ing the pianoforte
with one foot, and that is not at all right in an honourable house, and
he _ganz_ broke the piano, and it was very bad manners indeed and I said
so. And he took up a bottle and began hitting everyone with it. And then
I called the porter, and Karl came, and he took Karl and hit him in the
eye; and he hit Henriette in the eye, too, and gave me five slaps on the
cheek. And it was so ungentlemanly in an honourable house, Mr. Captain,
and I screamed. And he opened the window over the canal, and stood in
the window, squealing like a little pig; it was a disgrace. The idea of
squealing like a little pig at the window into the street! Fie upon him!
And Karl pulled him away from the window by his coat, and it is true,
Mr. Captain, he tore _sein rock_. And then he shouted that _man muss_
pay him fifteen roubles damages. And I did pay him, Mr. Captain, five
roubles for _sein rock_. And he is an ungentlemanly visitor and caused
all the scandal. 'I will show you up,' he said, 'for I can write to all
the papers about you.'"
"Then he was an author?"
"Yes, Mr. Captain, and what an ungentlemanly visitor in an honourable
house...."
"Now then! Enough! I have told you already..."
"Ilya Petrovitch!" the head clerk repeated significantly.
The assistant glanced rapidly at him; the head clerk slightly shook his
head.
"... So I tell you this, most respectable Luise Ivanovna, and I tell it
you for the last time," the assistant went on. "If there is a scandal
in your honourable house once again, I will put you yourself in the
lock-up, as it is called in polite society. Do you hear? So a literary
man, an author took five roubles for his coat-tail in an 'honourable
house'? A nice set, these authors!"
And he cast a contemptuous glance at Raskolnikov. "There was a scandal
the other day in a restaurant, too. An author had eaten his dinner and
would not pay; 'I'll write a satire on you,' says he. And there was
another of them on a steamer last week used the most disgraceful
language to the respectable family of a civil councillor, his wife and
daughter. And there was one of them turned out of a confectioner's shop
the other day. They are like that, authors, literary men, students,
town-criers.... Pfoo! You get along! I shall look in upon you myself one
day. Then you had better be careful! Do you hear?"
With hurried deference, Luise Ivanovna fell to curtsying in all
directions, and so curtsied herself to the door. B
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