VII.
One morning, just after breakfast, I was sitting alone in the window thinking of my uncle's return. The April thaw was dripping and sparkling without, when my aunt, Pulcheria Petrovna, rushed suddenly into the room. She was always very excitable and complaining, and she always spoke with a shrill voice, gesticulating a great deal; but this time she pounced upon me. "Come, come, go to your father this minute, young sir," she sputtered out. "What tricks you've been up to, you shameless boy! But you'll catch it, both of you. Nastasa Nastasaitch has discovered all your goings on. Go! Your father has sent for you: go this moment."
I mechanically followed my aunt, without in the least understanding what it was all about, and as I crossed the thresh-hold I saw my father with his hair on end walking up and down the room with long strides. Juschka was in tears near the door, and my godfather was sitting on a stool in the corner with a very malicious expression in his open nostrils and wandering eyes. My father flew at me as soon as I entered the room: "Did you give Juschka the watch? What?"
I looked at Juschka.
"Tell me," repeated my father, stamping with his feet.
"Yes," I answered, and immediately received a violent box on the ear, which gave my aunt a great deal of satisfaction. I heard her smack her lips with pleasure, as if she had just taken a good swallow of hot tea. My father rushed from me to Juschka. "You rascal! you ought not to have taken the watch," he cried, seizing him by the hair; "and you sold it to the watchmaker, you good-for-nothing fellow!"
Juschka, in fact, as I afterward learned, had in the simplicity of his heart sold my watch to a neighboring watchmaker. The watchmaker had hung it up in his window, where Nastasa had seen it. He bought it and brought it back to us. Juschka and I were not detained long: my father got out of breath and began to cough, and besides it was not his way to be cross.
"Brother," said my aunt, who noticed with regret that he was getting over his wrath, "don't trouble yourself any more about this matter: it's not worth dirtying your hands about. And listen to my proposal: if Nastasa consents, in view of your son's great ingratitude, I will take charge of the watch myself, and since he has shown by his behavior that he is no longer worthy of wearing it, I will give it in your name to a person who will know how to value your kindness as it deserves."
"Who is that?" asked my father.
"Christian Lukitsch," answered my aunt with a little hesitation.
"Christian?" asked my father; and then added with a wave of the hand, "It's all the same to me: you may throw it into the fire, for all I care."
He buttoned his waistcoat, which had come undone, and went out, doubled up with coughing.
"And you, cousin, do you agree?" said my aunt, turning to Nastasa.
"Entirely," he answered. During the whole scene he had not stirred from his stool, but there he sat, breathing audibly, rubbing the tips of his fingers together, and turning his fox eyes by turns on me, my father and Juschka. We gave him a great deal of amusement.
My aunt's proposal stirred me to the depths of my soul. I did not care for the watch, but I had a great dislike for the person to whom she proposed giving it. This Christian Lukitsch, whose family name was Trankwillitatin, a lanky blockhead of a student, had the habit of coming to see us, the deuce knows why. To see about the children's education, my aunt used to say; but he could not do anything of the sort, because he was very ignorant and as stupid as a horse. He was like a horse, too, in other ways: he used to stamp his feet like hoofs, he neighed rather than laughed, and opened his jaws when he did so till you could see down his throat; and he had a long face with a curved nose and large, flat check-bones: he wore a rough coat and smelt of raw meat. My aunt called him a respectable man, a cavalier, and even a grenadier. He had a way of tapping children on the forehead with the hard nails of his long fingers (he used to do it to me when I was younger) and saying, "Hear how empty your head sounds," and then laughing at his own wit. And this idiot was to have my watch? Never! was what I determined as I rushed from the room and flung myself at full length on my bed, my cheeks burning with the box on the ear I had just received. But in my heart was burning the bitterness of outraged dignity and thirst for revenge. Never would I let him triumph over me—wear the watch, hang the chain over his waistcoat, and neigh with joy. That was all very well, but how prevent it? I determined to steal the watch from my aunt.