“And the ladies can go to hell too! I don’t give a flying hoot for your ladies! I can feed and clothe a thousand of them! And . . . you, Katya, stay out of this! Why did he insult me when I didn’t do anything to him?”
A dandy sporting a gigantic cravat hurries over to the pale merchant and takes him by the hand.
“Mitya! Your papa is here!”
“He c-c-can’t be!”
“Upon my word, he is! He’s sitting at a table with Sonya—he almost saw me, the old devil! We have to get out of here!”
Mitya glares at his opponent one last time, shakes his fist at him, and retreats.
“Tsvirintelkin! Come here! Raissa’s looking for you!”
“I’m not interested in her, she looks like a weasel! I’ve found another one—Fräulein Luisa!”
“What? That tub of lard?”
“A tub of lard she might be, but she’s a lot of woman, and a triple helping, too! Try getting your arms around her!”
Fräulein Luisa is sitting at a table. She is big, fat, sluggish as a snail, and covered in sweat. Before her on the table are a bottle of beer and Tsvirintelkin’s hat. The outline of her corset bulges over the expanse of her gigantic back. She prudently hides her hands and legs; her hands are large, rough, and red. Only a year ago she was still living in Prussia, where she washed floors, made beer soup for the Herr pastor, and looked after the little Schmidts, Müllers, and Schultzes. Fate decided to disturb her peace: she fell in love with Fritz, and Fritz fell in love with her. But Fritz could not marry a poor woman. In his eyes he would have been a fool to marry a poor woman. Luisa vowed eternal love to Fritz, and left her beloved Vaterland for the cold steppes of Russia in order to earn herself a dowry. And so she goes to the Salon des Variétés every night. During the day, she makes little boxes and crochets tablecloths. Once she has got together the agreed-upon amount of money, she will return to Prussia and marry Fritz.
“Si vous n’avez rien à me dire . . .” comes echoing from the stage. There is a rumpus, applause for whoever happens to be performing. A feeble cancan is underway: in the front rows mouths are watering in delight. Look at the audience as the women onstage shout “Down with men!” Give the audience a lever, and it would turn the whole world upside down. There is roaring, shouting, howling.
“Sss! Sss! Sss!” a little officer in the front row hisses at a girl.
The audience rises against the officer in furious indignation, and the whole of Bolshaya Dimitrovka Street rattles with applause. The little officer gets up, and, his head high, leaves the hall with a haughty flourish, his self-respect intact.
The Hungarian orchestra launches into a thunderous melody. What fat louts these Hungarians are, and how badly they play! They are an embarrassment to their country.
The bar has been taken by storm. Behind the counter is Monsieur Kuznetsov in person, standing next to a lady with dark eyebrows. Monsieur Kuznetsov is pouring glasses of wine, and the lady is collecting the money.
“A g-g-glass of vodka! You hear me? V-v-vodka!”
“Grab a glass, Kolya! Bottoms up!”
A man with short-cropped hair stares dully at his glass, shrugs his shoulders, and avidly downs the vodka. “I shouldn’t, Ivan Ivanich, I have a heart condition.”
“Nonsense! Nothing will happen to your heart condition with a few drinks!”
The man with the heart condition downs another glass.
“Have another!”
“No, I’ve got a heart condition, and I’ve already had seven!”
“Nonsense!”
The young man downs another glass.
“Please, sir,” a girl with a sharp chin and rabbit eyes whines, “buy me dinner!”
The man resists.
“I’m hungry. Just a little portion of something.”
“What a nag you are! Waiter!”
The waiter brings a piece of meat. The girl eats. And how she eats! With her mouth, her eyes, her nose.
In a shooting booth bullets are whizzing. Two Tyrolean ladies are loading one rifle after another, and they are not at all bad-looking, either. An artist is standing next to them, drawing one of them on the cuff of his shirt.
“Thank you! Goodbye! Good luck to you!” the Tyrolean women shout as they leave.
As they leave the clock strikes two. The women onstage are still dancing. Noise, uproar, shouts, shrieks, whistling, a cancan. Oppressive heat and stuffiness. At the bar the drunks are getting drunker, and by three o’clock there is total mayhem.
In the meantime, in the private rooms . . .
Anyway, time to go! How wonderful it is to leave this place. If I were the owner of the Salon des Variétés, I would not charge customers at the entrance—but at the exit.
AN IDYLL—BUT ALAS!
“My uncle is such a wonderful man,” Grisha, Captain Nasechkin’s hard-up nephew and sole heir, would say to me. “I love him with all my heart! Why don’t you come meet him? It would make him so happy!”
Whenever Grisha spoke of his uncle his eyes filled with tears. And I will say to his credit that he was not ashamed of these tears and was quite prepared to cry in public. I accepted his invitation, and a week ago dropped by to see the old captain. When I entered the hall and peered into the drawing room, I witnessed a most touching scene. The wizened captain was sitting in a large armchair holding a cup of tea, and Grisha was kneeling next to him, tenderly stirring it. The pretty hand of Grisha’s fiancée was caressing the old man’s leathery neck, while she and Grisha squabbled as to who would be the first to shower the dear uncle with kisses.
“And now, sweet children of my heart, my sole heirs, you must kiss each other!” Captain Nasechkin spluttered with joy.
An enviable bond united the three. Even though I am a hard man, I must admit that my heart was gripped by joy as I gazed at them.
“Yes indeed!” Captain Nasechkin was saying to them. “I think I can say I’ve had a good life! And may God grant a good life to everyone! How many fine fillets of sturgeon I have enjoyed, like the one I ate back in Skopin! Even today it makes my mouth water!”
“Oh, tell us all about it!” I heard Grisha’s fiancée plead.
“So there I was in the town of Skopin with all my thousands of rubles, and . . . er . . . I went straight to . . . er . . . Rikov . . . Yes, to Mr. Rikov. What a man! Good as gold! A gentleman! He received me like I was family . . . you’d have thought he wanted something from me . . . but no, like I was family! He served me coffee, and after the coffee, a little snack . . . and the table . . . the table was filled with bottles and food . . . and a big fat sturgeon . . . from one corner to the other . . . lobster . . . caviar. You’d have thought it was a restaurant!”
I entered into the drawing room; it happened to be the day on which news had just reached Moscow by wire that the Skopin Bank had collapsed.
After we were introduced, Nasechkin said to me: “I am rejoicing in the company of these sweet children!” And, turning back to them, continued proudly: “Not to mention, you only find the best society in Skopin . . . government officials, men of the cloth . . . priests, monks . . . with every glass of vodka, you get a blessing then and there . . . and the host was covered in so many medals that even a general would have gasped! The moment we finished the sturgeon they brought out another! We ate that one too. And then they brought out some fish soup . . . pheasants!”
“If I were in your shoes,” I told the captain, “I would be having heartburn at today’s news, but I must say I am amazed how well you are taking things. Did you lose a lot of money with Rikov?”
“What do you mean, ‘lose’?”
“Lose money—when the bank collapsed!”
“Poppycock! Balderdash! Old wives’ tales!”