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Updated: June 18, 2025
'And so you were plotting to be my daughter-in-law? A pretty notion! But you're not a child of four years old, and you must be fully aware that young boobies are never sparing of the wildest promises, if only they can gain their ends... but to say nothing of that, could you suppose that I a noble gentleman of ancient family, Semyon Matveitch Koltovsky would ever give my consent to such a marriage?
'What does it mean, that same's self-understood? he would ask in Russian, with emphasis on each syllable. 'Why not simply that's understood, and why same and self? Ivan Matveitch did not, however, dismiss Mr. Ratsch, he did not even deprive him of his position. But my stepfather kept his word: he never forgot it. I began to notice a change in Ivan Matveitch.
Impulsive folly I can overlook, but stubborn obstinacy never! My son... there was a catch in his breath... 'Mihail Semyonitch has promised to marry you? Hasn't he? Answer me! Has he promised, eh? I answered, of course, nothing. Semyon Matveitch was almost flying into fury again. 'I take your silence as a sign of assent, he went on, after a brief pause.
'With the old master, Ivan Matveitch, a butler, decrepit with age, wailed in my presence, 'our only trouble was to see that the linen put out was clean, and that the rooms smelt sweet, and that the servants' voices weren't heard in the passages God forbid! For the rest, you might do as you pleased. The old master never hurt a fly in his life! Ah, it's hard times now! It's time to die!
Public opinion was very severe upon him and Liza, while, on the other hand, it extolled me to the skies. Liza's attitude to me was unchanged. She was, for the most part, silent; obeyed, when they begged her to eat, showed no outward signs of sorrow, but, for all that, was wasting away like a candle. I must do Kirilla Matveitch the justice to say that he spared her in every way.
Ratsch stepped gallantly on through the sloppy snow; just so must he have stepped through the snow when, after the fateful interview with Semyon Matveitch, he led home with him in triumph the girl whose life he had ruined for ever.
He had begun in this condescendingly familiar tone with him from the very first, and my stepfather would gaze fondly at Semyon Matveitch, let his head droop deprecatingly on one side, and laugh with good-humoured simplicity, as though to say, 'Here I am, entirely in your hands. Ah, I feel my hands shaking, and my heart's thumping against the table on which I write at this moment.
Ratsch shivered, ground his teeth, and clenched his fists. 'All right, wait a bit, your highness! he muttered huskily. 'I won't forget it! That same day, Ivan Matveitch sent for him, and, I was told, shook his cane at him, the very cane which he had once exchanged with the Due de la Rochefoucauld, and cried, 'You be a scoundrel and extortioner!
I stood still, near the door; my heart was beating violently from fear and from another feeling, vague as yet, but still oppressive. 'I wish to see you, young lady, began Semyon Matveitch, glancing first at my feet, and then suddenly into my eyes. The look was like a slap in the face.
I put you outside! Ivan Matveitch could hardly speak Russian at all, and despised our 'coarse jargon, ce jargon vulgaire et rude. Some one once said before him, 'That same's self-understood. Ivan Matveitch was quite indignant, and often afterwards quoted the phrase as an example of the senselessness and absurdity of the Russian tongue.
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