Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories

by Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev

Many years have passed since the date of these events; I have reflected over them more than once--and to this day I can no more understand the cause of the fury that took possession of my father (who had so lately been so sick of the watch that he had forbidden it to be mentioned in his hearing) than I can David's rage at its having been stolen by Vassily! One is tempted to imagine that there was some mysterious power connected with it. Vassily had not betrayed us as David assumed--he was not capable of it: he had been too much scared--it was simply that one of our maids had seen the watch in his hands and had promptly informed our aunt. The fat was in the fire!

And so we darted down the street, keeping to the very middle of it. The passers-by who met us stopped or stepped aside in amazement. I remember a retired major craned out of the window of his flat--and, crimson in the face, his bulky person almost overbalancing, hallooed furiously. Shouts of "Stop! hold them" still resounded behind us.

David ran flourishing the watch over his head and from time to time leaping into the air; I jumped, too, whenever he did.

"Where?" I shouted to David, seeing that he was turning into a side street--and I turned after him.

"To the Oka!" he shouted. "To throw it into the water, into the river. To the devil!"

"Stop! stop!" they shouted behind.

But we were already flying along the side street, already a whiff of cool air was meeting us--and the river lay before us, and the steep muddy descent to it, and the wooden bridge with a train of waggons stretching across it, and a garrison soldier with a pike beside the flagstaff; soldiers used to carry pikes in those days. David reached the bridge and darted by the soldier who tried to give him a blow on the legs with his pike and hit a passing calf. David instantly leaped on to the parapet; he uttered a joyful exclamation.... Something white, something blue gleamed in the air and shot into the water--it was the silver watch with Vassily's blue bead chain flying into the water.... But then something incredible happened. After the watch David's feet flew upwards--and head foremost, with his hands thrust out before him and the lapels of his jacket fluttering, he described an arc in the air (as frightened frogs jump on hot days from a high bank into a pond) and instantly vanished behind the parapet of the bridge ... and then flop! and a tremendous splash below.

What happened to me I am utterly unable to describe. I was some steps from David when he leapt off the parapet ... but I don't even remember whether I cried out; I don't think that I was even frightened: I was stunned, stupefied. I could not stir hand or foot. People were running and hustling round me; some of them seemed to be people I knew. I had a sudden glimpse of Trofimitch, the soldier with the pike dashed off somewhere, the horses and the waggons passed by quickly, tossing up their noses covered with string. Then everything was green before my eyes and someone gave me a violent shove on my head and all down my back ... I fell fainting.

I remember that I came to myself afterwards and seeing that no one was paying any attention to me went up to the parapet but not on the side that David had jumped. It seemed terrible to me to approach it, and as I began gazing into the dark blue muddy swollen river, I remember that I noticed a boat moored to the bridge not far from the bank, and several people in the boat, and one of these, who was drenched all over and sparkling in the sun, bending over the edge of the boat was pulling something out of the water, something not very big, oblong, a dark thing which at first I took to be a portmanteau or a basket; but when I looked more intently I saw that the thing was--David. Then in violent excitement I shouted at the top of my voice and ran towards the boat, pushing my way through the people, but when I had run down to it I was overcome with timidity and began looking about me. Among the people who were crowding about it I recognised Trankvillitatin, the cook Agapit with a boot in his hand, Yushka, Vassily ... the wet and shining man held David's body under the arms, drew him out of the boat and laid him on his back on the mud of the bank. Both David's hands were raised to the level of his face as though he were trying to hide himself from strange eyes; he did not stir but lay as though standing at attention, with his heels together and his stomach out. His face was greenish--his eyes were staring and water was dripping from his hair. The wet man who had pulled him out, a factory hand, judging by his clothes, began describing how he had done it, shivering with cold and continually throwing back his hair from his forehead as he talked. He told his story in a very proper and painstaking way.

"What do I see, friends? This young lad go flying from the bridge.... Well! ... I ran down at once the way of the current for I knew he had fallen into mid-stream and it would carry him under the bridge and there ... talk of the devil! ... I looked: something like a fur cap was floating and it was his head. Well, quick as thought, I was in the water and caught hold of him.... It didn't need much cleverness for that!"