XX

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...."

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. XXI

"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 the utmost
composure brandishing a little whip, while, facing the steps with his
back to me, old Latkin, in torn and shabby drawers and high felt
boots, was trotting and prancing up and down, capering and jerking his
elbows. Hearing my footsteps he suddenly turned round and squatted
on his heels--then at once, skipping up to me, began speaking
very rapidly in a trembling voice, incessantly repeating,
"Tchoo--tchoo--tchoo!" I was dumbfoundered. I had not seen him for a
long time and should not, of course, have known him if I had met him
anywhere else. That red, wrinkled, toothless face, those lustreless
round eyes and touzled grey hair, those jerks and capers, that
senseless halting speech! What did it mean? What inhuman despair was
torturing this unhappy creature? What dance of death was this? "Tchoo--tchoo," he muttered, wriggling incessantly. "See Vassilyevna
here came in tchoo--tchoo, just now.... Do you hear? With a trough on
the roof" (he slapped himself on the head with his hand), "and there
she sits like a spade, and she is cross-eyed, cross-eyed, like
Andryushka; Vassilyevna is cross-eyed" (he probably meant to say
dumb), "tchoo! My Vassilyevna is cross-eyed! They are both on the same
cork now. You may wonder, good Christians! I have only these two
little boats! Eh?" Latkin was evidently conscious that he was not saying the right thing
and made terrible efforts to explain to me what was the matter. Raissa
did not seem to hear what her father was saying and the little sister
went on lashing the whip. "Good-bye, diamond-merchant, good-bye, good-bye," Latkin drawled
several times in succession, making a low bow, seeming delighted at
having at last got hold of an intelligible word. My head began to go round. "What does it all mean?" I asked of an old woman who was looking out
of the window of the little house. "Well, my good gentleman," she answered in a sing-song voice, "they
say some man--the Lord only knows who--went and drowned himself and
she saw it. Well, it gave her a fright or something; when she came
home she seemed all right though; but when she sat down on the
step--here, she has been sitting ever since like an image, it's no good
talking to her. I suppose she has lost her speech, too. Oh, dear! Oh,
dear!" "Good-bye, good-bye," Latkin kept repeating, still with the same bow. I went up to Raissa and stood directly facing her. "Raissa, dear, what's the matter with you?" She made no answer, she seemed not to notice me. Her face had not
grown pale, had not changed--but had turned somehow stony and there
was a look in it as though she were just falling asleep. "She is cross-eyed, cross-eyed," Latkin muttered in my ear. I took Raissa by the hand. "David is alive," I cried, more loudly than
before. "Alive and well; David's alive, do you understand?