clenched. I turned away my eyes involuntarily;
but, after a brief interval, I forced myself to look,
to look long and attentively at her. Pity filled
my soul, and not pity alone. ‘That girl
died by violence,’ I decided inwardly; ‘that’s
beyond doubt.’ While I was standing looking
at the dead girl, the deacon, who on my entrance had
raised his voice and uttered a few disconnected sounds,
relapsed into droning again, and yawned twice.
I bowed to the ground a second time, and went out into
the passage.
In the doorway of the drawing-room Mr. Ratsch was
already on the look-out for me, dressed in a gay-coloured
dressing-gown. Beckoning to me with his hand,
he led me to his own room—I had almost said,
to his lair. The room, dark and close, soaked
through and through with the sour smell of stale tobacco,
suggested a comparison with the lair of a wolf or
a fox.
’Rupture! rupture of the external... of the
external covering.... You understand.., the envelopes
of the heart!’ said Mr. Ratsch, directly the
door closed. ’Such a misfortune! Only
yesterday evening there was nothing to notice, and
all of a sudden, all in a minute, all was over!
It’s a true saying, “heute roth, morgen
todt!” It’s true; it’s what was
to be expected. I always expected it. At
Tambov the regimental doctor, Galimbovsky, Vikenty
Kasimirovitch.... you’ve probably heard of him...
a first-rate medical man, a specialist—’
‘It’s the first time I’ve heard
the name,’ I observed.
‘Well, no matter; any way he was always,’
pursued Mr. Ratsch, at first in a low voice, and then
louder and louder, and, to my surprise, with a perceptible
German accent, ’he was always warning me:
“Ay, Ivan Demianitch! ay! my dear boy, you must
be careful! Your stepdaughter has an organic
defect in the heart—hypertrophia cordialis!
The least thing and there’ll be trouble!
She must avoid all exciting emotions above all....
You must appeal to her reason."... But, upon my
word, with a young lady... can one appeal to reason?
Ha... ha... ha...’
Mr. Ratsch was, through long habit, on the point of
laughing, but he recollected himself in time, and
changed the incipient guffaw into a cough.
And this was what Mr. Ratsch said! After all
that I had found out about him!... I thought
it my duty, however, to ask him whether a doctor was
called in.
Mr. Ratsch positively bounced into the air.
’To be sure there was.... Two were summoned,
but it was already over—abgemacht!
And only fancy, both, as though they were agreeing’
(Mr. Ratsch probably meant, as though they had agreed),
’rupture! rupture of the heart! That’s
what, with one voice, they cried out. They proposed
a post-mortem; but I... you understand, did not consent
to that.’
‘And the funeral’s to-morrow?’ I
queried.
’Yes, yes, to-morrow, to-morrow we bury our
dear one! The procession will leave the house
precisely at eleven o’clock in the morning....
From here to the church of St. Nicholas on Hen’s
Legs... what strange names your Russian churches do
have, you know! Then to the last resting-place
in mother earth. You will come! We have not
been long acquainted, but I make bold to say, the
amiability of your character and the elevation of
your sentiments!...’
