Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 101, May, 1876

THE WATCH: AN OLD MAN'S STORY

BY IVAN TOURGUENEFF

I

I will tell you my story about the watch. A singular story! The whole thing at the very beginning of the century, in the year 1801. I was just sixteen. I lived at Riasan with my father, aunt and cousin, in a little wooden house not far from the banks of the Oka. I don't remember my mother: she died when she had been only three years married, and my father had no child but me. My father's name was Porphyr Petrovitch: he was a quiet man with feeble health, who occupied himself with managing law-business, and—in other ways. In old times they used to call such people sowers of discord: he called himself an attorney. His sister, my aunt, kept the house. She was an old maid of fifty: my father had already left his fortieth year behind him. She was a very pious woman. In fact, to tell the truth, she was a great hypocrite, gossiping and meddlesome, and she did not have a kind heart like my father. We were not poor, but we had no more than we really needed. My father had also a brother, named Gregory, but he had been accused of seditious actions and Jacobinical sentiments (so it ran in the ukase), and he had been sent to Siberia in 1797.

Gregory's son David, my cousin, was left on my father's hands, and he lived with us. He was only a year older than I, but I gave way to him and obeyed him as if he had been a most important personage. He was a bright boy of a good deal of character, sturdy and broad-shouldered, with a square, freckled face, red hair, small gray eyes, thick lips, a short nose and short fingers, and of a strength far beyond his years. My aunt could not endure him, and my father was afraid of him, or perhaps had a consciousness of guilt before him. There had been a rumor that if my father had not told too much and left his brother in the lurch, David's father would not have been sent to Siberia. We were both in the same class in the gymnasium, and we both made good progress—I somewhat better than David. My memory was stronger than his, but boys, as every one knows, do not appreciate that advantage: they are not proud of it; and in spite of it I always looked up to David.

II

My name, as you know, is Alexis. I was born on the seventh of March, and celebrate my birthday on the seventeenth. They gave me, according to the old custom, the name of one of those saints whose anniversary fell ten days after my birth. My godfather was a certain Anastasius Anistasiovitch Putschkow, or Nastasa Nastasaitch, as he was always called. He was a fearful liar and slanderer and cheat—a thoroughly bad man: he had been turned out of a government office, and had been brought before the court more than once; but my father needed him: they "worked" together. In appearance he was stout and bloated, with a face like a fox, a nose as sharp as a needle, little dark, glistening eyes, like a fox's eyes, and he kept them always moving from side to side; and he moved his nose too, as if he were sniffing something in the air. He wore high-heeled shoes, and he powdered his hair every day, which was considered strange conduct in the provinces in those days. He assured people he could not do otherwise, as he was acquainted with so many generals and generals' wives. And my birthday came, and Nastasa Nastasaitch appeared at our house and said, "I have never yet given you anything, but see what I have brought you to-day." And he took from his pocket an old-fashioned silver watch, with a rose painted on the face, and a bronze chain.

I stood motionless with joy, and my aunt screamed out, "Kiss his hand, kiss his hand, stu—, boy!"

I kissed my godfather's hand, but my aunt added, "Oh, Nastasa, why do you spoil him so? What should he want of a watch? He will be sure to lose it or break it."

My father came in, looked at the watch, and having thanked Nastasa somewhat coolly, called him into his office. I heard my father say, as if he were talking to himself, "If you hope to get off in that way—" But I could not wait a moment longer: I stuck the watch in my pocket and rushed off to show it to David.

III

David took the watch, opened it and examined it carefully. He had a great talent for mechanics: he could work in iron, copper and all kinds of metals. He had got himself several kinds of tools, and he could easily repair or make anew a screw, a key, and so on. David turned the watch about in his hands, and muttered between his teeth—he was not talkative—"Old—poor," and asked, "Where did you get it?"

I told him my godfather gave it to me.

"Nastasa?"

"Yes, Nastasa Nastasaitch."

David set the watch down on the table and walked off without a word.

"You don't like it?" I asked.

"No: that's not it; but in your place I would not have taken any present from Nastasa."

"Why not?"

"Because he is a contemptible creature, and I would not be under any obligations to him, or have to thank him for anything if I could help it. You kissed his hand, I suppose?"

"Yes: my aunt made me."

David smiled with a singular expression. That was his way. He never laughed aloud: he considered it a sign of weakness. David's words and his quiet smile pained me much. "He is blaming me in his heart," I thought. "In his eyes I am contemptible. He would never have lowered himself in that way: he would never accept a present from Nastasa. But what shall I do now?"

To give back the watch was impossible.

I tried to talk it over with David and get his advice, but he answered that he never gave any one advice, and that I must do what I thought best. I remember I could not sleep all that night, so great was my anxiety. It was hard to part with the watch. I put it on the table at my bedside, and it ticked so pleasantly! But then to feel that David despised me—and there was no doubt that he did—was unendurable. By morning I had come to a determination. It made me cry, but I went to sleep as soon as I had made it, and when I awoke I put on my clothes quickly and ran out in the street. I had determined to give my watch to the first poor person I met.

IV

I had not gone far from the house when I met what I wanted. A boy about ten years old ran across my path—a ragged, barefooted little fellow, who was often idling in front of our windows. I sprang toward him, and without giving him or myself time for reflection I offered him my watch. The boy stared at me, and raised one hand to his mouth as if he was afraid of burning his fingers, while he held out the other.

"Take it, take it!" I murmured: "it's mine—I give it to you. You can sell it and get something with the money, whatever you want. Good-bye!"

I thrust the watch into his hand, and ran quickly home. I stood for a minute behind the door of our common bedroom, and when I had recovered my breath I went up to David, who had nearly dressed himself and was combing his hair. "Do you know, David," I began with as calm a voice as I could muster, "I have given Nastasa's watch away?"

David looked at me and went on arranging his hair.

"Yes," I added in the same business-like tone, "I have given it away. There's a little boy very poor and miserable, and I've given it to him."

David put the brush down on the washstand.

"For the money he will get for it he can buy himself something useful. He will certainly get something for it." I was silent.

"Well, that's good," said David at last; and he went into our study, I following him.

"And if they ask you what you have done with it?" he suggested.

"I shall say I have lost it," I answered, as if that did not trouble me a bit. We spoke no more about the watch that day, but it seemed to me that David not only approved of what I had done, but that he really admired it to some extent. I was sure he did.

V

Two days went by. It happened that no one in the house thought about the watch. My father had some trouble with his clients, and did not concern himself with me or my watch. I, on the contrary, was thinking of it all the time. Even the supposed approval of David comforted me but little. He had not openly expressed it; only he had said once when we were talking together that he would not have expected it of me. Decidedly, my sacrifice was of but little use, since the satisfaction of my vanity did not compensate me for it. As luck would have it, there came a schoolmate of ours, the son of the city physician, who kept bragging of not even a silver, but of a pinchbeck watch his grandmother had given him. At last I could bear it no longer, and one day I slunk quietly out of the house, determined to find the boy to whom I had given my watch. I soon came across him: he was playing jackstones with some other boys in the church-porch. I called him aside, and, hardly waiting to take breath, I stammered out that my parents were very angry with me for giving the watch away, and that if he was willing to give it back to me I would gladly pay him for it. I had brought an Elizabeth ruble with me, which was all my savings.

"But I haven't got your watch," answered the boy with a tearful voice. "My father saw me have it and took it away from me: he did, and he wanted to whip me too. He said I must have stolen it somewhere. He said, 'Who would be such a fool as to give you a watch?'"

"And who is your father?"

"My father? Trofimytsch."

"But what is he? what's his business?"

"He is a discharged soldier, a sergeant, and he has no business. He mends and soles old shoes. That's all the business he has. He supports himself by that, too."

"Where does he live? Take me to him."

"Yes, I'll show you the way. You'll tell him you gave me the watch, won't you? He keeps calling me names about it, and my mother keeps asking, 'Who do you take after, that you're such a scamp?'"

The boy and I went together to his house. It was merely a rickety hut built in the back yard of a factory that had been burned down and never built up again. We found Trofimytsch and his wife at home. The discharged sergeant was a tall old man, straight and strong, with grayish-yellow whiskers, unshaven chin, a network of wrinkles on his forehead and cheeks. His wife looked older than he: her eyes shone dimly from the midst of a somewhat swollen face, into which they seemed to have been driven. Both wore dirty rags for clothes. I explained to Trofimytsch what I wanted and why I had come. He listened in silence, without even winking or turning his dull, attentive, soldierlike glance away from me.

"How foolish!" he said at last with a rough, toothless bass voice. "Do fine young men behave like that? If Petka did not steal the watch, that is one thing; but if he did, then I'll give it to him with the stick, as they used to do in the regiment. What is that? 'What a pity!' The stick, that's all. Pshaw!" Trofimytsch uttered these incoherent exclamations in falsetto: he had apparently understood nothing.

"If you will give me back the watch," I explained—I did not venture to say "thou" to him, although he was but a common soldier—"I'll willingly give you a ruble for it. I don't think it's worth more."

"Humph!" muttered Trofimytsch, who still did not understand, but continued to gaze at me attentively as if I were his superior officer. "So that's the way the matter stands? Well, then, take it.—Be still, Uliana!" he screamed angrily at his wife, who opened her mouth as if she were about to speak.—"There is the watch," he continued, opening a drawer: "if it's yours, be kind enough to take it, but why should I take the ruble?"

"Take the ruble, Trofimytsch, you fool!" sobbed his wife. "Have you gone crazy, old man? Not a single farthing have we left in our pockets if we were to turn them inside out, and here you are putting on airs! They've cut off your pigtail, but you're an old woman still. How can you act so? Take the money! Would you give the watch away?"

"Be still, you chatterbox!" repeated Trofimytsch. "When did one ever see such a sight? A woman reasoning! ha! Her husband is the head, and she—disputes!—Petka, don't mutter, or I'll kill you.—There's the watch." Trofimytsch held out the watch toward me, but would not let go of it. He considered for a moment: then he lowered his eyes and fixed that dull, straightforward glance upon me, and then suddenly screamed as loud as he could, "Where is it? where is the ruble?"

"Here, here!" I said hastily, and pulled the money out of my pocket. He did not take it, however, but continued to stare at me. I put the ruble on the table. He pushed it with one shove into the table-drawer, threw the watch to me, turned to the right about, and hissed at his wife and boy, "Away with you! get out!"

Uliana tried to stammer out a few words, but I was already outside the door on the street. I dropped the watch into the bottom of my pocket, held it tight with my hand and hastened homeward.

VI

I was again in possession of my watch, and yet it gave me no pleasure. I could not wear it, and above everything I had to hide from David what I had done. What would he have thought of me and of my lack of character? I could not even put my watch in the drawer, for we kept all our things there in common. I had to hide it—at one time on the top of the wardrobe, at another under the mattress, again behind the stove; and yet I did not succeed in deceiving David.

Once I had taken the watch from under the planks of our floor, and was trying to polish its silver case with an old leather glove. David had gone somewhere down town, and I did not think he was back when suddenly there he stood in the doorway! I was so confused that I almost let the watch drop, and, my face hot with blushes, I felt despairingly for my waistcoat pocket to put my watch into it. David looked at me and smiled in his silent way. "What are you after?" he said at last. "Did you think I didn't know you'd got the watch again? I saw it the first day you brought it back."

"I assure you—" I began with tears.

David shrugged his shoulders: "The watch is yours: you can do what you please with it."

When he had said those hard words he went out. I was overcome with mortification. This time there was no doubt that David despised me. That could not be borne. "I will show him," I said to myself, setting my teeth hard. With a firm step I walked into the next room, where our servant Juschka was, and gave him the watch. At first Juschka would not take it, but I declared to him that if he would not take the watch I would break it into pieces, trample it to powder, crush it to atoms. He thought for a moment, and finally consented to take it. When I came back to our room I found David reading a book. I told him what I had done. He did not lift his eyes from the page he was reading, but shrugged his shoulders again and said, "The watch is yours to do what you like with it." But it seemed to me as if he despised me a little less. I was fully determined not again to lay myself open to the charge of having no character, for this watch, this hateful present of my hateful godfather, had become so detestable that I could not understand how I could ever have been sorry to lose it, how I could have brought myself to begging it from a man like Trofimytsch, and give him the right to believe that he had behaved generously to me in regard to it.

Some days passed by. I remember that on one of them there came a great piece of news: the emperor Paul was dead, and his son Alexander, of whose generosity and humanity much had been said, had ascended the throne. This news greatly excited David, and awoke in him the hope of again seeing his father, and of seeing him soon. My father too was very glad. "All the exiles will now be allowed to return from Siberia, and they won't forget my brother Jegor," he repeated, rubbing his hands, but with a somewhat anxious expression. David I and I stopped working, and we did not even make a pretence of going to the gymnasium; indeed, we did not even go out to walk, but we used to hang about the house and conjecture and reckon in how many months, how many weeks, how many days "brother Jegor" would return—where we should write to him, how we would receive him, and how we should live then. "Brother Jegor" was an architect, and we both decided that he should move to Moscow and build there great schools for the poor, and we should be his assistants. The watch meanwhile we had entirely forgotten, but it was determined to recall itself to our memory.

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.