‘I was at your place the day before yesterday, Ivan Demianitch,’ replied Fustov.
‘But I call that a long while, ha - ha!’
When Mr. Ratsch laughed, his white eyes shifted from side to side in a strange, restless way.
‘You’re surprised, young man, I see, at my behaviour,’ he addressed me again. ‘But that’s because you don’t understand my temperament. You must just ask our good friend here, Alexander Daviditch, to tell you about me. What’ll he tell you? He’ll tell you old Ratsch is a simple, good - hearted chap, a regular Russian, in heart, if not in origin, ha - ha! At his christening named Johann Dietrich, but always called Ivan Demianitch! What’s in my mind pops out on my tongue; I wear my heart, as they say, on my sleeve. Ceremony of all sorts I know naught about and don’t want to neither! Can’t bear it! You drop in on me one day of an evening, and you’ll see for yourself. My good woman — my wife, that is — has no nonsense about her either; she’ll cook and bake you... something wonderful! Alexander Daviditch, isn’t it the truth I’m telling?’
Fustov only smiled, and I remained silent.
‘Don’t look down on the old fellow, but come round,’ pursued Mr. Ratsch. ‘But now...’ (he pulled a fat silver watch out of his pocket and put it up to one of his goggle eyes)’I’d better be toddling on, I suppose. I’ve another chick expecting me.... Devil knows what I’m teaching him,... mythology, by God! And he lives a long way off, the rascal, at the Red Gate! No matter; I’ll toddle off on foot. Thanks to your brother’s cutting his lesson, I shall be the fifteen kopecks for sledge hire to the good! Ha - ha! A very good day to you, gentlemen, till we meet again!... Eh?... We must have a little duet!’ Mr. Ratsch bawled from the passage putting on his goloshes noisily, and for the last time we heard his metallic laugh.
V
‘What a strange man!’ I said, turning to Fustov, who had already set to work at his turning - lathe. ‘Can he be a foreigner? He speaks Russian so fluently.’
‘He is a foreigner; only he’s been thirty years in Russia. As long ago as 1802, some prince or other brought him from abroad... in the capacity of secretary... more likely, valet, one would suppose. He does speak Russian fluently, certainly.’
‘With such go, such far - fetched turns and phrases,’ I put in.
‘Well, yes. Only very unnaturally too. They’re all like that, these Russianised Germans.’
‘But he’s a Czech, isn’t he?’
‘I don’t know; may be. He talks German with his wife.’
‘And why does he call himself a veteran of the year twelve? Was he in the militia, or what?’
‘In the militia! indeed! At the time of the fire he remained in Moscow and lost all his property.... That was all he did.’
‘But what did he stay in Moscow for?’
Fustov still went on with his turning.
‘The Lord knows. I have heard that he was a spy on our side; but that must be nonsense. But it’s a fact that he received compensation from the treasury for his losses.’
‘He wears some sort of uniform.... I suppose he’s in government service then?’
‘Yes. Professor in the cadet’s corps. He has the rank of a petty councillor.’
‘What’s his wife like?’
‘A German settled here, daughter of a sausagemaker... or butcher....’
‘And do you often go to see him?’
‘Yes.’
‘What, is it pleasant there?’
‘Rather pleasant.’
‘Has he any children?’
‘Yes. Three by the German, and a son and daughter by his first wife.’
‘And how old is the eldest daughter?’
‘About five - and - twenty,’
I fancied Fustov bent lower over his lathe, and the wheel turned more rapidly, and hummed under the even strokes of his feet.
‘Is she good - looking?’
‘That’s a matter of taste. She has a remarkable face, and she’s altogether... a remarkable person.’
‘Aha!’ thought I. Fustov continued his work with special earnestness, and to my next question he only responded by a grunt.
‘I must make her acquaintance,’ I decided.
VI
A few days later, Fustov and I set off to Mr. Ratsch’s to spend the evening. He lived in a wooden house with a big yard and garden, in Krivoy Place near the Pretchistensky boulevard. He came out into the passage, and meeting us with his characteristic jarring guffaw and noise, led us at once into the drawing - room, where he presented me to a stout lady in a skimpy canvas gown, Eleonora Karpovna, his wife. Eleonora Karpovna had most likely in her first youth been possessed of what the French for some unknown reason call beauté du diable, that is to say, freshness; but when I made her acquaintance, she suggested involuntarily to the mind a good - sized piece of meat, freshly laid by the butcher on a clean marble table. Designedly I used the word ‘clean’; not only our hostess herself seemed a model of cleanliness, but everything about her, everything in the house positively shone, and glittered; everything had been scoured, and polished, and washed: the samovar on the round table flashed like fire; the curtains before the windows, the table - napkins were crisp with starch, as were also the little frocks and shirts of Mr. Ratsch’s four children sitting there, stout, chubby little creatures, exceedingly like their mother, with coarsely moulded, sturdy faces, curls on their foreheads, and red, shapeless fingers. All the four of them had rather flat noses, large, swollen - looking lips, and tiny, light - grey eyes.
‘Here’s my squadron!’ cried Mr. Ratsch, laying his heavy hand on the children’s heads one after another. ‘Kolia, Olga, Sashka and Mashka! This one’s eight, this one’s seven, that one’s four, and this one’s only two! Ha! ha! ha! As you can see, my wife and I haven’t wasted our time! Eh, Eleonora Karpovna?’
‘You always say things like that,’ observed Eleonora Karpovna and she turned away.
‘And she’s bestowed such Russian names on her squallers!’ Mr. Ratsch pursued. ‘The next thing, she’ll have them all baptized into the Orthodox Church! Yes, by Jove! She’s so Slavonic in her sympathies, ‘pon my soul, she is, though she is of German blood! Eleonora Karpovna, are you Slavonic?’
Eleonora Karpovna lost her temper.
‘I’m a petty councillor’s wife, that’s what I am! And so I’m a Russian lady and all you may say....’
‘There, the way she loves Russia, it’s simply awful!’ broke in Ivan Demianitch. ‘A perfect volcano, ho, ho!’
‘Well, and what of it?’ pursued Eleonora Karpovna. ‘To be sure I love Russia, for where else could I obtain noble rank? And my children too are nobly born, you know. Kolia, sitze ruhig mit den Füssen!’
Ratsch waved his hand to her.
‘There, there, princess, don’t excite yourself! But where’s the nobly born Viktor? To be sure, he’s always gadding about! He’ll come across the inspector one of these fine days! He’ll give him a talking - to! Das ist ein Bummler, Fiktor!’
‘Dem Fiktov kann ich nicht kommandiren, Ivan Demianitch. Sie wissen wohl!’ grumbled Eleonora Karpovna.
I looked at Fustov, as though wishing finally to arrive at what induced him to visit such people... but at that instant there came into the room a tall girl in a black dress, the elder daughter of Mr. Ratsch, to whom Fustov had referred.... I perceived the explanation of my friend’s frequent visits.
VII
There is somewhere, I remember, in Shakespeare, something about ‘a white dove in a flock of black crows’; that was just the impression made on me by the girl, who entered the room. Between the world surrounding her and herself there seemed to be too little in common; she herself seemed secretly bewildered and wondering how she had come there. All the members of Mr. Ratsch’s family looked self - satisfied, simple - hearted, healthy creatures; her beautiful, but already careworn, face bore the traces of depression, pride and morbidity. The others, unmistakable plebeians, were unconstrained in their manners, coarse perhaps, but simple; but a p
ainful uneasiness was manifest in all her indubitably aristocratic nature. In her very exterior there was no trace of the type characteristic of the German race; she recalled rather the children of the south. The excessively thick, lustreless black hair, the hollow, black, lifeless but beautiful eyes, the low, prominent brow, the aquiline nose, the livid pallor of the smooth skin, a certain tragic line near the delicate lips, and in the slightly sunken cheeks, something abrupt, and at the same time helpless in the movements, elegance without gracefulness... in Italy all this would not have struck me as exceptional, but in Moscow, near the Pretchistensky boulevard, it simply astonished me! I got up from my seat on her entrance; she flung me a swift, uneasy glance, and dropping her black eyelashes, sat down near the window ‘like Tatiana.’ (Pushkin’s Oniegin was then fresh in every one’s mind.) I glanced at Fustov, but my friend was standing with his back to me, taking a cup of tea from the plump hands of Eleonora Karpovna. I noticed further that the girl as she came in seemed to bring with her a breath of slight physical chillness.... ‘What a statue!’ was my thought.
VIII
‘Piotr Gavrilitch,’ thundered Mr. Ratsch, turning to me, ‘let me introduce you to my... to my... my number one, ha, ha, ha! to Susanna Ivanovna!’
I bowed in silence, and thought at once: ‘Why, the name too is not the same sort as the others,’ while Susanna rose slightly, without smiling or loosening her tightly clasped hands.
‘And how about the duet?’ Ivan Demianitch pursued: ‘Alexander Daviditch? eh? benefactor! Your zither was left with us, and I’ve got the bassoon out of its case already. Let us make sweet music for the honourable company!’ (Mr. Ratsch liked to display his Russian; he was continually bursting out with expressions, such as those which are strewn broadcast about the ultra - national poems of Prince Viazemsky.) ‘What do you say? Carried?’ cried Ivan Demianitch, seeing Fustov made no objection. ‘Kolka, march into the study, and look sharp with the music - stand! Olga, this way with the zither! And oblige us with candles for the stands, better - half!’ (Mr. Ratsch turned round and round in the room like a top.) ‘Piotr Gavrilitch, you like music, hey? If you don’t care for it, you must amuse yourself with conversation, only mind, not above a whisper! Ha, ha ha! But what ever’s become of that silly chap, Viktor? He ought to be here to listen too! You spoil him completely, Eleonora Karpovna.’
Eleonora Karpovna fired up angrily.
‘Aber was kann ich denn, Ivan Demianitch...’
‘All right, all right, don’t squabble! Bleibe ruhig, hast verstanden? Alexander Daviditch! at your service, sir!’
The children had promptly done as their father had told them. The music - stands were set up, the music began. I have already mentioned that Fustov played the zither extremely well, but that instrument has always produced the most distressing impression upon me. I have always fancied, and I fancy still, that there is imprisoned in the zither the soul of a decrepit Jew money - lender, and that it emits nasal whines and complaints against the merciless musician who forces it to utter sounds. Mr. Ratsch’s performance, too, was not calculated to give me much pleasure; moreover, his face became suddenly purple, and assumed a malignant expression, while his whitish eyes rolled viciously, as though he were just about to murder some one with his bassoon, and were swearing and threatening by way of preliminary, puffing out chokingly husky, coarse notes one after another. I placed myself near Susanna, and waiting for a momentary pause, I asked her if she were as fond of music as her papa.
She turned away, as though I had given her a shove, and pronounced abruptly, ‘Who?’
‘Your father,’ I repeated,’Mr. Ratsch.’
‘Mr. Ratsch is not my father.’
‘Not your father! I beg your pardon... I must have misunderstood... But I remember, Alexander Daviditch...’
Susanna looked at me intently and shyly.
‘You misunderstood Mr. Fustov. Mr. Ratsch is my stepfather.’
I was silent for a while.
‘And you don’t care for music?’ I began again.
Susanna glanced at me again. Undoubtedly there was something suggesting a wild creature in her eyes. She obviously had not expected nor desired the continuation of our conversation.
‘I did not say that,’ she brought out slowly. ‘Troo - too - too - too - too - oo - oo...’ the bassoon growled with startling fury, executing the final flourishes. I turned round, caught sight of the red neck of Mr. Ratsch, swollen like a boa - constrictor’s, beneath his projecting ears, and very disgusting I thought him.
‘But that... instrument you surely do not care for,’ I said in an undertone.
‘No... I don’t care for it,’ she responded, as though catching my secret hint.
‘Oho!’ thought I, and felt, as it were, delighted at something.
‘Susanna Ivanovna,’ Eleonora Karpovna announced suddenly in her German Russian, ‘music greatly loves, and herself very beautifully plays the piano, only she likes not to play the piano when she is greatly pressed to play.’
Susanna made Eleonora Karpovna no reply — she did not even look at her — only there was a faint movement of her eyes, under their dropped lids, in her direction. From this movement alone — this movement of her pupils — I could perceive what was the nature of the feeling Susanna cherished for the second wife of her stepfather.... And again I was delighted at something.
Meanwhile the duet was over. Fustov got up and with hesitating footsteps approached the window, near which Susanna and I were sitting, and asked her if she had received from Lengold’s the music that he had promised to order her from Petersburg.
‘Selections from Robert le Diable,’ he added, turning to me, ‘from that new opera that every one’s making such a fuss about.’
‘No, I haven’t got it yet,’ answered Susanna, and turning round with her face to the window she whispered hurriedly. ‘Please, Alexander Daviditch, I entreat you, don’t make me play to - day. I don’t feel in the mood a bit.’
‘What’s that? Robert le Diable of Meyer - beer?’ bellowed Ivan Demianitch, coming up to us: ‘I don’t mind betting it’s a first - class article! He’s a Jew, and all Jews, like all Czechs, are born musicians. Especially Jews. That’s right, isn’t it, Susanna Ivanovna? Hey? Ha, ha, ha, ha!’
In Mr. Ratsch’s last words, and this time even in his guffaw, there could be heard something more than his usual bantering tone — the desire to wound was evident. So, at least, I fancied, and so Susanna understood him. She started instinctively, flushed red, and bit her lower lip. A spot of light, like the gleam of a tear, flashed on her eyelash, and rising quickly, she went out of the room.
‘Where are you off to, Susanna Ivanovna?’ Mr. Ratsch bawled after her.
‘Let her be, Ivan Demianitch, ‘put in Eleonora Karpovna. ‘Wenn sie einmal so et was im Kopfe hat...’
‘A nervous temperament,’Ratsch pronounced, rotating on his heels, and slapping himself on the haunch, ‘suffers with the plexus solaris. Oh! you needn’t look at me like that, Piotr Gavrilitch! I’ve had a go at anatomy too, ha, ha! I’m even a bit of a doctor! You ask Eleonora Karpovna... I cure all her little ailments! Oh, I’m a famous hand at that!’
‘You must for ever be joking, Ivan Demianitch,’ the latter responded with displeasure, while Fustov, laughing and gracefully swaying to and fro, looked at the husband and wife.
‘And why not be joking, mein Mütterchen?’ retorted Ivan Demianitch. ‘Life’s given us for use, and still more for beauty, as some celebrated poet has observed. Kolka, wipe your nose, little savage!’
IX
‘I was put in a very awkward position this evening through your doing,’ I said the same evening to Fustov, on the way home with him. ‘You told me that that girl — what’s her name? — Susanna, was the daughter of Mr. Ratsch, but she’s his stepdaughter.’
‘Really! Did I tell you she was his daughter? But... isn’t it all the same?’
‘That Ratsch,’ I went on.... ‘O Alexander, how I detest him! Did you notice
the peculiar sneer with which he spoke of Jews before her? Is she... a Jewess?’
Fustov walked ahead, swinging his arms; it was cold, the snow was crisp, like salt, under our feet.
‘Yes, I recollect, I did hear something of the sort,’ he observed at last.... ‘Her mother, I fancy, was of Jewish extraction.’
‘Then Mr. Ratsch must have married a widow the first time?’
‘Probably.’
‘H’m!... And that Viktor, who didn’t come in this evening, is his stepson too?’
‘No... he’s his real son. But, as you know, I don’t enter into other people’s affairs, and I don’t like asking questions. I’m not inquisitive.’
I bit my tongue. Fustov still pushed on ahead. As we got near home, I overtook him and peeped into his face.
‘Oh!’ I queried, ‘is Susanna really so musical?’
Fustov frowned.
‘She plays the piano well, ‘he said between his teeth. ‘Only she’s very shy, I warn you!’ he added with a slight grimace. He seemed to be regretting having made me acquainted with her.
I said nothing and we parted.
X
Next morning I set off again to Fustov’s. To spend my mornings at his rooms had become a necessity for me. He received me cordially, as usual, but of our visit of the previous evening — not a word! As though he had taken water into his mouth, as they say. I began turning over the pages of the last number of the Telescope.
A person, unknown to me, came into the room. It turned out to be Mr. Ratsch’s son, the Viktor whose absence had been censured by his father the evening before.
He was a young man, about eighteen, but already looked dissipated and unhealthy, with a mawkishly insolent grin on his unclean face, and an expression of fatigue in his swollen eyes. He was like his father, only his features were smaller and not without a certain prettiness. But in this very prettiness there was something offensive. He was dressed in a very slovenly way; there were buttons off his undergraduate’s coat, one of his boots had a hole in it, and he fairly reeked of tobacco.
Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) Page 251