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 beaute
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 Fussen!’
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!’
Copyrights
The Jew and Other Stories from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.
