I could hear scattered remarks of the crowd. "You must warm yourself: we'll take something hot together," said some one.
Then some one forces his way to the front--it is Wassily. "What are you all doing here?" he cries piteously. "We must bring him to life. He's our young master."
"Bring him to life! bring him to life!" is heard in the ever-growing crowd.
"Hold him up by the feet! That's the best thing."
"And roll him up and down on a barrel until---Here, take hold of him."
"Don't touch him," the sentinel interrupts: "he must go to the guard-house."
"Nonsense!" is heard in Trofimytsch's deep bass, no one knows whence.
"But he's alive!" I cried suddenly, almost alarmed.
I had put my face near his. I was thinking, "That's the way drowned people look," and my heart was near breaking, when all at once I saw David's lips quiver and some water flowing from them. Immediately I was shoved away and everybody crowded about him. "Swing him I swing him!" some cry.
"No, no, don't!" cried Wassily: "take him home."
"Take him home," even Trankwillitatin cried.
"He'll be there in a moment: then he'll be better," continued Wassily. (I loved him from that day.) "Friends, is there no mat there? If not, I'll take him by the head and some one else by the heels."
"Hold on! here's a mat: lay him on it. All right: it's as comfortable as a carriage."
And a few minutes later, David, lying on a litter, made his entrance into the house.
He was undressed and put into bed. Already, while carried through the street, he had given signs of life, sighing and moving his hands: in his chamber he came to full consciousness. But as soon as he was out of danger and was no longer in need of their care, dissatisfaction asserted itself. Every one withdrew from him as from a leper. "May Heaven punish him, the red-headed devil!" roared my aunt through the whole house. "Send him away somewhere, Porphyr Petrovitch, or he'll be the ruin of you yet."
"He is indeed a viper, and the devil is in him," added Trankwillitatin sympathetically.
"And such viciousness!" shouted my aunt, passing close by our door, so that David could not help hearing her. "First he stole the watch, and then into the water with it, so that no one should have it. Yes, yes, redhead!"