FullReads

‘And how about the duet?’ Ivan Demianitch pursued: ‘Alexander Daviditch? eh? benefactor! Your zither was left with us, and I’ve got the bassoon out of its case already. Let us make sweet music for the honourable company!’ (Mr. Ratsch liked to display his Russian; he was continually bursting out with expressions, such as those which are strewn broadcast about the ultra-national poems of Prince Viazemsky.) ‘What do you say? Carried?’ cried Ivan Demianitch, seeing Fustov made no objection. ‘Kolka, march into the study, and look sharp with the music-stand! Olga, this way with the zither! And oblige us with candles for the stands, better-half!’ (Mr. Ratsch turned round and round in the room like a top.) ‘Piotr Gavrilitch, you like music, hey? If you don’t care for it, you must amuse yourself with conversation, only mind, not above a whisper! Ha, ha ha! But what ever’s become of that silly chap, Viktor? He ought to be here to listen too! You spoil him completely, Eleonora Karpovna.’

Eleonora Karpovna fired up angrily.

‘Aber was kann ich denn, Ivan Demianitch…’

‘All right, all right, don’t squabble! Bleibe ruhig, hast verstanden? Alexander Daviditch! at your service, sir!’

The children had promptly done as their father had told them. The music-stands were set up, the music began. I have already mentioned that Fustov played the zither extremely well, but that instrument has always produced the most distressing impression upon me. I have always fancied, and I fancy still, that there is imprisoned in the zither the soul of a decrepit Jew money-lender, and that it emits nasal whines and complaints against the merciless musician who forces it to utter sounds. Mr. Ratsch’s performance, too, was not calculated to give me much pleasure; moreover, his face became suddenly purple, and assumed a malignant expression, while his whitish eyes rolled viciously, as though he were just about to murder some one with his bassoon, and were swearing and threatening by way of preliminary, puffing out chokingly husky, coarse notes one after another. I placed myself near Susanna, and waiting for a momentary pause, I asked her if she were as fond of music as her papa.

She turned away, as though I had given her a shove, and pronounced abruptly, ‘Who?’

‘Your father,’ I repeated,’Mr. Ratsch.’

‘Mr. Ratsch is not my father.’

‘Not your father! I beg your pardon… I must have misunderstood… But I remember, Alexander Daviditch…’

Susanna looked at me intently and shyly.

‘You misunderstood Mr. Fustov. Mr. Ratsch is my stepfather.’

I was silent for a while.

‘And you don’t care for music?’ I began again.

Susanna glanced at me again. Undoubtedly there was something suggesting a wild creature in her eyes. She obviously had not expected nor desired the continuation of our conversation.

‘I did not say that,’ she brought out slowly. ‘Troo-too-too-too-too-oo-oo…’ the bassoon growled with startling fury, executing the final flourishes. I turned round, caught sight of the red neck of Mr. Ratsch, swollen like a boa-constrictor’s, beneath his projecting ears, and very disgusting I thought him.

‘But that… instrument you surely do not care for,’ I said in an undertone.

‘No… I don’t care for it,’ she responded, as though catching my secret hint.

‘Oho!’ thought I, and felt, as it were, delighted at something.

‘Susanna Ivanovna,’ Eleonora Karpovna announced suddenly in her German Russian, ‘music greatly loves, and herself very beautifully plays the piano, only she likes not to play the piano when she is greatly pressed to play.’

Susanna made Eleonora Karpovna no reply–she did not even look at her–only there was a faint movement of her eyes, under their dropped lids, in her direction. From this movement alone–this movement of her pupils–I could perceive what was the nature of the feeling Susanna cherished for the second wife of her stepfather…. And again I was delighted at something.

Meanwhile the duet was over. Fustov got up and with hesitating footsteps approached the window, near which Susanna and I were sitting, and asked her if she had received from Lengold’s the music that he had promised to order her from Petersburg.