_Marvels on a Hurdle_
A little while afterwards the stranger came in again, and brought
a strange thing with him like a hurdle, or like the figure II. On
the crosspiece on the top of this roughly made wooden frame hung a
bell, and a pistol was also tied to it; there were strings from the
tongue of the bell, and the trigger of the pistol. The stranger put
the frame in the middle of the room, spent a long time tying and
untying something, then looked at the gander and said: "Ivan Ivanitch,
if you please!"
The gander went up to him and stood in an expectant attitude.
"Now then," said the stranger, "let us begin at the very beginning.
First of all, bow and make a curtsey! Look sharp!"
Ivan Ivanitch craned his neck, nodded in all directions, and scraped
with his foot.
"Right. Bravo. . . . Now die!"
The gander lay on his back and stuck his legs in the air. After
performing a few more similar, unimportant tricks, the stranger
suddenly clutched at his head, and assuming an expression of horror,
shouted: "Help! Fire! We are burning!"
Ivan Ivanitch ran to the frame, took the string in his beak, and
set the bell ringing.
The stranger was very much pleased. He stroked the gander's neck
and said:
"Bravo, Ivan Ivanitch! Now pretend that you are a jeweller selling
gold and diamonds. Imagine now that you go to your shop and find
thieves there. What would you do in that case?"
The gander took the other string in his beak and pulled it, and at
once a deafening report was heard. Kashtanka was highly delighted
with the bell ringing, and the shot threw her into so much ecstasy
that she ran round the frame barking.
"Auntie, lie down!" cried the stranger; "be quiet!"
Ivan Ivanitch's task was not ended with the shooting. For a whole
hour afterwards the stranger drove the gander round him on a cord,
cracking a whip, and the gander had to jump over barriers and through
hoops; he had to rear, that is, sit on his tail and wave his legs
in the air. Kashtanka could not take her eyes off Ivan Ivanitch,
wriggled with delight, and several times fell to running after him
with shrill barks. After exhausting the gander and himself, the
stranger wiped the sweat from his brow and cried:
"Marya, fetch Havronya Ivanovna here!"
A minute later there was the sound of grunting. Kashtanka growled,
assumed a very valiant air, and to be on the safe side, went nearer
to the stranger. The door opened, an old woman looked in, and,
saying something, led in a black and very ugly sow. Paying no
attention to Kashtanka's growls, the sow lifted up her little hoof
and grunted good-humouredly. Apparently it was very agreeable to
her to see her master, the cat, and Ivan Ivanitch. When she went
up to the cat and gave him a light tap on the stomach with her hoof,
and then made some remark to the gander, a great deal of good-nature
was expressed in her movements, and the quivering of her tail.
Kashtanka realised at once that to growl and bark at such a character
was useless.
The master took away the frame and cried. "Fyodor Timofeyitch, if
you please!"
The cat stretched lazily, and reluctantly, as though performing a
duty, went up to the sow.
"Come, let us begin with the Egyptian pyramid," began the master.
He spent a long time explaining something, then gave the word of
command, "One . . . two . . . three!" At the word "three" Ivan
Ivanitch flapped his wings and jumped on to the sow's back. . . .
When, balancing himself with his wings and his neck, he got a firm
foothold on the bristly back, Fyodor Timofeyitch listlessly and
lazily, with manifest disdain, and with an air of scorning his art
and not caring a pin for it, climbed on to the sow's back, then
reluctantly mounted on to the gander, and stood on his hind legs.
The result was what the stranger called the Egyptian pyramid.
Kashtanka yapped with delight, but at that moment the old cat yawned
and, losing his balance, rolled off the gander. Ivan Ivanitch lurched
and fell off too. The stranger shouted, waved his hands, and began
explaining something again. After spending an hour over the pyramid
their indefatigable master proceeded to teach Ivan Ivanitch to ride
on the cat, then began to teach the cat to smoke, and so on.
The lesson ended in the stranger's wiping the sweat off his brow
and going away. Fyodor Timofeyitch gave a disdainful sniff, lay
down on his mattress, and closed his eyes; Ivan Ivanitch went to
the trough, and the pig was taken away by the old woman. Thanks to
the number of her new impressions, Kashranka hardly noticed how the
day passed, and in the evening she was installed with her mattress
in the room with the dirty wall-paper, and spent the night in the
society of Fyodor Timofeyitch and the gander.
V
_Talent! Talent!_
A month passed.
Kashtanka had grown used to having a nice dinner every evening, and
being called Auntie. She had grown used to the stranger too, and
to her new companions. Life was comfortable and easy.
Every day began in the same way. As a rule, Ivan Ivanitch was the
first to wake up, and at once went up to Auntie or to the cat,
twisting his neck, and beginning to talk excitedly and persuasively,
but, as before, unintelligibly. Sometimes he would crane up his
head in the air and utter a long monologue. At first Kashtanka
thought he talked so much because he was very clever, but after a
little time had passed, she lost all her respect for him; when he
went up to her with his long speeches she no longer wagged her tail,
but treated him as a tiresome chatterbox, who would not let anyone
sleep and, without the slightest ceremony, answered him with
"R-r-r-r!"
Fyodor Timofeyitch was a gentleman of a very different sort. When
he woke he did not utter a sound, did not stir, and did not even
open his eyes. He would have been glad not to wake, for, as was
evident, he was not greatly in love with life. Nothing interested
him, he showed an apathetic and nonchalant attitude to everything,
he disdained everything and, even while eating his delicious dinner,
sniffed contemptuously.
When she woke Kashtanka began walking about the room and sniffing
the corners. She and the cat were the only ones allowed to go all
over the flat; the gander had not the right to cross the threshold
of the room with the dirty wall-paper, and Hayronya Ivanovna lived
somewhere in a little outhouse in the yard and made her appearance
only during the lessons. Their master got up late, and immediately
after drinking his tea began teaching them their tricks. Every day
the frame, the whip, and the hoop were brought in, and every day
almost the same performance took place. The lesson lasted three or
four hours, so that sometimes Fyodor Timofeyitch was so tired that
he staggered about like a drunken man, and Ivan Ivanitch opened his
beak and breathed heavily, while their master became red in the
face and could not mop the sweat from his brow fast enough.
The lesson and the dinner made the day very interesting, but the
evenings were tedious. As a rule, their master went off somewhere
in the evening and took the cat and the gander with him. Left alone,
Auntie lay down on her little mattress and began to feel sad.
Melancholy crept on her imperceptibly and took possession of her
by degrees, as darkness does of a room. It began with the dog's
losing every inclination to bark, to eat, to run about the rooms,
and even to look at things; then vague figures, half dogs, half
human beings, with countenances attractive, pleasant, but
incomprehensible, would appear in her imagination; when they came
Auntie wagged her tail, and it seemed to her that she had somewhere,
at some time, seen them and loved them. And as she dropped asleep,
she always felt that those figures smelt of glue, shavings, and
varnish.
When she had grown quite used to her new life, and from a thin,
long mongrel, had changed into a sleek, well-groomed dog, her master
looked at her one day before the lesson and said:
"It's high time, Auntie, to get to business. You have kicked up
your heels in idleness long enough. I want to make an artiste of
you. . . . Do you want to be an artiste?"
And he began teaching her various accomplishments. At the first
lesson he taught her to stand and walk on her hind legs, which she
liked extremely. At the second lesson she had to jump on her hind
legs and catch some sugar, which her teacher held high above her
head. After that, in the following lessons she danced, ran tied to
a cord, howled to music, rang the bell, and fired the pistol, and
in a month could successfully replace Fyodor Timofeyitch in the
"Egyptian Pyramid." She learned very eagerly and was pleased with
her own success; running with her tongue out on the cord, leaping
through the hoop, and riding on old Fyodor Timofeyitch, gave her
the greatest enjoyment. She accompanied every successful trick with
a shrill, delighted bark, while her teacher wondered, was also
delighted, and rubbed his hands.
"It's talent! It's talent!" he said. "Unquestionable talent! You
will certainly be successful!"
And Auntie grew so used to the word talent, that every time her
master pronounced it, she jumped up as if it had been her name.