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 _beauté 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 Füssen!'
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!'
'Dem Fiktov kann ich nicht kommandiren, Ivan Demianitch. Sie wissen
wohl!' grumbled Eleonora Karpovna.
I looked at Fustov, as though wishing finally to arrive at what induced
him to visit such people... but at that instant there came into the room
a tall girl in a black dress, the elder daughter of Mr. Ratsch, to whom
Fustov had referred.... I perceived the explanation of my friend's
frequent visits.