I feel I have just been given a college assignment--an essay on Babel, to be backed up by arguments visible in the text. I'm not sure I have the energy to make my argument properly, but i will attempt. Yes, I do believe that Raisa and our narrator have had sex. If nothing else, this is because of the old "if there is a gun in the first act, it must go off by the final act" maxim. We have seen breasts and sexual dreams in abundance here. We have seen flirtation, drunkenness, abandonment. We have seen Raisa fling her arms out wide against the bookshelf. "Of all the gods ever crucified, she was the most captivating." We have seen these two re-enact a scene from a (Maupassant) story that concludes with sex. We see the narrator leap up, causing 29 volumes of his hero to fall to the floor, "their pages flying wild." (SEX HAPPENING HERE--the passion of Maupassant's pages flying wild!) I'm not sure what it means when Babel writes "the white nag of my fate walked a slow walk," but i'm wondering if it refers to his erection diminishing after their union. (Raisa now growls, "You're so funny," words she "muttered" before the sex act occurred.) We have watched our narrator walk home, no longer drunk, but walking drunkenly anyway--a post coital stupor. He wants to retain the feeling of having just had sex. He sings in a language he had just invented (From Lonely Island's masterpiece: "Sometimes something beautiful happens in this world. You don't know how to express yourself, so you just gotta sing.") The fog rolls "in waves" (orgasmic). Monsters roar (orgasm occurs). And, later, we watch our young narrator read of his possible future: a slow death from a sexually contracted disease due to his passions.
Oh, yes, these two definitely had sex.
PS Lonely Island's song is called I Just Had Sex and it's not for everyone. You've been warned.
It’s funny, the first time I read it I thought, ‘he’s screwed this up, not screwed Raisa’. I mean, how could anyone wield sexual allure after flailing into a bookcase and knocking down 29 volumes?
The second time, prepared for the comedy book flail, I instead noticed the narrator stumbling down the street singing drunkenly in a glorious language all his own. And I thought: this is the joy of someone breast-obsessed who has just touched a breast.
So I’ve decided they both did not have sex as well as did have sex. Or, more likely, they did have sex but he was far more pleased with his performance than she was.
A lesser writer would not have kept us guessing: Did they or didn’t they? And there’s so much to say for both “did” and “didn’t.” I think they both believed the moment was at hand. “Please sit down, Monsieur Polyte” was a clear invitation, and the narrator took it. Then came the farcical collapse of that shelf full of books “filled with pity, genius, passion…” They intruded into the scene like a living character. The narrator, already not in the best shape for a tryst, lost his erection, and “the white nag of his fate moved slowly on.” To me that has the ring of missed opportunity, underscored by Raisa’s growl, “You’re a funny one.”
Someone here mentioned Judith and Holofernes (I now can’t find the comment, which expanded the story for mei). It’s surely no accident that the opera mentioned is Judith. The Biblical Judith lured Holofernes with the promise of sex, got him drunk and beheaded him before the deed. So why does he sing on the way back to Kasantsev’s? Bravado, I think. He’s feigning confidence he doesn’t feel, surrounded as he is by the sense of monsters seething behind walls. And there’s that ominous line: “The wooden pavements cut off the legs of those who walked on them.” Not the kind of reflection that comes to mind after a conquest.
In the staggering final paragraph, he is lifted out of his petty yearnings and disappointments by the discovery of Maupassant’s terrible end. I didn’t see that coming. Who could? It opens a whole other vista, unimaginably bleak, when you least expect it. “I was brushed by a foreboding of truth” is a brilliant final sentence. Brushed, but not flattened. He is young, and his illusions won’t die with one blow. He has many more pratfalls ahead.
I’m grateful to this chorus of deeply perceptive readers. Your insights push me to read more closely and have brightened a day of sickness. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I am thinking about the storytelling powers of Isaac Babel.
To me, the sex, the breasts, the quest for wealth, all of it is a school of red herrings. Curiously, there are at least five mentions of breasts in Basement. Where were the misogynistas? Where were the titillating (!) comments? To be clear, the term misogyny is misapplied here and elsewhere. More correct would be philogyny. This narrator, like Eugene in The Devil does not hate women. He is fascinated by women. Don't like philogyny? Maybe Gynephilia would work just as well. For those unsure about how to define and apple misogyny may I suggest "Justine: Philosophy in the Bedroom" by the Marquis de Sade.
I think this is a well written story about a 20 year old at least middle class youth who is trying out a Bohemian gig economy lifestyle. He gets a translating gig, makes a few wry, valuable, comments regarding good versus bad translations, offers some insight to the gauche lifestyle of the nouveau riche, makes a pass at his employer's wife (and is rejected) and after returning home has a minor epiphany. The end. How could he be looking for wealth with a temporary gig particularly after he gets an advance, he and his mates blow the lot on food and drink? Are the maid's eyes really "licentious" or is he just fantasizing like his dream about the washerwoman? Wine flows. Raisa flirts, calls him "mon vieux" (my buddy, or pal). He misinterprets her tipsy flirtation (as a horny 20 year old would), responds by calling her "ma belle". He makes a pass (she stumbles backwards against the wall, arms outstretched to steady herself) and is rejected. (Sit down, monsieur Polyte...you're a funny one). It's over before it begins. That horse (the white nag) has left the barn.
Me, I think that many readers look for insight where there are only mirages. Oh! It's (fill in the blank with famous author)! There must be some mystery here, some hidden message, some puzzling maze, a code to decipher! It has to be more than a well told tale! It just can't be this simple! Or can it?
I think the white nag is the clue. In the Maupassant story the white nag moves slowly while Celeste and Polyte get busy in the coach. And then at a critical juncture the narrator mentions the white nag of his fate moving slowly on. So there is a parallel.
Now, I wonder about the postscript detailing the fate of Maupassant. Afflicted with hereditary syphilis, he dies at 42, while his mother (from whom he inherited, if in fact he did have congenital disease, and didn't contract it on his own) survived him. It first showed up for Maupassant at 25. Our hero is 20 and has a foreboding of truth.
What has he just spent the last few weeks doing? Translating ribald stories, paying attention to the beautiful language ("free, flowing, with the long breathing of passion"), with a sexy woman at his side while a licentious maid wanders around (I think Cloris Leachman could have played the part). Eating and drinking to excess on the earnings from his work. Railing against Tolstoy, who got cold feet, because his religion is fear. Dreaming of the potential hotty who supplies hot water every morning (but it turns out she's faded, with ash-gray curls and damp hands). Seeing his boss's sisters spilling out of their dresses as they head to the opera, before drinking a bottle of Muscadet '83 with his benefactress, while they giggle and tease each other over Céleste and M. Polyte. And then a direction to sit on a sloping chair. Finally, crashing the 29 books of Maupassant (what's the significance of 29, repeated several times?) And then choosing to stumble home ("I was sober and could have walked on a single board, but it was much better to stagger") because he's aware of how he should be reacting to what (may have) just happened.
So, lots of excess here, in food and booze consumption, bosoms, interior decorating, Maupassant volumes, along with some cautionary notes (the haughty maid, the faded, damp-handed hot water woman, the hereditary syphilis, the fog that came up to the window). Did they do it or not? Was Raisa just playing with him because she's caught up in the Confession and playing it out, but only so far? Did he just knock down the 29 volumes and beat a hasty retreat and come to once outside, still playing the romance out and stumbling home, only to face the lesson he's been learning and being brushed by a foreboding of truth?
I'm struck by a couple of hints describing the narrator. One: he's using falsified papers. Two: he borrows another man's coat to pay his first visit to Raisa. There's playacting from the get-go right through to the stumbling home, culminating in the hysterical reading of the Confession and crash of the 29 volumes, with a grand finale in the telling of the tragedy of Maupassant's life.
Yeahhh, they did it. Clearly, from Raisa's rundown of The Confession, Celeste and Polyte had sex in that story. "Are we going to have a bit of fun?" / "A man and a woman, no need for music!" So, when the Narrator kisses Raisa, and then she refers to him as Polyte: "Be so kind as to seat yourself, M'sieur Polyte." That's when you know they're both in.
There is that stumbling episode before her final growled "You're so funny", which could read as anger. But, he leaves the house that night singing. I feel like if the Narrator embarrassed himself and walked away without having sex, he wouldn't be singing.
I'm not sure if the narrator and Raisa did anything sexual or not. Maybe she said, "You're a funny one" because she thought something would happen, but nothing did.
I think he fumbled it, just like he did those 29 books.
Why? Typically, a guy sauced on a bottle of wine and stumbling over a bookshelf isn't going to pull much off. :')
Also, snarling through teeth and growling "you're a funny one" doesn't sound much like sexy sex talk to me. Our young narrator isn't noticing, but Raisa's got the ick.
I think the narrator is looking back on his life and, although he doesn't regret his choice to be an artist, he recognizes that it wasn't the joyous life of success he had dreamed of either.
To me, the gun was the narrator's refusal to take the clerk's position because it was "better to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an office desk ..." The gun is shown and loaded by the narrator's admission that he hasn't broken his vow. It is telling to me that what's missing after that is any sort of sentiment about what a good or wonderful life he has because of that decision. The the first act closes with the inciting incident--the chance to translate Maupassant.
Then in the beginning of the second act we are shown the tacky splendor created by Bankers. Their success, although tangible, is looked down upon by the narrator. We get that wonderful sentence, all on its own, giving us the image of those velvet bears with crystal lamps and we can connote all kinds of wonderful things from them about the Bankers, such as strength, success, even beauty and maybe a bit more gaudiness. But, I think that the narrator wants to see those bears as his future incarnate. And in fact, those burning crystal lamps are the brightest moments.
This sentence "In their gaping jaws burned crystal lamps" is pretty awesome and strangely out of place standing alone as it does. It is the 3rd paragraph on page 73. Why was it set apart, why did the bears and their gaping jaws with burning lamps get this kind of call out?
Through out the second act the adjectives start to cool. The boiling water of his dreams chilled by the damp hands he finds in the morning. The scar smoulders. And as the second act comes to a close, our young narrator enjoyed a moment, his time spent carousing and relishing his hubris (the attack on Tolstoy), and delighting his benefactors with his cleverness, and yes even getting his Celeste, but his moment ends. The bear now gives way to a white nag with its pink mouth.
The third act captured by image of the slow walk forward of the white nag. Here the gun finally fires. Our narrator realizes that no matter how successful, life is not going to be what he thought it was--his bear now a nag and even Maupassant, the source of the narrator's current success, in the end turned into a beast.
The story a tragedy and the future obscured by fog.
Both times I read it, I assumed they didn't have sex. I read the "growl" as discomfort and defense. I think the boisterous fake drunkenness was a big show he put on to boost his mood, but it didn't seem like it worked: He perceived danger and monsters on his walk home. It seemed like he arrived back deflated, and I thought he might have woken his friend up if he was feeling boastful -- instead he quietly retreated to his room and read Maupassant's bio. Maybe something about being rejected by Raisa compelled him to take an interest at that moment in the life of the man who inspired her... curiosity about her champion?
What a delight to hear my former teacher read the original text in Russian! I understood nothing, but loved it. Hungarian and Russian don’t have much in common, I can confirm :) I also loved this reading of the text, about youthful arrogance, striving and hunger. I was hoping to find out why he had a forged passport… anyone has an idea? I don’t know why this detail stayed with me more than the breasts…
Narrator leaves before midnight, and Babel links that departure, in the same sentence, to the impending return of the sisters and husbands. Time to disappear, being found so late with Raisa would be compromising (kompromat ? ;) ). So there's been time to do it...
There's sex in the three Maupassant stories that, in a sense, frame the Babel story. Youth and age (of differing social or national/religious circumstances) come to no good in two of them, Miss Harriet and The Confession. In The Idyll, the famished young worker can satisfy his hunger at the bursting breasts of the nurse. Both are satisfied, no one gets hurt.
So I'll go for DID IT!
But in Maupassant's real life, we learn, there is a great deal of hurt, and an early death. A sobered-up narrator might do well to keep away from the Bendersky household -- there are enough (shadowy or barely emphasized) signs of hurt to come if he sticks around.
It was lovely to listen to that short reading of the story. It does sound musical and I could pick out the words Spanish and Raisa!
I also wondered if the chambermaid was slightly scornful of the narrator when she realised he desired Raisa. After all, they are both supposedly from the same class so she probably sees him punching above his weight. Maybe she has seen this happen before with other men who come to the house?
And I don't think they do the deed, despite their lust and all the wine. I get a feeling from the story that Raisa is too canny and formidable to let it happen straight away. I feel she will string him along until he has served his purpose. She has all the power here. He delights her with his translations but I think she could tire quickly of him. I suspect that deep down he knows this too.
I feel I have just been given a college assignment--an essay on Babel, to be backed up by arguments visible in the text. I'm not sure I have the energy to make my argument properly, but i will attempt. Yes, I do believe that Raisa and our narrator have had sex. If nothing else, this is because of the old "if there is a gun in the first act, it must go off by the final act" maxim. We have seen breasts and sexual dreams in abundance here. We have seen flirtation, drunkenness, abandonment. We have seen Raisa fling her arms out wide against the bookshelf. "Of all the gods ever crucified, she was the most captivating." We have seen these two re-enact a scene from a (Maupassant) story that concludes with sex. We see the narrator leap up, causing 29 volumes of his hero to fall to the floor, "their pages flying wild." (SEX HAPPENING HERE--the passion of Maupassant's pages flying wild!) I'm not sure what it means when Babel writes "the white nag of my fate walked a slow walk," but i'm wondering if it refers to his erection diminishing after their union. (Raisa now growls, "You're so funny," words she "muttered" before the sex act occurred.) We have watched our narrator walk home, no longer drunk, but walking drunkenly anyway--a post coital stupor. He wants to retain the feeling of having just had sex. He sings in a language he had just invented (From Lonely Island's masterpiece: "Sometimes something beautiful happens in this world. You don't know how to express yourself, so you just gotta sing.") The fog rolls "in waves" (orgasmic). Monsters roar (orgasm occurs). And, later, we watch our young narrator read of his possible future: a slow death from a sexually contracted disease due to his passions.
Oh, yes, these two definitely had sex.
PS Lonely Island's song is called I Just Had Sex and it's not for everyone. You've been warned.
It’s funny, the first time I read it I thought, ‘he’s screwed this up, not screwed Raisa’. I mean, how could anyone wield sexual allure after flailing into a bookcase and knocking down 29 volumes?
The second time, prepared for the comedy book flail, I instead noticed the narrator stumbling down the street singing drunkenly in a glorious language all his own. And I thought: this is the joy of someone breast-obsessed who has just touched a breast.
So I’ve decided they both did not have sex as well as did have sex. Or, more likely, they did have sex but he was far more pleased with his performance than she was.
A lesser writer would not have kept us guessing: Did they or didn’t they? And there’s so much to say for both “did” and “didn’t.” I think they both believed the moment was at hand. “Please sit down, Monsieur Polyte” was a clear invitation, and the narrator took it. Then came the farcical collapse of that shelf full of books “filled with pity, genius, passion…” They intruded into the scene like a living character. The narrator, already not in the best shape for a tryst, lost his erection, and “the white nag of his fate moved slowly on.” To me that has the ring of missed opportunity, underscored by Raisa’s growl, “You’re a funny one.”
Someone here mentioned Judith and Holofernes (I now can’t find the comment, which expanded the story for mei). It’s surely no accident that the opera mentioned is Judith. The Biblical Judith lured Holofernes with the promise of sex, got him drunk and beheaded him before the deed. So why does he sing on the way back to Kasantsev’s? Bravado, I think. He’s feigning confidence he doesn’t feel, surrounded as he is by the sense of monsters seething behind walls. And there’s that ominous line: “The wooden pavements cut off the legs of those who walked on them.” Not the kind of reflection that comes to mind after a conquest.
In the staggering final paragraph, he is lifted out of his petty yearnings and disappointments by the discovery of Maupassant’s terrible end. I didn’t see that coming. Who could? It opens a whole other vista, unimaginably bleak, when you least expect it. “I was brushed by a foreboding of truth” is a brilliant final sentence. Brushed, but not flattened. He is young, and his illusions won’t die with one blow. He has many more pratfalls ahead.
I’m grateful to this chorus of deeply perceptive readers. Your insights push me to read more closely and have brightened a day of sickness. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I am thinking about the storytelling powers of Isaac Babel.
I don’t think they had sex, the books came crashing down and the white nag of his fate moved slowly on.
To me, the sex, the breasts, the quest for wealth, all of it is a school of red herrings. Curiously, there are at least five mentions of breasts in Basement. Where were the misogynistas? Where were the titillating (!) comments? To be clear, the term misogyny is misapplied here and elsewhere. More correct would be philogyny. This narrator, like Eugene in The Devil does not hate women. He is fascinated by women. Don't like philogyny? Maybe Gynephilia would work just as well. For those unsure about how to define and apple misogyny may I suggest "Justine: Philosophy in the Bedroom" by the Marquis de Sade.
I think this is a well written story about a 20 year old at least middle class youth who is trying out a Bohemian gig economy lifestyle. He gets a translating gig, makes a few wry, valuable, comments regarding good versus bad translations, offers some insight to the gauche lifestyle of the nouveau riche, makes a pass at his employer's wife (and is rejected) and after returning home has a minor epiphany. The end. How could he be looking for wealth with a temporary gig particularly after he gets an advance, he and his mates blow the lot on food and drink? Are the maid's eyes really "licentious" or is he just fantasizing like his dream about the washerwoman? Wine flows. Raisa flirts, calls him "mon vieux" (my buddy, or pal). He misinterprets her tipsy flirtation (as a horny 20 year old would), responds by calling her "ma belle". He makes a pass (she stumbles backwards against the wall, arms outstretched to steady herself) and is rejected. (Sit down, monsieur Polyte...you're a funny one). It's over before it begins. That horse (the white nag) has left the barn.
Me, I think that many readers look for insight where there are only mirages. Oh! It's (fill in the blank with famous author)! There must be some mystery here, some hidden message, some puzzling maze, a code to decipher! It has to be more than a well told tale! It just can't be this simple! Or can it?
I think the white nag is the clue. In the Maupassant story the white nag moves slowly while Celeste and Polyte get busy in the coach. And then at a critical juncture the narrator mentions the white nag of his fate moving slowly on. So there is a parallel.
Now, I wonder about the postscript detailing the fate of Maupassant. Afflicted with hereditary syphilis, he dies at 42, while his mother (from whom he inherited, if in fact he did have congenital disease, and didn't contract it on his own) survived him. It first showed up for Maupassant at 25. Our hero is 20 and has a foreboding of truth.
What has he just spent the last few weeks doing? Translating ribald stories, paying attention to the beautiful language ("free, flowing, with the long breathing of passion"), with a sexy woman at his side while a licentious maid wanders around (I think Cloris Leachman could have played the part). Eating and drinking to excess on the earnings from his work. Railing against Tolstoy, who got cold feet, because his religion is fear. Dreaming of the potential hotty who supplies hot water every morning (but it turns out she's faded, with ash-gray curls and damp hands). Seeing his boss's sisters spilling out of their dresses as they head to the opera, before drinking a bottle of Muscadet '83 with his benefactress, while they giggle and tease each other over Céleste and M. Polyte. And then a direction to sit on a sloping chair. Finally, crashing the 29 books of Maupassant (what's the significance of 29, repeated several times?) And then choosing to stumble home ("I was sober and could have walked on a single board, but it was much better to stagger") because he's aware of how he should be reacting to what (may have) just happened.
So, lots of excess here, in food and booze consumption, bosoms, interior decorating, Maupassant volumes, along with some cautionary notes (the haughty maid, the faded, damp-handed hot water woman, the hereditary syphilis, the fog that came up to the window). Did they do it or not? Was Raisa just playing with him because she's caught up in the Confession and playing it out, but only so far? Did he just knock down the 29 volumes and beat a hasty retreat and come to once outside, still playing the romance out and stumbling home, only to face the lesson he's been learning and being brushed by a foreboding of truth?
I'm struck by a couple of hints describing the narrator. One: he's using falsified papers. Two: he borrows another man's coat to pay his first visit to Raisa. There's playacting from the get-go right through to the stumbling home, culminating in the hysterical reading of the Confession and crash of the 29 volumes, with a grand finale in the telling of the tragedy of Maupassant's life.
Yeahhh, they did it. Clearly, from Raisa's rundown of The Confession, Celeste and Polyte had sex in that story. "Are we going to have a bit of fun?" / "A man and a woman, no need for music!" So, when the Narrator kisses Raisa, and then she refers to him as Polyte: "Be so kind as to seat yourself, M'sieur Polyte." That's when you know they're both in.
There is that stumbling episode before her final growled "You're so funny", which could read as anger. But, he leaves the house that night singing. I feel like if the Narrator embarrassed himself and walked away without having sex, he wouldn't be singing.
He "could have walked...but it was much better to stagger" -- youth in a nutshell, I think!
I'm not sure if the narrator and Raisa did anything sexual or not. Maybe she said, "You're a funny one" because she thought something would happen, but nothing did.
I think he fumbled it, just like he did those 29 books.
Why? Typically, a guy sauced on a bottle of wine and stumbling over a bookshelf isn't going to pull much off. :')
Also, snarling through teeth and growling "you're a funny one" doesn't sound much like sexy sex talk to me. Our young narrator isn't noticing, but Raisa's got the ick.
I think the narrator is looking back on his life and, although he doesn't regret his choice to be an artist, he recognizes that it wasn't the joyous life of success he had dreamed of either.
To me, the gun was the narrator's refusal to take the clerk's position because it was "better to go hungry, to go to prison, to be a tramp, than to sit at an office desk ..." The gun is shown and loaded by the narrator's admission that he hasn't broken his vow. It is telling to me that what's missing after that is any sort of sentiment about what a good or wonderful life he has because of that decision. The the first act closes with the inciting incident--the chance to translate Maupassant.
Then in the beginning of the second act we are shown the tacky splendor created by Bankers. Their success, although tangible, is looked down upon by the narrator. We get that wonderful sentence, all on its own, giving us the image of those velvet bears with crystal lamps and we can connote all kinds of wonderful things from them about the Bankers, such as strength, success, even beauty and maybe a bit more gaudiness. But, I think that the narrator wants to see those bears as his future incarnate. And in fact, those burning crystal lamps are the brightest moments.
This sentence "In their gaping jaws burned crystal lamps" is pretty awesome and strangely out of place standing alone as it does. It is the 3rd paragraph on page 73. Why was it set apart, why did the bears and their gaping jaws with burning lamps get this kind of call out?
Through out the second act the adjectives start to cool. The boiling water of his dreams chilled by the damp hands he finds in the morning. The scar smoulders. And as the second act comes to a close, our young narrator enjoyed a moment, his time spent carousing and relishing his hubris (the attack on Tolstoy), and delighting his benefactors with his cleverness, and yes even getting his Celeste, but his moment ends. The bear now gives way to a white nag with its pink mouth.
The third act captured by image of the slow walk forward of the white nag. Here the gun finally fires. Our narrator realizes that no matter how successful, life is not going to be what he thought it was--his bear now a nag and even Maupassant, the source of the narrator's current success, in the end turned into a beast.
The story a tragedy and the future obscured by fog.
Both times I read it, I assumed they didn't have sex. I read the "growl" as discomfort and defense. I think the boisterous fake drunkenness was a big show he put on to boost his mood, but it didn't seem like it worked: He perceived danger and monsters on his walk home. It seemed like he arrived back deflated, and I thought he might have woken his friend up if he was feeling boastful -- instead he quietly retreated to his room and read Maupassant's bio. Maybe something about being rejected by Raisa compelled him to take an interest at that moment in the life of the man who inspired her... curiosity about her champion?
What a delight to hear my former teacher read the original text in Russian! I understood nothing, but loved it. Hungarian and Russian don’t have much in common, I can confirm :) I also loved this reading of the text, about youthful arrogance, striving and hunger. I was hoping to find out why he had a forged passport… anyone has an idea? I don’t know why this detail stayed with me more than the breasts…
Did they or didn't they?
Narrator leaves before midnight, and Babel links that departure, in the same sentence, to the impending return of the sisters and husbands. Time to disappear, being found so late with Raisa would be compromising (kompromat ? ;) ). So there's been time to do it...
There's sex in the three Maupassant stories that, in a sense, frame the Babel story. Youth and age (of differing social or national/religious circumstances) come to no good in two of them, Miss Harriet and The Confession. In The Idyll, the famished young worker can satisfy his hunger at the bursting breasts of the nurse. Both are satisfied, no one gets hurt.
So I'll go for DID IT!
But in Maupassant's real life, we learn, there is a great deal of hurt, and an early death. A sobered-up narrator might do well to keep away from the Bendersky household -- there are enough (shadowy or barely emphasized) signs of hurt to come if he sticks around.
It was lovely to listen to that short reading of the story. It does sound musical and I could pick out the words Spanish and Raisa!
I also wondered if the chambermaid was slightly scornful of the narrator when she realised he desired Raisa. After all, they are both supposedly from the same class so she probably sees him punching above his weight. Maybe she has seen this happen before with other men who come to the house?
And I don't think they do the deed, despite their lust and all the wine. I get a feeling from the story that Raisa is too canny and formidable to let it happen straight away. I feel she will string him along until he has served his purpose. She has all the power here. He delights her with his translations but I think she could tire quickly of him. I suspect that deep down he knows this too.