Works of Ivan Turgenev (Illustrated) (295 page)

‘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.

‘How d’ye do,’ he said in a sleepy voice, with those peculiar twitchings of the head and shoulders which I have always noticed in spoilt and conceited young men. ‘I meant to go to the University, but here I am. Sort of oppression on my chest. Give us a cigar.’ He walked right across the room, listlessly dragging his feet, and keeping his hands in his trouser - pockets, and sank heavily upon the sofa.

‘Have you caught cold?’ asked Fustov, and he introduced us to each other. We were both students, but were in different faculties.

‘No!... Likely! Yesterday, I must own...’ (here Ratsch junior smiled, again not without a certain prettiness, though he showed a set of bad teeth) ‘I was drunk, awfully drunk. Yes’ — he lighted a cigar and cleared his throat — ’Obihodov’s farewell supper.’

‘Where’s he going?’

‘To the Caucasus, and taking his young lady with him. You know the black - eyed girl, with the freckles. Silly fool!’

‘Your father was asking after you yesterday,’ observed Fustov.

Viktor spat aside. ‘Yes, I heard about it. You were at our den yesterday. Well, music, eh?’

‘As usual.’

‘And
she
... with a new visitor’ (here he pointed with his head in my direction) ‘she gave herself airs, I’ll be bound. Wouldn’t play, eh?’

‘Of whom are you speaking?’ Fustov asked.

‘Why, of the most honoured Susanna Ivanovna, of course!’

Viktor lolled still more comfortably, put his arm up round his head, gazed at his own hand, and cleared his throat hoarsely.

I glanced at Fustov. He merely shrugged his shoulders, as though giving me to understand that it was no use talking to such a dolt.

XI

Viktor, staring at the ceiling, fell to talking, deliberately and through his nose, of the theatre, of two actors he knew, of a certain Serafrina Serafrinovna, who had ‘made a fool’ of him, of the new professor, R., whom he called a brute. ‘Because, only fancy, what a monstrous notion! Every lecture he begins with calling over the students’ names, and he’s reckoned a liberal too! I’d have all your liberals locked up in custody!’ and turning at last his full face and whole body towards Fustov, he brought out in a half - plaintive, half - ironical voice: ‘I wanted to ask you something, Alexander Daviditch.... Couldn’t you talk my governor round somehow?... You play duets with him, you know.... Here he gives me five miserable blue notes a month.... What’s the use of that! Not enough for tobacco. And then he goes on about my not making debts! I should like to put him in my place, and then we should see! I don’t come in for pensions, not like
some people
.’ (Viktor pronounced these last words with peculiar emphasis.) ‘But he’s got a lot of tin, I know! It’s no use his whining about hard times, there’s no taking me in. No fear! He’s made a snug little pile!’

Fustov looked dubiously at Victor.

‘If you like,’ he began, ‘I’ll speak to your father. Or, if you like... meanwhile... a trifling sum....’

‘Oh, no! Better get round the governor... Though,’ added Viktor, scratching his nose with all his fingers at once, ‘you might hand over five - and - twenty roubles, if it’s the same to you.... What’s the blessed total I owe you?’

‘You’ve borrowed eighty - five roubles of me.’

‘Yes.... Well, that’s all right, then... make it a hundred and ten. I’ll pay it all in a lump.’

Fustov went into the next room, brought back a twenty - five - rouble note and handed it in silence to Viktor. The latter took it, yawned with his mouth wide open, grumbled thanks, and, shrugging and stretching, got up from the sofa.

‘Foo! though... I’m bored,’ he muttered, ‘might as well turn in to the “Italie.”‘

He moved towards the door.

Fustov looked after him. He seemed to be struggling with himself.

‘What pension were you alluding to just now, Viktor Ivanitch?’ he asked at last.

Viktor stopped in the doorway and put on his cap.

‘Oh, don’t you know? Susanna Ivanovna’s pension.... She gets one. An awfully curious story, I can tell you! I’ll tell it you one of these days. Quite an affair, ‘pon my soul, a queer affair. But, I say, the governor, you won’t forget about the governor, please! His hide is thick, of course — German, and it’s had a Russian tanning too, still you can get through it. Only, mind my step - mother Elenorka’s nowhere about! Dad’s afraid of her, and she wants to keep everything for her brats! But there, you know your way about! Good - bye!’

‘Ugh, what a low beast that boy is!’ cried Fustov, as soon as the door had slammed - to.

His face was burning, as though from the fire, and he turned away from me. I did not question him, and soon retired.

XII

All that day I spent in speculating about Fustov, about Susanna, and about her relations. I had a vague feeling of something like a family drama. As far as I could judge, my friend was not indifferent to Susanna. But she? Did she care for him? Why did she seem so unhappy? And altogether, what sort of creature was she? These questions were continually recurring to my mind. An obscure but strong conviction told me that it would be no use to apply to Fustov for the solution of them. It ended in my setting off the next day alone to Mr. Ratsch’s house.

I felt all at once very uncomfortable and confused directly I found myself in the dark little passage. ‘She won’t appear even, very likely,’ flashed into my mind. ‘I shall have to stop with the repulsive veteran and his cook of a wife.... And indeed, even if she does show herself, what of it? She won’t even take part in the conversation.... She was anything but warm in her manner to me the other day. Why ever did I come?’ While I was making these reflections, the little page ran to announce my presence, and in the adjoining room, after two or three wondering ‘Who is it? Who, do you say?’ I heard the heavy shuffling of slippers, the folding - door was slightly opened, and in the crack between its two halves was thrust the face of Ivan Demianitch, an unkempt and grim - looking face. It stared at me and its expression did not immediately change.... Evidently, Mr. Ratsch did not at once recognise me; but suddenly his cheeks grew rounder, his eyes narrower, and from his opening mouth, there burst, together with a guffaw, the exclamation: ‘Ah! my dear sir! Is it you? Pray walk in!’

I followed him all the more unwillingly, because it seemed to me that this affable, good - humoured Mr. Ratsch was inwardly wishing me at the devil. There was nothing to be done, however. He led me into the drawing - room, and in the drawing - room who should be sitting but Susanna, bending over an account - book? She glanced at me with her melancholy eyes, and very slightly bit the finger - nails of her left hand.... It was a habit of hers, I noticed, a habit peculiar to nervous people. There was no one else in the room.

‘You see, sir,’ began Mr. Ratsch, dealing himself a smack on the haunch, ‘what you’ve found Susanna Ivanovna and me busy upon: we’re at our accounts. My spouse has no great head for arithmetic, and I, I must own, try to spare my eyes. I can’t read without spectacles, what am I to do? Let the young people exert themselves, ha - ha! That’s the proper thing. But there’s no need of haste.... More haste, worse speed in catching fleas, he - he!’

Susanna closed the book, and was about to leave the room.

‘Wait a bit, wait a bit,’ began Mr. Ratsch. ‘It’s no great matter if you’re not in your best dress....’ (Susanna was wearing a very old, almost childish, frock with short sleeves.) ‘Our dear guest is not a stickler for ceremony, and I should like just to clear up last week.... You don’t mind?’ — he addressed me. ‘We needn’t stand on ceremony with you, eh?’

‘Please don’t put yourself out on my account!’ I cried.

‘To be sure, my good friend. As you’re aware, the late Tsar Alexey Nikolavitch Romanoff used to say, “Time is for business, but a minute for recreation!” We’ll devote one minute only to that same business... ha - ha! What about that thirteen roubles and thirty kopecks?’ he added in a low voice, turning his back on me.

‘Viktor took it from Eleonora Karpovna; he said that it was with your leave,’ Susanna replied, also in a low voice.

‘He said... he said... my leave...’ growled Ivan Demianitch. ‘I’m on the spot myself, I fancy. Might be asked. And who’s had that seventeen roubles?’

‘The upholsterer.’

‘Oh... the upholsterer. What’s that for?’ ‘His bill.’

‘His bill. Show me!’ He pulled the book away from Susanna, and planting a pair of round spectacles with silver rims on his nose, he began passing his finger along the lines. ‘The upholsterer,.. the upholsterer... You’d chuck all the money out of doors! Nothing pleases you better!... Wie die Croaten! A bill indeed! But, after all,’ he added aloud, and he turned round facing me again, and pulled the spectacles off his nose, ‘why do this now? I can go into these wretched details later. Susanna Ivanovna, be so good as to put away that account - book, and come back to us and enchant our kind guest’s ears with your musical accomplishments, to wit, playing on the pianoforte... Eh?’