§8
But I must explain the allusion to Madeira in the soup. A year or more before the grand birthday party, I went out for a walk with Ogaryóv one day in Easter week, and, in order to escape dinner at home, I said that I had been invited to dine at their house by Ogaryóv’s father.
My father did not care for my friends in general and used to call them by wrong names, though he always made the same mistake in addressing any of them; and Ogaryóv was less of a favourite than any, both because he wore his hair long and because he smoked without being asked to do so. But on the other hand, my father could hardly mutilate his own grandnephew’s surname; and also Ogaryóv’s father, both by birth and fortune, belonged to the select circle of people whom my father recognised. Hence he was pleased to see me going often to their house, but he would have been still better pleased if the house had contained no son.
He thought it proper therefore for me to accept the invitation. But Ogaryóv and I did not repair to his father’s respectable dining-room. We went first to Price’s place of entertainment. Price was an acrobat, whom I was delighted to meet later with his accomplished family in both Geneva and London. He had a little daughter, whom we admired greatly and had christened Mignon.[[55]] When we had seen Mignon perform and decided to come back for the evening performance, we went to dine at the best restaurant in Moscow. I had one gold piece in my pocket, and Ogaryóv had about the same sum. At that time we had no experience in ordering dinners. After long consultation we ordered fish-soup made with champagne, a bottle of Rhine wine, and a tiny portion of game. The result was that we paid a terrific bill and left the restaurant feeling exceedingly hungry. Then we went back to see Mignon a second time.
[55]. After the character in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister. The Prices were evidently English.
When I was saying good-night to my father, he said, “Surely you smell of wine.”
“That is probably because there was Madeira in the soup at dinner,” I replied.
“Madeira? That must be a notion of M. Ogaryóv’s son-in-law; no one but a guardsman would think of such a thing.”
And from that time until my banishment, whenever my father thought that I had been drinking wine and that my face was flushed, he invariably attributed it to Madeira in the soup I had taken.