watch over his head, only seldom jumping: I also jumped at the same places.

"Where?" I cried to David, seeing him turn from the street into a little lane, into which I also turned.

"To the Oka," he answered. "Into the water with it! into the river!" "Stop! stop!" they roared behind us. But we were already running along the lane. A puff of cool air meets us, and there is the river, and the dirty steep bank, and the wooden bridge with a long train of wagons, and the sentinel armed with a pike stands at the toll-gate. In those days the soldiers used to carry pikes. David is already on the bridge: he dashes by the sentinel, who tries to trip him up with his pike, and instead hits a calf coming the other way. David jumps on the rail, utters a great cry, and something white and something blue flash and sparkle through the air: they are the silver watch and Wassily's row of pearls flying into the water. But then something incredible happens. After the watch fly David's feet and his whole body, head downward, hands foremost: his coat, flying in the air, describes a curve through the air--in hot days frightened frogs jump just that way from a height into the water--and disappears over the railing of the bridge, and then, flash! and a great shower of water is dashed up from below. What I did I am sure I do not know. I was only a few steps from David when he sprang from the railing, but I can't remember whether I cried out. I don't think I was even frightened: it was as if I had been struck by lightning. I lost all consciousness: my hands and feet were powerless. People ran and pushed by me: some of them it seemed as if I knew. Suddenly Trofimytsch appeared. The sentinel ran off to one side: the horses walked hastily over the bridge, their heads in the air. Then everything grew green, and some one was beating my neck and down my back. I had fainted. I remember that I rose, and when I noticed that no one was paying any attention to me, I went to the railing, but not on the side from which David had jumped--to go there seemed to me terrible--but to the other side, and looked down into the blue, swollen stream. I remember noticing by the shore, not far from the bridge, a boat was lying, and in the boat were some people, and one of them, all wet and glistening in the sun, leaned over the side of the boat and pulled something out of the water--something not very large--a long, dark thing, which I at first took for a trunk or a basket; but on looking more carefully I made out that this thing was David. Then I began to tremble: I cried out as loud as I could, and ran toward the boat, forcing my way through the crowd. But as I came near I lost my courage and began to look behind me. Among the people standing about I recognized Trankwillitatin, the cook Agapit with a boot in his hand, Juschka, Wassily. The wet man was lifting David out of the boat. Both of David's hands were raised as high as his face, as if he wanted to protect himself from strangers' eyes. He was laid on his back in the mud on the shore. He did not move. Perfectly straight, like a soldier on parade, with his heels together and his chest out. His face had a greenish hue, his eyes were closed, and the water was dripping from his hair. The man who had pulled him out was, judging from his dress, a mill-hand: shivering with cold and perpetually brushing his hair from his brow, he began to tell us how he had succeeded. He spoke slowly and clearly: "You see, gentlemen, how it was. As this young man falls from the bridge, well, I run down stream, for I know if he has fallen into the current it will carry him under the bridge; and then I see something--what is it?--something like a rough cap is floating down: it's his head. Well, I jump into the water and take hold of him: there's nothing remarkable in that."

I could hear scattered remarks of the crowd. "You must warm yourself: we'll take something hot together," said some one.

Then some one forces his way to the front--it is Wassily. "What are you all doing here?" he cries piteously. "We must bring him to life. He's our young master."

"Bring him to life! bring him to life!" is heard in the ever-growing crowd.

"We must hold him up by the feet."

"Hold him up by the feet! That's the best thing."

"And roll him up and down on a barrel until---Here, take hold of him."

"Don't touch him," the sentinel interrupts: "he must go to the guard-house."

"Nonsense!" is heard in Trofimytsch's deep bass, no one knows whence.

"But he's alive!" I cried suddenly, almost alarmed.

I had put my face near his. I was thinking, "That's the way drowned people look," and my heart was near breaking, when all at once I saw David's lips quiver and some water flowing from them. Immediately I was shoved away and everybody crowded about him. "Swing him I swing him!" some cry.

"No, no, don't!" cried Wassily: "take him home."

"Take him home," even Trankwillitatin cried.

"He'll be there in a moment: then he'll be better," continued Wassily. (I loved him from that day.) "Friends, is there no mat there? If not, I'll take him by the head and some one else by the heels."

"Hold on! here's a mat: lay him on it. All right: it's as comfortable as a carriage."

And a few minutes later, David, lying on a litter, made his entrance into the house.

XX.

He was undressed and put into bed. Already, while carried through the street, he had given signs of life, sighing and moving his hands: in his chamber he came to full consciousness. But as soon as he was out of danger and was no longer in need of their care, dissatisfaction asserted itself. Every one withdrew from him as from a leper. "May Heaven punish him, the red-headed devil!" roared my aunt through the whole house. "Send him away somewhere, Porphyr Petrovitch, or he'll be the ruin of you yet."

"He is indeed a viper, and the devil is in him," added Trankwillitatin sympathetically.

"And such viciousness!" shouted my aunt, passing close by our door, so that David could not help hearing her. "First he stole the watch, and then into the water with it, so that no one should have it. Yes, yes, redhead!"

"David," asked I as soon as we were alone, "why did you do that?"

"And you too!" he answered, still with a feeble voice. His lips were blue, and he looked all puffed up. "What did I do?"

"Why did you jump into the water?"

"Jump? I couldn't stand on the railing, that's all. If I had known how to swim--if I had jumped on purpose--I shall learn at once. But the watch is gone."

But my father entered the room with a solemn step. "As for you, my young sir," he said to me, "you can expect a sound thrashing, even if you are too big for me to take you across my knee." Then he walked up to the bed on which David lay, "In Siberia," he began in an earnest and serious tone--"in Siberia, in the house of correction, in the mines, live and die people who are less guilty, who are less criminal, than you. Are you a suicide, or only a thief, or a perfect fool? Just tell me that, if you please."

"I am neither a suicide nor a thief," answered David, "but what is true is true: in Siberia there are good people, better than you and I. Who knows that better than you do?"

My father uttered a little cry, took a step back, looked at David, spat on the floor, crossed himself and went out.

"Didn't you like that?" asked David, sticking out his tongue. Then he tried to rise, but he was still too weak. "I must have hit something," he said, groaning and frowning. "I remember the current carried me against a pier.--Have you seen Raissa?" he asked suddenly.

"No I have not seen her. Stop! I remember now. Wasn't she standing on the shore near the bridge? Yes--a black dress, a yellow handkerchief on her head--that was she."

"Well, you did see her?"

"I don't know. After that--I--you jumped in then."

David became restless: "Alexis, my dear friend, go to her at once: tell her I'm well--that there's nothing the matter. To-morrow I'll go and see hen Go at once, please, to oblige me." He stretched out both arms toward me. His red hair had dried into all sorts of funny ringlets, but his look of entreaty was only the more genuine. I took my hat and left the house, trying to avoid my father's eye lest I should remind him of his promise.

XXI.

And indeed I thought on my way to the Latkins how it was possible that I did not notice Raissa. Where had she disappeared to? She must have seen--Suddenly I remembered that at the very moment David was falling a heartrending shriek had sounded in my ears. Was it not she? But in that case why did I not see her? Before the hovel in which Latkin lived was an empty space covered with nettles and surrounded by a broken, tottering fence. I had hardly got over this fence--for there was no gate or entrance--before my eyes were greeted with this sight: On the lowest step in front of the house sat Raissa, her elbows on her knees and holding her chin in her folded hands: she was looking straight out into vacancy. Near her stood her little dumb sister, playing quietly with a whip, and before the steps, with his back to me, was Latkin in a shabby, torn jacket, his feet in felt slippers, bending over her and brandishing his elbows and stalking about. When he heard my steps he turned round, leant down on the tips of his toes, and then suddenly sprang at me and began to speak with unusual speed in a quivering voice and with an incessant "Choo, choo, choo!" I was amazed. It was long since I had seen him, and I should scarcely have known him if I had met him anywhere else. This wrinkled, red, toothless face, these small, round, dull eyes, this tangled gray hair, these contortions and motions, this senseless, wandering talk,--what does it all mean? What cruel suffering torments this unhappy being? What a dance of death is this!

"Choo, choo, choo," he muttered, bending over continually: "see them, the Wassilievna--she's just come, with a trou--a trough on the roof" (he struck his head with his hand), "and she sits there like a shovel, and cross, cross as Andruscha, the cross Wassilievna" (he meant, probably, "mute"). "Choo; my cross Wassilievna! Now they are both on one last--just see her! I have only these two doctors."

Latkin was evidently aware that he was not saying what he meant, and he made every effort to explain matters to me. Raissa, apparently, did not hear what he was saying, and her little sister went on snapping her whip. My head grew confused. "What does it all mean?" I asked of an old woman who was looking out of the window of the house.

"What does it mean, sir?" answered she in a sing-song voice. "They say some one--Heaven knows who it was--tried to drown himself, and she saw him. That frightened her, but she managed to get home: no one noticed anything strange, and she sat down there on the threshold, and since then she's sat there like an image, whether one speaks to her or not. It's as if she had no tongue."

"Good-bye! good-bye!" repeated Latkin, still with the same gestures.

I walked to Raissa and stood just before her. "Raissa," I cried, "what is the matter?"

She made no answer: it was as if she had not heard me. Her face was no paler, nor in any way different, except that it had a stony look and an expression of slight fatigue.

"She is cross too," Latkin whispered to me.

I took Raissa by the hand. "David is alive." I cried louder than before--"alive and unhurt. David is alive: do you understand? They have taken him out of the water, he is now at home, and he has sent word that he will come to-morrow to see you. He is alive."

Raissa turned her eyes toward me slowly, as if it hurt her: she winked them two or three times, opened them wider: then she turned her head to one side, flushed suddenly, parted her lips, drew a full breath, frowned as if from pain and with great effort, bringing out the words, "Da--Dav--is--al--alive," and rose hastily from the steps and rushed away.

"Where are you going?" I inquired.

But, laughing gently, she flew over the ground. I of course hastened after her, while behind us was a sound of voices--the aged one that of Latkin, and the childish cry that of the deaf mute. Raissa went straight to our house.

"What a day this has been!" I thought to myself as I tried to keep up with the black dress that flew along in front of me.

Raissa ran past Wassily, my aunt, and even Trankwilhtatin, into the room in which David was lying, and threw herself on his breast. "Oh, oh, David!" came her voice forth from under her loosened hair. And raising his arms he embraced her and let his head rest on her shoulder.

"Forgive me, dear," I heard him say, and both nearly died with joy.

"But why did you go home, Raissa? Why didn't you wait?" I asked. She still did not raise her head. "You might have seen that he was saved."

"Oh, I don't know, I don't know: don't ask me. I don't know: I can't recall how I got home. I only remember I was looking into the air, and a blow hit me; but that was--"

"A blow?" repeated David, and we all three burst out laughing, for we were very happy.

"But what's going on here?" roared a threatening voice behind us, the voice of my father. He was standing in the doorway. "Will these monkey-tricks come to an end or not? Where are we living? In the Russian empire or in the French republic?" He came into the room. "Let any one who is turbulent and vicious begone to France.--And how do you dare to enter here?" he asked of Raissa, who, rising a little and turning her face toward him, was evidently alarmed, although she continued to smile gently. "The daughter of my sworn enemy! How have you dared? And to embrace him too! Away with you at once, or--"

"Uncle," said David, raising himself in bed, "don't insult Raissa: she will go, but don't insult her."

"Will you order me about? I am not insulting her, I'm not _insulting_ her: I merely order her out of the house. I shall yet call you to account. You have made away with another's property: you have laid violent hands upon yourself; you have damaged--"

"What have I damaged?" interrupted David.

"What have you damaged? You have ruined your clothes: do you consider that nothing? I had to give money to the people who brought you here. You frightened the whole family, and you still put on your airs. And this girl, who has lost all sense of shame and honor--"

David tried to spring from the bed: "Don't you insult her, I tell you."

"Silence!"

"Don't you dare--"

"Silence!"

"Don't you dare to insult the woman I am going to marry, my future wife," cried David with all his might.

"Going to marry! your wife!" repeated my father, his eyes rolling. "Your wife! ho! ho! ho!" ("Ha! ha! ha!" echoed my aunt outside the door.) "How old are you? A year less one week has he been in this world--he's hardly weaned yet--and he wants to get married! I shall--"

"Let me go! let me go!" whispered Raissa, turning to the door.

"I shall not ask your permission," shouted David, supporting himself on his hands, "but my own father's, who will be back to-day or to-morrow. He can command me, not you; and as for my age, both Raissa and I can wait. You can say what you please: we shall wait."

"David, think a moment," interrupted my father: "take care what you say. You are beside yourself: you have forgotten all respect."

David grasped his shirt where it lay across his breast. "Whatever you may say," he repeated.

"Stop his mouth, Porphyr Petrovitch--silence him!" hissed my aunt from the door; "and as for this baggage, this--"

But something strange cut my aunt's eloquence short: her voice became suddenly silent, and in its place was heard another, weak and hoarse from age. "Brother!" exclaimed this weak voice--"Christian souls!"

XXIII.

We all turned round. Before us, in the same dress in which I had just seen him, stood Latkin, looking like a ghost, thin, haggard and sad. "God," he said in a somewhat childish way, raising his trembling, bent figure and gazing feebly at my father--"God has punished, and I have come for Wa--for Ra--yes, yes, for Raissa. What--choo--what ails me? Soon I shall be laid--what do you call that thing? a staff--straight--and that other thing?--a prop. That's all I need, and you, brother jeweler, see: I too am a man."

Raissa crossed the room without a word, and while she supported her father she buttoned his jacket.

"Let us go, Wassilievna," he said. "All here are saints: don't go near them; and he who lies there in a case," pointing to David, "is also a saint. But we, brother, you and I, are sinners. Choo, gentlemen: excuse an old, broken-down man. We have stolen together," he cried suddenly--"stolen together, stolen together," he repeated with evident joy: at last he had control of his tongue.

All of us in the room were silent. "But where is your picture of the saints?" he inquired, gazing about: "we must cleanse ourselves."

In one corner he began to pray, crossing himself humbly, so that he touched first one shoulder, then another. "Have mercy, Lord! on my, on my--" My father, who had watched closely without speaking a word, suddenly started, came near him, and began to cross himself. Then he turned and bowed so low that his hand nearly touched the floor, and said, "Do you also forgive me, Martinian Gavrilitsch," and he kissed his shoulder. Latkin answered by kissing in the air and winking his eyes: he evidently hardly knew what he was doing. Then my father turned to all who were in the room--to David, Raissa and me. "Do what you please, do whatever you think you may," he said in a low, sad voice, and he left the room, completely broken down.

"Lord my! Lord my! have mercy on me!" repeated Latkin. "I am a man."

"Good-bye, David," said Raissa, leaving the room with her father.

"I'll be with you to-morrow," shouted David after her; and turning his face to the wall he muttered, "I am very tired: I should like to go to sleep;" and he became quiet.

For a long time I lingered there. I could not forget my father's threat. But my fears proved groundless. He met me, but he uttered no word. He too seemed uncomfortable. Besides, it soon was night and all in the house went to rest.

XXIV.

The next day David got up as if nothing had happened, and not long afterward, on one and the same day, two important events took place: in the morning died the old Latkin, Raissa's father, and in the evening Jegor, David's father, arrived. Since he had not sent any letter or told any one, he took us all by surprise. My father exerted himself actively to give him a warm reception. He flew about as if he were crazy, and was as attentive as if he owed him money. But all his brother's efforts seemed to leave my uncle cold: he kept saying, "Why do you do that?" or, "I don't need anything." He was even cooler with my aunt; besides, he paid very little attention to her. In her eyes he was an atheist, a heretic, a Voltairian (in fact, he had learned French in order to read Voltaire in the original). I found Uncle Jegor as David had described him. He was a large, heavy man, with a broad, pock-marked face, grave and serious. He always wore a hat with a feather in it, frills and ruffles, and a tobacco-colored jacket, with a steel sword by his side. David took a great deal of pleasure in him: he even grew more cheerful and better-looking, and his eyes changed: they became merry, quick and brilliant. But he always tried to moderate his joy and not to give it expression: he was afraid of appearing weak. The first evening after my uncle's return they two, father and son, shut themselves! up in a separate room and talked together in a low voice for a long time. The next morning I noticed that my uncle looked at David with great confidence and affection: he appeared very well pleased with him. David carried; him to Latkin's funeral services at the church. I also went: my father made no objection, but he remained at home. Raissa's calm surprised me: she had grown pale and thin, but she shed no tears, and her words and actions were very simple. In everything she did I noticed, strangely enough, a certain majesty--the majesty of grief, which forgets itself. At the entrance of the church Uncle Jegor was introduced to her. It was evident from his manner that David had spoken to him of her. She pleased him as much as did his son. I could see that in David's face when I next looked at it. I remember how it glowed when his father said of her in his presence, "She's an intelligent girl: she will be a good housewife." At Latkin's house they told me that the old man had gone quietly, like a burned-out taper, and that so long as he had strength and consciousness he had stroked his daughter's hair, had said something unintelligible, but not sad, and had smiled continually. At the burial my father went to the church and to the graveyard.

Even Trankwillitatin sang in the choir. At the grave' Raissa burst suddenly into sobs and threw herself, face downward, on the ground, but she rose immediately. Her little sister, the deaf mute, looked at everything with great, bright, somewhat dull eyes: from time to time she drew near Raissa, but she did not seem at all afraid. The second day after the funeral, Uncle Jegor, who, apparently, had not come back from Siberia empty-handed (he had paid all the funeral expenses and given David's preserver a generous reward)--who had said nothing of his life there nor of his plans for the future--Uncle Jegor, I say, said to my father that he had determined not to stay in Riasan, but to go with his son to Moscow. My father politely expressed his regret, and even tried, though very gently, to alter my uncle's decision, but in the depths of his soul I fancy he was very glad. The presence of his brother--with whom he had too little in common, who had not honored him with even a single reproach, who did not even despise him, who simply took no pleasure in him--was wearisome to him, and parting from David gave him no especial uneasiness. This separation, of course, nearly broke my heart: at first I was really bereaved, and I felt as if I had lost every comfort and joy in life.

So my uncle went off and took with him not only David, but, to our great surprise, and even to the great dissatisfaction of our street, Raissa and her little sister. When my aunt heard of this she called him a Turk, and a Turk she called him till her death.

And I was left alone, alone, but it makes no difference about me.

XXV.

That is the end of my story about the watch. What shall I add to it? Five years later David married "Little Black-lip," and in the year 1812 he died, a lieutenant in the artillery, the death of a hero at the battle of Borodino, defending the redoubt of Schewardino. Since then a great deal of water has run into the sea, and I have had many watches: I have even been so magnificent as to have a real Breguet repeater with second-hand and the day of the month. But in the secret drawer of my desk lies an old silver watch with a rose on the case: I bought it of a Jew peddler, struck by its resemblance to the watch my godfather gave me. From time to time, when I am alone and expect no visitor, I take it out of its case, and when I look at it I think of my youth and the companions of those days which are gone never to return.

TRANSLATIONS FROM HEINE.

I.--CHILDE HAROLD.

Lo, a large, black-shrouded barge
Sadly moves with sails outspread,
And mute creatures' muffled features
Hold grim watch above the dead.

Calm below it lies the poet,
With his fair face bare and white,
Still with yearning ever turning
Azure eyes toward heaven's light.

As he saileth, sadly waileth
Some bereaven Undine bride:
O'er the springing waves outringing,
Hark! a dirge floats far and wide.

II.--SPRING FESTIVAL.

This is the springtide's mournful feast:
The frantic troops of blooming girls
Are rushing hither with flying curls:
Moaning they smite their bare white breast,
Adonis! Adonis!

The night hath come. By the torches' gleams
They search the forest on every side,
That echoes with anguish far and wide,
With tears, mad laughter, and sobs and screams,
Adonis! Adonis!

The mortal youth, so strangely fair,
Lies on the cold turf pale and dead:
His heart's blood staineth the flowers red,
And a wild lament fulfills the air,
Adonis! Adonis!

EMMA LAZARUS.

LETTERS FROM SOUTH AFRICA.

BY LADY BARKER.

D'URBAN, January 3, 1876.

I must certainly begin this letter by setting aside every other topic for the moment and telling you of our grand event, our national celebration, our historical New Year's Day. We have "turned the first sod" of our first inland railway, and, if I am correctly informed, at least a dozen sods more, but you must remember, if you please, that our navvies are Kafirs, and that they do _not_ understand what Mr. Carlyle calls the beauty and dignity of labor in the least. It is all very well for you conceited dwellers in the Old and New Worlds to laugh at us for making such a fuss about a projected hundred miles of railway--you whose countries are made into dissected maps by the magic iron lines--but for poor us, who have to drag every pound of sugar and reel of sewing-cotton over some sixty miles of vile road between this and Maritzburg, such a line, if it be ever finished, will be a boon and a blessing indeed.

I think I can better make you understand _how_ great a blessing if I describe my journeys up and down--journeys made, too, under exceptionally favorable circumstances. The first thing which had to be done, some three weeks before the day of our departure, was to pack and send down by wagon a couple of portmanteaus with our smart clothes. I may as well mention here that the cost of the transit came to fourteen shillings each way for three or four small, light packages, and that on each occasion we were separated from our possessions for a fortnight or more. The next step to be taken was to secure places in the daily post-cart, and it required as much mingled firmness and persuasion to do this as though it had reference to a political crisis. But then there were some hundreds of us Maritzburgians all wanting to be taken down to D'Urban within the space of a few days, and there was nothing to take us except the open post-cart, which occupied six hours on the journey, and an omnibus, which took ten hours, but afforded more shelter from possible rain and probable sun. Within the two vehicles some twenty people might, at a pinch, find places, and at least a hundred wanted to go every day of that last week of the old year. I don't know how the others managed: they must have got down somehow, for there they were in great force when the eventful day had arrived.

This first journey was prosperous, deceitfully prosperous, as though it would fain try to persuade us that after all there was a great deal to be said in favor of a mode of traveling which reminded one of the legends of the glories of the old coaching days. No dust--for there had been heavy rain a few days before--a perfect summer's day, hot enough in the sun, but not disagreeably hot as we bowled along, fast as four horses could go, in the face of a soft, balmy summer breeze. We were packed as tightly as we could fit--two of us on the coach-box, with the mail-bags under our feet and the driver's elbows in our ribs. The ordinary light dog-cart which daily runs between Maritzburg and D'Urban was exchanged for a sort of open break, strong indeed, but very heavy, one would fancy, for the poor horses, who had to scamper along up and down veldt and berg, over bog and spruit, with this lumbering conveyance at their heels. Not for long, though: every seven miles, or even less, we pulled up--sometimes at a tidy inn, where a long table would be set in the open verandah laden with eatables (for driving fast through the air sharpens even the sturdy colonial appetite), sometimes at a lonely shanty by the roadside, from whence a couple of Kafir lads emerged tugging at the bridles of the fresh horses. But I am bound to say that although each of these teams did a stage twice a day, although they were ill-favored and ill-groomed, their harness shabby beyond description, and their general appearance most forlorn, they were one and all in good condition and did their work in first-rate style. The wheelers were generally large, gaunt and most hideous animals, but the leaders often were ponies who, one could imagine, under happier circumstances might be handsome little horses enough, staunch and willing to the last degree. They knew their driver's cheery voice as well as possible, and answered to every cry and shout of encouragement he gave them as we scampered along. Of course, each horse had its name, and equally of course "Sir Garnet" was there in a team with "Lord Gifford" and "Lord Carnarvon" for leaders. Did we come to a steep hillside, up which any respectable English horse would certainly expect to walk in a leisurely, sober fashion, then our driver shook out his reins, blew a ringing blast on his bugle, and cried, "Walk along, Lord Gifford! think as you've another Victoriar Cross to get top o' this hill! Walk along, Lord Carnarvon! you ain't sitting in a cab'net council _here_, you know. Don't leave Sir Garnet do all the work, you know. Forward, my lucky lads! creep up it!" and by the time he had shrieked out this and a lot more patter, behold! we were at the top of the hill, and a fresh, lovely landscape was lying smiling in the sunshine below us. It was a beautiful country we passed through, but, except for a scattered homestead here and there by the roadside, not a sign of a human dwelling on all its green and fertile slopes. How the railway is to drag itself up and round all those thousand and one spurs running into each other, with no distinct valley or flat between, is best known to the engineers and surveyors, who have declared it practicable. To the non-professional eye it seems not only difficult, but impossible. But oh how it is wanted! All along the road shrill bugle-blasts warned the slow, trailing ox-wagons, with their naked "forelooper" at their head, to creep aside out of our way, I counted one hundred and twenty wagons that day on fifty miles of road. Now, if one considers that each of these wagons is drawn by a span of some thirty or forty oxen, one has some faint idea of how such a method of transport must waste and use up the material of the country. Something like ten thousand oxen toil over this one road summer and winter, and what wonder is it not only that merchandise costs more to fetch up from D'Urban to Maritzburg than it does to bring it out from England, but that beef is dear and bad! As transport pays better than farming, we hear on all sides of farms thrown out of cultivation, and as a necessary consequence milk, butter, and so forth are scarce and poor, and in the neighborhood of Maritzburg, at least, it is esteemed a favor to let you have either at exorbitant prices and of most inferior quality. When one looks round at these countless acres of splendid grazing-land, making a sort of natural park on either hand, it seems like a bad dream to know that we have constantly to use preserved milk and potted meat as being cheaper and easier to procure than fresh.

No one was in any mood, however, to discuss political economy that beautiful day, and we laughed and chatted, and ate a great many luncheons, chiefly of tea and peaches, all the way along. Our driver enlivened the route by pointing out various spots where frightful accidents had occurred to the post-cart on former occasions: "You see that big stone? Well, it war jest there that Langabilile and Colenso, they takes the bits in their teeth, those 'osses do, and they sets off their own pace and their own way. Jim Stanway, he puts his brake down hard and his foot upon the reins, but, Lord love you! them beasts would ha' pulled his arms and legs both off afore they'd give in. So they runs poor Jim's near wheel right up agin that bank and upsets the whole concern, as neat as needs be, over agin that bit o' bog. Anybody hurt? Well, yes: they was all what you might call shook. Mr. Bell, he had his arm broke, and a foreign chap from the diamond-fields, he gets killed outright, and Jim himself had his head cut open. It was a bad business, you bet, and rough upon Jim. Ja!"

All the driver's conversation is interlarded with "Ja," but he never says a worse word than that, and he drinks nothing but tea. As for a pipe, or a cigar even, when it is offered to him he screws up his queer face into a droll grimace and says, "No--thanks. I want all my nerves, I do, on this bit of road.--Walk along, Lady Barker: I'm ashamed of you, I am, hanging your head like that at a bit of a hill!" It was rather startling to hear this apostrophe all of a sudden, but as my namesake was a very hard-working little brown mare, I could only laugh and declare myself much flattered.

Here we are at last, amid the tropical vegetation which makes a green and tangled girdle around D'Urban for a dozen miles inland: yonder is the white and foaming line of breakers which marks where the strong current, sweeping down the east coast, brings along with it all the sand and silt it can collect, especially from the mouth of the Umgeni River close by, and so forms the dreaded bar, which divides the outer from the inner harbor. Beyond this crisp and sparkling line of heaving, tossing snow stretches the deep indigo-blue of the Indian Ocean, whilst over all wonderful sunset tints of opal and flame-color are hovering and changing with the changing, wind-driven clouds. Beneath our wheels are many inches of thick white sand, but the streets are gay and busy, with picturesque coolies in their bright cotton draperies and swiftly-passing Cape carts and vehicles of all sorts. We are in D'Urban indeed--D'Urban in unwonted holiday dress and on the tippest tiptoe of expectation and excitement. A Cape cart, with a Chinese coolie driver, and four horses apparently put in harness together for the first time, was waiting for us and our luggage at the post-office. We got into it, and straight-way began to plunge through the sandy streets once more, turning off the high-road and beginning almost immediately to climb with pain and difficulty the red sandy slopes of the Berea, a beautiful wooded upland dotted with villas. The road is terrible for man and beast, and we had to stop every few yards to breathe the horses. At last our destination is reached, through fields of sugar-cane and plantations of coffee, past luxuriant fruit trees, rustling, broad-leafed bananas and encroaching greenery of all sorts, to a clearing where a really handsome house stands, with hospitable, wide-open doors, awaiting us. Yes, a good big bath first, then a cup of tea, and now we are ready for a saunter in the twilight on the wide level terrace (called by the ugly Dutch name "stoop") which runs round three sides of the house. How green and fragrant and still it all is! Straight-way the glare of the long sunny day, the rattle and jolting of the post-cart, the toil through the sand, all slip away from mind and memory, and the tranquil delicious present, "with its-odors of rest and of love," slips in to soothe and calm our jaded senses. Certainly, it is hotter here than in Maritzburg--that assertion we are prepared to die in defence of--but we acknowledge that the heat at this hour is _not_ oppressive, and the tropical luxuriance of leaf and flower all around is worth a few extra degrees of temperature. Of course, our talk is of to-morrow, and we look anxiously at the purpling clouds to the west.

"A fine day," says our host; and so it ought to be with five thousand people come from far and wide to see the sight. Why, that is more than a quarter of the entire white population of Natal! Bed and sleep become very attractive suggestions, though made indecently soon after dinner, and it is somewhere about ten o'clock when they are carried out, and, like Lord Houghton's famous "fair little girl," we

Know nothing more till again it is day.

A fine day, too, is this same New Year's Day of 1876--a glorious day--sunny of course, but with a delicious breeze stealing among the flowers and shrubs in capricious puffs, and snatching a differing scent from each heavy cluster of blossom it visits. By mid-day F---- has got himself into his gold-laced coat and has lined the inside of his cocked hat with plaintain-leaves.

He has also groaned much at the idea of substituting this futile head-gear for his hideous but convenient pith helmet. I too have donned my best gown, and am horrified to find how much a smart bonnet (the first time I have needed to wear one since I left England) sets off and brings out the shades of tan in a sun-browned face; and for a moment I too entertain the idea of retreating once more to the protecting depths of my old shady hat. But a strong conviction of the duty one owes to a "first sod," and the consoling reflection that, after all, everybody will be equally brown (a fallacy, by the way: the D'Urban beauties looked very blanched by this summer weather), supported me, and I followed F---- and his cocked hat into the waiting carriage.