Knock, Knock, Knock and Other Stories eBook

Kuzma Vassilyevitch laughed, took the cards, and all evil thoughts immediately slipped out of his mind.

But they came back to him that very day.  When he had got out of the gate into the street, had said good-bye to Emilie, shouted to her for the last time, "Adieu, Zuckerpuppchen!" a short man darted by him and turning for a minute in his direction (it was past midnight but the moon was shining rather brightly), displayed a lean gipsy face with thick black eyebrows and moustache, black eyes and a hooked nose.  The man at once rushed round the corner and it struck Kuzma Vassilyevitch that he recognised—­not his face, for he had never seen it before—­but the cuff of his sleeve.  Three silver buttons gleamed distinctly in the moonlight.  There was a stir of uneasy perplexity in the soul of the prudent lieutenant; when he got home he did not light as usual his meerschaum pipe.  Though, indeed, his sudden acquaintance with charming Emilie and the agreeable hours spent in her company would alone have induced his agitation.

X

Whatever Kuzma Vassilyevitch’s apprehensions may have been, they were quickly dissipated and left no trace.  He took to visiting the two ladies from Riga frequently.  The susceptible lieutenant was soon on friendly terms with Emilie.  At first he was ashamed of the acquaintance and concealed his visits; later on he got over being ashamed and no longer concealed his visits; it ended by his being more eager to spend his time with his new friends than with anyone and greatly preferring their society to the cheerless solitude of his own four walls.  Madame Fritsche herself no longer made the same unpleasant impression upon him, though she still treated him morosely and ungraciously.  Persons in straitened circumstances like Madame Fritsche particularly appreciate a liberal expenditure in their visitors, and Kuzma Vassilyevitch was a little stingy and his presents for the most part took the shape of raisins, walnuts, cakes....  Only once he let himself go and presented Emilie with a light pink fichu of real French material, and that very day she had burnt a hole in his gift with a candle.  He began to upbraid her; she fixed the fichu to the cat’s tail; he was angry; she laughed in his face.  Kuzma Vassilyevitch was forced at last to admit to himself that he had not only failed to win the respect of the ladies from Riga, but had even failed to gain their confidence:  he was never admitted at once, without preliminary scrutinising; he was often kept waiting; sometimes he was sent away without the slightest ceremony and when they wanted to conceal something from him they would converse in German in his presence.  Emilie gave him no account of her doings and replied to his questions in an offhand way as though she had not heard them; and, worst of all, some of the rooms in Madame Fritsche’s house, which was a fairly large one, though it looked like a hovel from the street, were never opened to him.  For all that, Kuzma Vassilyevitch did not give up his visits; on the contrary, he paid them more and more frequently:  he was seeing living people, anyway.  His vanity was gratified by Emilie’s continuing to call him Florestan, considering him exceptionally handsome and declaring that he had eyes like a bird of paradise, “wie die Augen eines Paradiesvogels!”