me for pocket-money. I won't forget you in future, my pretty; but
good-bye for the present, and be a good girl.' I took the roll
mechanically: I should have taken anything he had offered me, and going
back to my own room, a long while I wept, sitting on my bed. I did not
notice that I had dropped the roll of notes on the floor. Mr. Ratsch
found it and picked it up, and, asking me what I meant to do with it,
kept it for himself.

An important change had taken place in his fortunes too in those days.
After a few conversations with Semyon Matveitch, he became a great
favourite, and soon after received the position of head steward. From
that time dates his cheerfulness, that eternal laugh of his; at first it
was an effort to adapt himself to his patron... in the end it became a
habit. It was then, too, that he became a Russian patriot. Semyon
Matveitch was an admirer of everything national, he called himself 'a
true Russian bear,' and ridiculed the European dress, which he wore
however. He sent away to a remote village a cook, on whose training Ivan
Matveitch had spent vast sums: he sent him away because he had not known
how to prepare pickled giblets.

Semyon Matveitch used to stand at the altar and join in the responses
with the deacons, and when the serf-girls were brought together to dance
and sing choruses, he would join in their songs too, and beat time with
his feet, and pinch their cheeks.... But he soon went back to
Petersburg, leaving my stepfather practically in complete control of the
whole property.

Bitter days began for me.... My one consolation was music, and I gave
myself up to it with my whole soul. Fortunately Mr. Ratsch was very
fully occupied, but he took every opportunity to make me feel his