THE COMPLETE NOVELLAS & SHORT STORIES OF FYODOR DOSTOYEVSKY. Fyodor DostoyevskyЧитать онлайн книгу.
of Progress and in our satirical prints….”
But he could not complete his remarks; the proprietor coming to himself, and seeing with horror that a man was talking in the crocodile room without having paid entrance money, rushed furiously at the progressive stranger and turned him out with a punch from each fist. For a moment both vanished from our sight behind a curtain, and only then I grasped that the whole uproar was about nothing. Elena Ivanovna turned out quite innocent; she had, as I have mentioned already, no idea whatever of subjecting the crocodile to a degrading corporal punishment, and had simply expressed the desire that he should be opened and her husband released from his interior.
“What! You wish that my crocodile be perished!” the proprietor yelled, running in again. “No! let your husband be perished first, before my crocodile!… Mein Vater showed crocodile, mein Grossvater showed crocodile, mein Sohn will show crocodile, and I will show crocodile! All will show crocodile! I am known to ganz Europa, and you are not known to ganz Europa, and you must pay me a strafe!”
“Ja, ja,” put in the vindictive German woman, “we shall not let you go. Strafe, since Karlchen is burst!”
“And, indeed, it’s useless to flay the creature,” I added calmly, anxious to get Elena Ivanovna away home as quickly as possible, “as our dear Ivan Matveitch is by now probably soaring somewhere in the empyrean.”
“My dear” — we suddenly heard, to our intense amazement, the voice of Ivan Matveitch— “my dear, my advice is to apply direct to the superintendent’s office, as without the assistance of the police the German will never be made to see reason.”
These words, uttered with firmness and aplomb, and expressing an exceptional presence of mind, for the first minute so astounded us that we could not believe our ears. But, of course, we ran at once to the crocodile’s tank, and with equal reverence and incredulity listened to the unhappy captive. His voice was muffled, thin and even squeaky, as though it came from a considerable distance. It reminded one of a jocose person who, covering his mouth with a pillow, shouts from an adjoining room, trying to mimic the sound of two peasants calling to one another in a deserted plain or across a wide ravine — a performance to which I once had the pleasure of listening in a friend’s house at Christmas.
“Ivan Matveitch, my dear, and so you are alive!” faltered Elena Ivanovna.
“Alive and well,” answered Ivan Matveitch, “and, thanks to the Almighty, swallowed without any damage whatever. I am only uneasy as to the view my superiors may take of the incident; for after getting a permit to go abroad I’ve got into a crocodile, which seems anything but clever.”
“But, my dear, don’t trouble your head about being clever; first of all we must somehow excavate you from where you are,” Elena Ivanovna interrupted.
“Excavate!” cried the proprietor. “I will not let my crocodile be excavated. Now the publicum will come many more, and I will fünfzig kopecks ask and Karlchen will cease to burst.”
“Gott sei dank!” put in his wife.
“They are right,” Ivan Matveitch observed tranquilly; “the principles of economics before everything.”
“My dear! I will fly at once to the authorities and lodge a complaint, for I feel that we cannot settle this mess by ourselves.”
“I think so too,” observed Ivan Matveitch; “but in our age of industrial crisis it is not easy to rip open the belly of a crocodile without economic compensation, and meanwhile the inevitable question presents itself: What will the German take for his crocodile? And with it another: How will it be paid? For, as you know, I have no means….”
“Perhaps out of your salary….” I observed timidly, but the proprietor interrupted me at once.
“I will not the crocodile sell; I will for three thousand the crocodile sell! I will for four thousand the crocodile sell! Now the publicum will come very many. I will for five thousand the crocodile sell!”
In fact he gave himself insufferable airs. Covetousness and a revolting greed gleamed joyfully in his eyes.
“I am going!” I cried indignantly.
“And I! I too! I shall go to Andrey Osipitch himself. I will soften him with my tears,” whined Elena Ivanovna.
“Don’t do that, my dear,” Ivan Matveitch hastened to interpose. He had long been jealous of Andrey Osipitch on his wife’s account, and he knew she would enjoy going to weep before a gentleman of refinement, for tears suited her. “And I don’t advise you to do so either, my friend,” he added, addressing me. “It’s no good plunging headlong in that slap-dash way; there’s no knowing what it may lead to. You had much better go to-day to Timofey Semyonitch, as though to pay an ordinary visit; he is an old-fashioned and by no means brilliant man, but he is trustworthy, and what matters most of all, he is straightforward. Give him my greetings and describe the circumstances of the case. And since I owe him seven roubles over our last game of cards, take the opportunity to pay him the money; that will soften the stern old man. In any case his advice may serve as a guide for us. And meanwhile take Elena Ivanovna home…. Calm yourself, my dear,” he continued, addressing her. “I am weary of these outcries and feminine squabblings, and should like a nap. It’s soft and warm in here, though I have hardly had time to look round in this unexpected haven.”
“Look round! Why, is it light in there?” cried Elena Ivanovna in a tone of relief.
“I am surrounded by impenetrable night,” answered the poor captive; “but I can feel and, so to speak, have a look round with my hands…. Goodbye; set your mind at rest and don’t deny yourself recreation and diversion. Till tomorrow! And you, Semyon Semyonitch, come to me in the evening, and as you are absentminded and may forget it, tie a knot in your handkerchief.”
I confess I was glad to get away, for I was overtired and somewhat bored. Hastening to offer my arm to the disconsolate Elena Ivanovna, whose charms were only enhanced by her agitation, I hurriedly led her out of the crocodile room.
“The charge will be another quarter-rouble in the evening,” the proprietor called after us.
“Oh, dear, how greedy they are!” said Elena Ivanovna, looking at herself in every mirror on the walls of the Arcade, and evidently aware that she was looking prettier than usual.
“The principles of economics,” I answered with some emotion, proud that passersby should see the lady on my arm.
“The principles of economics,” she drawled in a touching little voice. “I did not in the least understand what Ivan Matveitch said about those horrid economics just now.”
“I will explain to you,” I answered, and began at once telling her of the beneficial effects of the introduction of foreign capital into our country, upon which I had read an article in the Petersburg News and the Voice that morning.
“How strange it is,” she interrupted, after listening for some time. “But do leave off, you horrid man. What nonsense you are talking…. Tell me, do I look purple?”
“You look perfect, and not purple!” I observed, seizing the opportunity to pay her a compliment.
“Naughty man!” she said complacently. “Poor Ivan Matveitch,” she added a minute later, putting her little head on one side coquettishly. “I am really sorry for him. Oh, dear!” she cried suddenly, “how is he going to have his dinner … and … and … what will he do … if he wants anything?”
“An unforeseen question,” I answered, perplexed in my turn. To tell the truth, it had not entered my head, so much more practical are women than we men in the solution of the problems of daily life!
“Poor dear! how could he have got into such a mess … nothing to amuse him, and in the dark…. How vexing it is that I have no photograph of him…. And so now I am a sort of widow,” she added, with a seductive smile, evidently interested in her new position. “Hm!… I am sorry for him, though.”
It was, in