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‘Selections from Robert le Diable,‘ he added, turning to me, ‘from that new opera that every one’s making such a fuss about.’

‘No, I haven’t got it yet,’ answered Susanna, and turning round with her face to the window she whispered hurriedly. ‘Please, Alexander Daviditch, I entreat you, don’t make me play to-day. I don’t feel in the mood a bit.’

‘What’s that? Robert le Diable of Meyer-beer?’ bellowed Ivan Demianitch, coming up to us: ‘I don’t mind betting it’s a first-class article! He’s a Jew, and all Jews, like all Czechs, are born musicians. Especially Jews. That’s right, isn’t it, Susanna Ivanovna? Hey? Ha, ha, ha, ha!’

In Mr. Ratsch’s last words, and this time even in his guffaw, there could be heard something more than his usual bantering tone–the desire to wound was evident. So, at least, I fancied, and so Susanna understood him. She started instinctively, flushed red, and bit her lower lip. A spot of light, like the gleam of a tear, flashed on her eyelash, and rising quickly, she went out of the room.

‘Where are you off to, Susanna Ivanovna?’ Mr. Ratsch bawled after her.

‘Let her be, Ivan Demianitch, ‘put in Eleonora Karpovna. ‘Wenn sie einmal so et was im Kopfe hat…’

‘A nervous temperament,’Ratsch pronounced, rotating on his heels, and slapping himself on the haunch, ‘suffers with the plexus solaris. Oh! you needn’t look at me like that, Piotr Gavrilitch! I’ve had a go at anatomy too, ha, ha! I’m even a bit of a doctor! You ask Eleonora Karpovna… I cure all her little ailments! Oh, I’m a famous hand at that!’

‘You must for ever be joking, Ivan Demianitch,’ the latter responded with displeasure, while Fustov, laughing and gracefully swaying to and fro, looked at the husband and wife.

‘And why not be joking, mein Mutterchen?’ retorted Ivan Demianitch. ‘Life’s given us for use, and still more for beauty, as some celebrated poet has observed. Kolka, wipe your nose, little savage!’

IX

‘I was put in a very awkward position this evening through your doing,’ I said the same evening to Fustov, on the way home with him. ‘You told me that that girl–what’s her name?–Susanna, was the daughter of Mr. Ratsch, but she’s his stepdaughter.’

‘Really! Did I tell you she was his daughter? But… isn’t it all the same?’

‘That Ratsch,’ I went on…. ‘O Alexander, how I detest him! Did you notice the peculiar sneer with which he spoke of Jews before her? Is she… a Jewess?’

Fustov walked ahead, swinging his arms; it was cold, the snow was crisp, like salt, under our feet.

‘Yes, I recollect, I did hear something of the sort,’ he observed at last…. ‘Her mother, I fancy, was of Jewish extraction.’

‘Then Mr. Ratsch must have married a widow the first time?’

‘Probably.’

‘H’m!… And that Viktor, who didn’t come in this evening, is his stepson too?’

‘No… he’s his real son. But, as you know, I don’t enter into other people’s affairs, and I don’t like asking questions. I’m not inquisitive.’

I bit my tongue. Fustov still pushed on ahead. As we got near home, I overtook him and peeped into his face.

‘Oh!’ I queried, ‘is Susanna really so musical?’

Fustov frowned.

‘She plays the piano well, ‘he said between his teeth. ‘Only she’s very shy, I warn you!’ he added with a slight grimace. He seemed to be regretting having made me acquainted with her.

I said nothing and we parted.

X

Next morning I set off again to Fustov’s. To spend my mornings at his rooms had become a necessity for me. He received me cordially, as usual, but of our visit of the previous evening–not a word! As though he had taken water into his mouth, as they say. I began turning over the pages of the last number of the Telescope.

A person, unknown to me, came into the room. It turned out to be Mr. Ratsch’s son, the Viktor whose absence had been censured by his father the evening before.