The same voice shouted: 'Come in; who's there?'...
I went into the small empty hall, and through the open door I saw
Tchertop-hanov himself. In a greasy oriental dressing-gown, loose
trousers, and a red skull-cap, he was sitting on a chair; in one hand he
gripped the face of a young poodle, while in the other he was holding a
piece of bread just above his nose.
'Ah!' he pronounced with dignity, not stirring from his seat: 'delighted
to see you. Please sit down. I am busy here with Venzor.... Tihon
Ivanitch,' he added, raising his voice, 'come here, will you? Here's a
visitor.'
'I'm coming, I'm coming,' Tihon Ivanitch responded from the other room.
'Masha, give me my cravat.'
Tchertop-hanov turned to Venzor again and laid the piece of bread on his
nose. I looked round. Except an extending table much warped with
thirteen legs of unequal length, and four rush chairs worn into hollows,
there was no furniture of any kind in the room; the walls, which had
been washed white, ages ago, with blue, star-shaped spots, were peeling
off in many places; between the windows hung a broken tarnished
looking-glass in a huge frame of red wood. In the corners stood
pipestands and guns; from the ceiling hung fat black cobwebs.
'A, B, C, D,' Tchertop-hanov repeated slowly, and suddenly he cried
furiously: '_E! E! E! E!_... What a stupid brute!...'
But the luckless poodle only shivered, and could not make up his mind to
open his mouth; he still sat wagging his tail uneasily and wrinkling up
his face, blinked dejectedly, and frowned as though saying to himself:
'Of course, it's just as you please!'
'There, eat! come! take it!' repeated the indefatigable master.
'You've frightened him,' I remarked.
'Well, he can get along, then!'
He gave him a kick. The poor dog got up softly, dropped the bread off
his nose, and walked, as it were, on tiptoe to the hall, deeply wounded.
And with good reason: a stranger calling for the first time, and to
treat him like that!
The door from the next room gave a subdued creak, and Mr. Nedopyuskin
came in, affably bowing and smiling.