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‘Ja, ja,’ observed Mr. Ratsch, who had also, however, listened with attention; ‘romantische Musik! That’s all the fashion nowadays. Only, why not play correctly? Eh? Put your finger on two notes at once–what’s that for? Eh? To be sure, all we care for is to go quickly, quickly! Turns it out hotter, eh? Hot pancakes!’ he bawled like a street seller.

Susanna turned slightly towards Mr. Ratsch. I caught sight of her face in profile. The delicate eyebrow rose high above the downcast eyelid, an unsteady flush overspread the cheek, the little ear was red under the lock pushed behind it.

‘I have heard all the best performers with my own ears,’ pursued Mr. Ratsch, suddenly frowning, ‘and compared with the late Field they were all–tfoo! nil! zero!! Das war ein Kerl! Und ein so reines Spiel! And his own compositions the finest things! But all those now “tloo-too-too,” and “tra-ta-ta,” are written, I suppose, more for beginners. Da braucht man keine Delicatesse! Bang the keys anyhow… no matter! It’ll turn out some how! Janitscharen Musik! Pugh!’ (Ivan Demianitch wiped his forehead with his handkerchief.) ‘But I don’t say that for you, Susanna Ivanovna; you played well, and oughtn’t to be hurt by my remarks.’

‘Every one has his own taste,’ Susanna said in a low voice, and her lips were trembling; ‘but your remarks, Ivan Demianitch, you know, cannot hurt me.’

‘Oh! of course not! Only don’t you imagine’–Mr. Ratsch turned to me–‘don’t you imagine, my young friend, that that comes from our excessive good-nature and meekness of spirit; it’s simply that we fancy ourselves so highly exalted that–oo-oo!–we can’t keep our cap on our head, as the Russian proverb says, and, of course, no criticism can touch us. The conceit, my dear sir, the conceit!’

I listened in surprise to Mr. Ratsch. Spite, the bitterest spite, seemed as it were boiling over in every word he uttered…. And long it must have been rankling! It choked him. He tried to conclude his tirade with his usual laugh, and fell into a husky, broken cough instead. Susanna did not let drop a syllable in reply to him, only she shook her head, raised her face, and clasping her elbows with her hands, stared straight at him. In the depths of her fixed, wide-open eyes the hatred of long years lay smouldering with dim, unquenchable fire. I felt ill at ease.

‘You belong to two different musical generations,’ I began, with an effort at lightness, wishing by this lightness to suggest that I noticed nothing, ‘and so it is not surprising that you do not agree in your opinions…. But, Ivan Demianitch, you must allow me to take rather… the side of the younger generation. I’m an outsider, of course; but I must confess nothing in music has ever made such an impression on me as the… as what Susanna Ivanovna has just played us.’

Ratsch pounced at once upon me.

‘And what makes you suppose,’ he roared, still purple from the fit of coughing, ‘that we want to enlist you on our side? We don’t want that at all! Freedom for the free, salvation for the saved! But as to the two generations, that’s right enough; we old folks find it hard to get on with you young people, very hard! Our ideas don’t agree in anything: neither in art, nor in life, nor even in morals; do they, Susanna Ivanovna?’

Susanna smiled a contemptuous smile.

‘Especially in regard to morals, as you say, our ideas do not agree, and cannot agree,’ she responded, and something menacing seemed to flit over her brows, while her lips were faintly trembling as before.

‘Of course! of course!’ Ratsch broke in, ‘I’m not a philosopher! I’m not capable of… rising so superior! I’m a plain man, swayed by prejudices–oh yes!’

Susanna smiled again.

‘I think, Ivan Demianitch, you too have sometimes been able to place yourself above what are called prejudices.’

‘Wie so? How so, I mean? I don’t know what you mean.’