"Valentin Katayev. The Cottage in the Steppe (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

MR. FAIG






They all rushed to the windows, including Petya, who had tossed aside
his pillow. True enough, Faig's carriage was at the front gate.
Mr. Faig was one of the best-known citizens in town.
He was as popular as Governor Tolmachov, as Maryiashek, the town idiot,
as Mayor Pelican who achieved fame by stealing a chandelier from the
theatre, as Ratur-Ruter, the editor-publisher, who was often thrashed in
public for his slanderous articles, as Kochubei, the owner of the largest
ice-cream parlour, the source of wholesale food-poisoning every summer, and,
finally, as brave old General Radetsky, the hero of Plevna.
Faig, a Jew who had turned Christian, was a man of great wealth, the
owner and head of an accredited commercial school. His school was a haven
for those young men of means who had been expelled for denseness and bad
behaviour from other schools in Odessa and elsewhere in the Russian Empire.
By paying the appropriate fee one could always graduate and receive a
school-leaving certificate at Faig's school. Faig was a philanthropist and
patron of the Arts. He enjoyed making donations and did so with a splash,
including an announcement in the papers.
He donated suites of furniture and cows to lotteries, contributed large
sums towards improving the cathedral and buying a new bell, he established
the Faig Prize to be awarded annually at the yacht races, and paid fifty
rubles for a glass of champagne at charity bazaars. In short, this Faig, who
had become a legend, was the horn of plenty that poured charity upon the
poor.
However, the main source of his popularity lay in the fact that he rode
around town in his own carriage.
This was no antediluvian contraption of the type that usually bumped
along as part of the funeral cortege. Neither was it a wedding carriage,
upholstered in white satin with crystal headlights and folding step. Nor was
it a bishop's carriage, that screeching conveyance which, in addition to
carrying the bishop, was also used for transporting to private homes the
Icon of the Holy Virgin of Kasperovka associated with Kutuzov and the fall
of Ochakov. Faig's carriage was a coupe de luxe on English springs, with
high box and a coachman dressed according to the height of English fashion.
The doors sported a fictitious coat-of-arms, and, as a finishing touch. a
liveried footman stood on the footboard, which reduced the street loafers to
a state approaching religious ecstasy.
A pair of bob-tailed horses with patent-leather blinkers whisked the
carriage along at la brisk trot. Faig was inside. He was wearing a top hat
and a Palmerston coat, his side whiskers were dyed black, and a Havana was
planted between his teeth. His feet were wrapped in a Scotch plaid.
While the Bachei family was watching Faig's carriage from the windows
and wondering whom he might have come to see, the door-bell rang. Dunyasha