“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.