"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!"
Two or three words of approval were audible in the crowd.
"You ought to have something to warm you now. Come along and we will have a drink," said someone.
But at this point all at once somebody pushed forward abruptly: it was Vassily.
"What are you doing, good Christians?" he cried, tearfully. "We must bring him to by rolling him; it's our young gentleman!"
"Roll him, roll him," shouted the crowd, which was continually growing.
"Hang him up by the feet! it's the best way!"
"Lay him with his stomach on the barrel and roll him backwards and forwards.... Take him, lads."
"Don't dare to touch him," put in the soldier with the pike. "He must be taken to the police station."
"Low brute," Trofimitch's bass voice rang out.
"But he is alive," I shouted at the top of my voice and almost with horror. I had put my face near to his. "So that is what the drowned look like," I thought, with a sinking heart.... And all at once I saw David's lips stir and a little water oozed from them....
At once I was pushed back and dragged away; everyone rushed up to him.
"No, no, stay," shouted Vassily. "Take him home.... Take him home!"
"Take him home," Trankvillitatin himself chimed in.
"We will bring him to. We can see better there," Vassily went on.... (I have liked him from that day.) "Lads, haven't you a sack? If not we must take him by his head and his feet...."
"Stay! Here's a sack! Lay him on it! Catch hold! Start! That's fine. As though he were driving in a chaise."
A few minutes later David, borne in triumph on the sack, crossed the threshold of our house again.
He was undressed and put to bed. He began to give signs of life while in the street, moaned, moved his hands.... Indoors he came to himself completely. But as soon as all anxiety for his life was over and there was no reason to worry about him, indignation got the upper hand again: everyone shunned him, as though he were a leper.