I set off with the boy to his home. They lived in a smoky hut in the back-yard of a factory, which had long ago been burnt down and not rebuilt. We found both Trofimitch and his wife at home. The discharged sergeant was a tall old man, erect and sinewy, with yellowish grey whiskers, an unshaven chin and a perfect network of wrinkles on his cheeks and forehead. His wife looked older than he. Her red eyes, which looked buried in her unhealthily puffy face, kept blinking dejectedly. Some sort of dark rags hung about them by way of clothes.
I explained to Trofimitch what I wanted and why I had come. He listened to me in silence without once winking or moving from me his stupid and strained--typically soldierly--eyes.
"Whims and fancies!" he brought out at last in a husky, toothless bass. "Is that the way gentlemen behave? And if Petka really did not steal the watch--then I'll give him one for that! To teach him not to play the fool with little gentlemen! And if he did steal it, then I would give it to him in a very different style, whack, whack, whack! With the flat of a sword; in horseguard's fashion! No need to think twice about it! What's the meaning of it? Eh? Go for them with sabres! Here's a nice business! Tfoo!"
This last interjection Trofimitch pronounced in a falsetto. He was obviously perplexed.
"If you are willing to restore the watch to me," I explained to him--I did not dare to address him familiarly in spite of his being a soldier--"I will with pleasure pay you this rouble here. The watch is not worth more, I imagine."
"Well!" growled Trofimitch, still amazed and, from old habit, devouring me with his eyes as though I were his superior officer. "It's a queer business, eh? Well, there it is, no understanding it. Ulyana, hold your tongue!" he snapped out at his wife who was opening her mouth. "Here's the watch," he added, opening the table drawer; "if it really is yours, take it by all means; but what's the rouble for? Eh?"
"Take the rouble, Trofimitch, you senseless man," wailed his wife. "You have gone crazy in your old age! We have not a half-rouble between us, and then you stand on your dignity! It was no good their cutting off your pigtail, you are a regular old woman just the same! How can you go on like that--when you know nothing about it? ... Take the money, if you have a fancy to give back the watch!"
"Ulyana, hold your tongue, you dirty slut!" Trofimitch repeated. "Whoever heard of such a thing, talking away? Eh? The husband is the head; and yet she talks! Petka, don't budge, I'll kill you.... Here's the watch!"
Trofimitch held out the watch to me, but did not let go of it.
He pondered, looked down, then fixed the same intent, stupid stare upon me. Then all at once bawled at the top of his voice: