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Fine hail was falling from the low-hanging sky, there was a slight frost, a thaw was close at hand, but there were cutting, disagreeable gusts of wind flitting across in the air.... It was the most thoroughly Lenten, cold-catching weather. I found Mr. Ratsch on the steps of his house.
The pea-shell boats had travelled so far that they only looked like little specks on the ocean. 'I shall seize Hercules on the coast of Asia, said Lasse, 'and then row home again to Europe. He shook the rope that held the boat, and, strange to say, the rope became loose. Ditsch, ratsch, a man is a man, and so Little Lasse manned the boat.
Ratsch bawled from the passage putting on his goloshes noisily, and for the last time we heard his metallic laugh. 'What a strange man! I said, turning to Fustov, who had already set to work at his turning-lathe. 'Can he be a foreigner? He speaks Russian so fluently. 'He is a foreigner; only he's been thirty years in Russia.
She must have loved him for something? Three years more slipped by. Nothing changed in the monotonous round of life, marked out and arranged for us. Viktor was growing into a boy. I was eight years older and would gladly have looked after him, but Mr. Ratsch opposed my doing so.
I looked at Fustov, as though wishing finally to arrive at what induced him to visit such people... but at that instant there came into the room a tall girl in a black dress, the elder daughter of Mr. Ratsch, to whom Fustov had referred.... I perceived the explanation of my friend's frequent visits.
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.
She must avoid all exciting emotions above all.... You must appeal to her reason."... But, upon my word, with a young lady... can one appeal to reason? Ha... ha... ha... Mr. Ratsch was, through long habit, on the point of laughing, but he recollected himself in time, and changed the incipient guffaw into a cough. And this was what Mr. Ratsch said!
I was utterly unable to comprehend the possibility of such a thing, I was bewildered, I was almost ill, my brain suffered under the strain, my mind was overclouded. My unhappiness began from that day. Mr. Ratsch did not love my mother, and she did not love him. He married her for money, and she was obliged to submit. Mr.
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 have not been here long, but I have seen a good deal already... and among other things, I see through your stepfather. He squeezed my hand again, and left me. I found out later that Michel had felt an aversion for Mr. Ratsch from his very first meeting with him. Mr.
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