Fustov came into the room, and shaking hands with both of us, asked us if we were acquainted.

'Not a bit of it!' Ivan Demianitch boomed at once: 'the veteran of the year twelve has not that honour!'

Fustov mentioned my name first, then, indicating the 'veteran of the year twelve,' he p.r.o.nounced: 'Ivan Demianitch Ratsch, professor of...

various subjects.'

'Precisely so, various they are, precisely,' Mr. Ratsch chimed in. 'Come to think of it, what is there I haven't taught, and that I'm not teaching now, for that matter! Mathematics and geography and statistics and Italian book-keeping, ha-ha ha-ha! and music! You doubt it, my dear sir?'--he pounced suddenly upon me--'ask Alexander Daviditch if I'm not first-rate on the ba.s.soon. I should be a poor sort of Bohemian--Czech, I should say--if I weren't! Yes, sir, I'm a Czech, and my native place is ancient Prague! By the way, Alexander Daviditch, why haven't we seen you for so long! We ought to have a little duet... ha-ha! Really!'

'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 G.o.d! 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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage, 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 coa.r.s.ely moulded, st.u.r.dy 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?'