«Your friend a very clever man!» the German said to me in an undertone as he moved to see me out; he had been listening all the time attentively to our conversation.
«À propos,» I said, «while I think of it: how much would you ask for your crocodile in case any one wanted to buy it?»
Ivan Matveitch, who heard the question, was waiting with curiosity for the answer; it was evident that he did not want the German to ask too little; anyway, he cleared his throat in a peculiar way on hearing my question.
At first the German would not listen—was positively angry.
«No one will dare my own crocodile to buy!» he cried furiously, and turned as red as a boiled lobster. «Me not want to sell the crocodile! I would not for the crocodile a million thalers take. I took a hundred and thirty thalers from the public to-day, and I shall to-morrow ten thousand take, and then a hundred thousand every day I shall take. I will not him sell.»
Ivan Matveitch positively chuckled with satisfaction. Controlling myself—for I felt it was a duty to my friend—I hinted coolly and reasonably to the crazy German that his calculations were not quite correct, that if he makes a hundred thousand every day, all Petersburg will have visited him in four days, and then there will be no one left to bring him roubles, that life and death are in God’s hands, that the crocodile may burst or Ivan Matveitch may fall ill and die, and so on and so on.
The German grew pensive.
«I will him drops from the chemist’s get,» he said, after pondering, «and will save your friend that he die not.»
«Drops are all very well,» I answered, «but consider, too, that the thing may get into the law courts. Ivan Matveitch’s wife may demand the restitution of her lawful spouse. You are intending to get rich, but do you intend to give Elena Ivanovna a pension?»
«No, me not intend,» said the German in stern decision.
«No, we not intend,» said the Mutter, with positive malignancy.
«And so would it not be better for you to accept something now, at once, a secure and solid though moderate sum, than to leave things to chance? I ought to tell you that I am inquiring simply from curiosity.»
The German drew the Mutter aside to consult with her in a corner where there stood a case with the largest and ugliest monkey of his collection.
«Well, you will see!» said Ivan Matveitch.
As for me, I was at that moment burning with the desire, first, to give the German a thrashing, next, to give the Mutter an even sounder one, and, thirdly, to give Ivan Matveitch the soundest thrashing of all for his boundless vanity. But all this paled beside the answer of the rapacious German.
After consultation with the Mutter he demanded for his crocodile fifty thousand roubles in bonds of the last Russian loan with lottery voucher attached, a brick house in Gorohovy Street with a chemist’s shop attached, and in addition the rank of Russian colonel.
«You see!» Ivan Matveitch cried triumphantly. «I told you so! Apart from this last senseless desire for the rank of a colonel, he is perfectly right, for he fully understands the present value of the monster he is exhibiting. The economic principle before everything!»
«Upon my word!» I cried furiously to the German. «But what should you be made a colonel for? What exploit have you performed? What service have you done? In what way have you gained military glory? You are really crazy!»
«Crazy!» cried the German, offended. «No, a person very sensible, but you very stupid! I have a colonel deserved for that I have a crocodile shown and in him a live hofrath sitting! And a Russian can a crocodile not show and a live hofrath in him sitting! Me extremely clever man and much wish colonel to be!»
«Well, good-bye, then, Ivan Matveitch!» I cried, shaking with fury, and I went out of the crocodile room almost at a run.
I felt that in another minute I could not have answered for myself. The unnatural expectations of these two block-heads were insupportable. The cold air refreshed me and somewhat moderated my indignation. At last, after spitting vigorously fifteen times on each side, I took a cab, got home, undressed and flung myself into bed. What vexed me more than anything was my having become his secretary. Now I was to die of boredom there every evening, doing the duty of a true friend! I was ready to beat myself for it, and I did, in fact, after putting out the candle and pulling up the bedclothes, punch myself several times on the head and various parts of my body. That somewhat relieved me, and at last I fell asleep fairly soundly, in fact, for I was very tired. All night long I could dream of nothing but monkeys, but towards morning I dreamt of Elena Ivanovna.
IV
The monkeys I dreamed about, I surmise, because they were shut up in the case at the German’s; but Elena Ivanovna was a different story.
I may as well say at once, I loved the lady, but I make haste—post-haste—to make a qualification. I loved her as a father, neither more nor less. I judge that because I often felt an irresistible desire to kiss her little head or her rosy cheek. And though I never carried out this inclination, I would not have refused even to kiss her lips. And not merely her lips, but her teeth, which always gleamed so charmingly like two rows of pretty, well-matched pearls when she laughed. She laughed extraordinarily often. Ivan Matveitch in demonstrative moments used to call her his «darling absurdity»—a name extremely happy and appropriate.
She was a perfect sugar-plum, and that was all one could say of her. Therefore I am utterly at a loss to understand what possessed Ivan Matveitch to imagine his wife as a Russian Yevgenia Tour? Anyway, my dream, with the exception of the monkeys, left a most pleasant impression upon me, and going over all the incidents of the previous day as I drank my morning cup of tea, I resolved to go and see Elena Ivanovna at once on my way to the office—which, indeed, I was bound to do as the friend of the family.
In a tiny little room out of the bedroom—the so-called little drawing-room, though their big drawing-room was little too—Elena Ivanovna was sitting, in some half-transparent morning wrapper, on a smart little sofa before a little tea-table, drinking coffee out of a little cup in which she was dipping a minute biscuit. She was ravishingly pretty, but struck me as being at the same time rather pensive.
«Ah, that’s you, naughty man!» she said, greeting me with an absent-minded smile. «Sit down, feather-head, have some coffee. Well, what were you doing yesterday? Were you at the masquerade?»
«Why, were you? I don’t go, you know. Besides, yesterday I was visiting our captive….» I sighed and assumed a pious expression as I took the coffee.
«Whom?… What captive?… Oh, yes! Poor fellow! Well, how is he—bored? Do you know … I wanted to ask you…. I suppose I can ask for a divorce now?»
«A divorce!» I cried in indignation and almost spilled the coffee. «It’s that swarthy fellow,» I thought to myself bitterly.
There was a certain swarthy gentleman with little moustaches who was something in the architectural line, and who came far too often to see them, and was extremely skilful in amusing Elena Ivanovna. I must confess I hated him and there was no doubt that he had succeeded in seeing Elena Ivanovna yesterday either at the masquerade or even here, and putting all sorts of nonsense into her head.
«Why,» Elena Ivanovna rattled off hurriedly, as though it were a lesson she had learnt, «if he is going to stay on in the crocodile, perhaps not come back all his life, while I sit waiting for him here! A husband ought to live at home, and not in a crocodile….»
«But this was an unforeseen occurrence,» I was beginning, in very comprehensible agitation.
«Oh, no, don’t talk to me, I won’t listen, I won’t listen,» she cried, suddenly getting quite cross. «You are always against me, you wretch! There’s no doing anything with you, you will never give me any advice! Other people tell me that I can get a divorce because Ivan Matveitch will not get his salary now.»
«Elena Ivanovna! is it you I hear!» I exclaimed pathetically. «What villain could have put such an idea into your head? And divorce on such a trivial ground as a salary is quite impossible. And poor Ivan Matveitch, poor Ivan Matveitch is, so to speak, burning with love for you even in the bowels of the monster. What’s more, he is melting away with love like a lump of sugar. Yesterday while you were enjoying yourself at the masquerade, he was saying that he might in the last resort send for you as his lawful spouse to join him in the entrails of the monster, especially as it appears the crocodile is exceedingly roomy, not only able to accommodate two but even three persons….»
And then I told her all that interesting part of my conversation the night before with Ivan Matveitch.
«What, what!» she cried, in surprise. «You want me to get into the monster too, to be with Ivan Matveitch? What an idea! And how am I to get in there, in my hat and crinoline? Heavens, what foolishness! And what should I look like while I was getting into it, and
