_An Unsuccessful Début_
One fine evening the master came into the room with the dirty
wall-paper, and, rubbing his hands, said:
"Well. . . ."
He meant to say something more, but went away without saying it.
Auntie, who during her lessons had thoroughly studied his face and
intonations, divined that he was agitated, anxious and, she fancied,
angry. Soon afterwards he came back and said:
"To-day I shall take with me Auntie and F'yodor Timofeyitch. To-day,
Auntie, you will take the place of poor Ivan Ivanitch in the 'Egyptian
Pyramid.' Goodness knows how it will be! Nothing is ready, nothing
has been thoroughly studied, there have been few rehearsals! We
shall be disgraced, we shall come to grief!"
Then he went out again, and a minute later, came back in his fur-coat
and top hat. Going up to the cat he took him by the fore-paws and
put him inside the front of his coat, while Fyodor Timofeyitch
appeared completely unconcerned, and did not even trouble to open
his eyes. To him it was apparently a matter of absolute indifference
whether he remained lying down, or were lifted up by his paws,
whether he rested on his mattress or under his master's fur-coat.
"Come along, Auntie," said her master.
Wagging her tail, and understanding nothing, Auntie followed him.
A minute later she was sitting in a sledge by her master's feet and
heard him, shrinking with cold and anxiety, mutter to himself:
"We shall be disgraced! We shall come to grief!"
The sledge stopped at a big strange-looking house, like a soup-ladle
turned upside down. The long entrance to this house, with its three
glass doors, was lighted up with a dozen brilliant lamps. The doors
opened with a resounding noise and, like jaws, swallowed up the
people who were moving to and fro at the entrance. There were a
great many people, horses, too, often ran up to the entrance, but
no dogs were to be seen.
The master took Auntie in his arms and thrust her in his coat, where
Fyodor Timofeyirch already was. It was dark and stuffy there, but
warm. For an instant two green sparks flashed at her; it was the
cat, who opened his eyes on being disturbed by his neighbour's cold
rough paws. Auntie licked his ear, and, trying to settle herself
as comfortably as possible, moved uneasily, crushed him under her
cold paws, and casually poked her head out from under the coat, but
at once growled angrily, and tucked it in again. It seemed to her
that she had seen a huge, badly lighted room, full of monsters;
from behind screens and gratings, which stretched on both sides of
the room, horrible faces looked out: faces of horses with horns,
with long ears, and one fat, huge countenance with a tail instead
of a nose, and two long gnawed bones sticking out of his mouth.
The cat mewed huskily under Auntie's paws, but at that moment the
coat was flung open, the master said, "Hop!" and Fyodor Timofeyitch
and Auntie jumped to the floor. They were now in a little room with
grey plank walls; there was no other furniture in it but a little
table with a looking-glass on it, a stool, and some rags hung about
the corners, and instead of a lamp or candles, there was a bright
fan-shaped light attached to a little pipe fixed in the wall. Fyodor
Timofeyitch licked his coat which had been ruffled by Auntie, went
under the stool, and lay down. Their master, still agitated and
rubbing his hands, began undressing. . . . He undressed as he usually
did at home when he was preparing to get under the rug, that is,
took off everything but his underlinen, then he sat down on the
stool, and, looking in the looking-glass, began playing the most
surprising tricks with himself. . . . First of all he put on his
head a wig, with a parting and with two tufts of hair standing up
like horns, then he smeared his face thickly with something white,
and over the white colour painted his eyebrows, his moustaches, and
red on his cheeks. His antics did not end with that. After smearing
his face and neck, he began putting himself into an extraordinary
and incongruous costume, such as Auntie had never seen before,
either in houses or in the street. Imagine very full trousers, made
of chintz covered with big flowers, such as is used in working-class
houses for curtains and covering furniture, trousers which buttoned
up just under his armpits. One trouser leg was made of brown chintz,
the other of bright yellow. Almost lost in these, he then put on a
short chintz jacket, with a big scalloped collar, and a gold star
on the back, stockings of different colours, and green slippers.
Everything seemed going round before Auntie's eyes and in her soul.
The white-faced, sack-like figure smelt like her master, its voice,
too, was the familiar master's voice, but there were moments when
Auntie was tortured by doubts, and then she was ready to run away
from the parti-coloured figure and to bark. The new place, the
fan-shaped light, the smell, the transformation that had taken place
in her master--all this aroused in her a vague dread and a
foreboding that she would certainly meet with some horror such as
the big face with the tail instead of a nose. And then, somewhere
through the wall, some hateful band was playing, and from time to
time she heard an incomprehensible roar. Only one thing reassured
her--that was the imperturbability of Fyodor Timofeyitch. He dozed
with the utmost tranquillity under the stool, and did not open his
eyes even when it was moved.
A man in a dress coat and a white waistcoat peeped into the little
room and said:
"Miss Arabella has just gone on. After her--you."
Their master made no answer. He drew a small box from under the
table, sat down, and waited. From his lips and his hands it could
be seen that he was agitated, and Auntie could hear how his breathing
came in gasps.
"Monsieur George, come on!" someone shouted behind the door. Their
master got up and crossed himself three times, then took the cat
from under the stool and put him in the box.
"Come, Auntie," he said softly.
Auntie, who could make nothing out of it, went up to his hands, he
kissed her on the head, and put her beside Fyodor Timofeyitch. Then
followed darkness. . . . Auntie trampled on the cat, scratched at
the walls of the box, and was so frightened that she could not utter
a sound, while the box swayed and quivered, as though it were on
the waves. . . .
"Here we are again!" her master shouted aloud: "here we are again!"
Auntie felt that after that shout the box struck against something
hard and left off swaying. There was a loud deep roar, someone was
being slapped, and that someone, probably the monster with the tail
instead of a nose, roared and laughed so loud that the locks of the
box trembled. In response to the roar, there came a shrill, squeaky
laugh from her master, such as he never laughed at home.
"Ha!" he shouted, trying to shout above the roar. "Honoured friends!
I have only just come from the station! My granny's kicked the
bucket and left me a fortune! There is something very heavy in the
box, it must be gold, ha! ha! I bet there's a million here! We'll
open it and look. . . ."
The lock of the box clicked. The bright light dazzled Auntie's eyes,
she jumped out of the box, and, deafened by the roar, ran quickly
round her master, and broke into a shrill bark.
"Ha!" exclaimed her master. "Uncle Fyodor Timofeyitch! Beloved Aunt,
dear relations! The devil take you!"
He fell on his stomach on the sand, seized the cat and Auntie, and
fell to embracing them. While he held Auntie tight in his arms, she
glanced round into the world into which fate had brought her and,
impressed by its immensity, was for a minute dumbfounded with
amazement and delight, then jumped out of her master's arms, and
to express the intensity of her emotions, whirled round and round
on one spot like a top. This new world was big and full of bright
light; wherever she looked, on all sides, from floor to ceiling
there were faces, faces, faces, and nothing else.
"Auntie, I beg you to sit down!" shouted her master. Remembering
what that meant, Auntie jumped on to a chair, and sat down. She
looked at her master. His eyes looked at her gravely and kindly as
always, but his face, especially his mouth and teeth, were made
grotesque by a broad immovable grin. He laughed, skipped about,
twitched his shoulders, and made a show of being very merry in the
presence of the thousands of faces. Auntie believed in his merriment,
all at once felt all over her that those thousands of faces were
looking at her, lifted up her fox-like head, and howled joyously.
"You sit there, Auntie," her master said to her, "while Uncle and
I will dance the Kamarinsky."
Fyodor Timofeyitch stood looking about him indifferently, waiting
to be made to do something silly. He danced listlessly, carelessly,
sullenly, and one could see from his movements, his tail and his
ears, that he had a profound contempt for the crowd, the bright
light, his master and himself. When he had performed his allotted
task, he gave a yawn and sat down.
"Now, Auntie!" said her master, "we'll have first a song, and then
a dance, shall we?"
He took a pipe out of his pocket, and began playing. Auntie, who
could not endure music, began moving uneasily in her chair and
howled. A roar of applause rose from all sides. Her master bowed,
and when all was still again, went on playing. . . . Just as he
took one very high note, someone high up among the audience uttered
a loud exclamation:
"Auntie!" cried a child's voice, "why it's Kashtanka!"
"Kashtanka it is!" declared a cracked drunken tenor. "Kashtanka!
Strike me dead, Fedyushka, it is Kashtanka. Kashtanka! here!"
Someone in the gallery gave a whistle, and two voices, one a boy's
and one a man's, called loudly: "Kashtanka! Kashtanka!"
Auntie started, and looked where the shouting came from. Two faces,
one hairy, drunken and grinning, the other chubby, rosy-cheeked and
frightened-looking, dazed her eyes as the bright light had dazed
them before. . . . She remembered, fell off the chair, struggled
on the sand, then jumped up, and with a delighted yap dashed towards
those faces. There was a deafening roar, interspersed with whistles
and a shrill childish shout: "Kashtanka! Kashtanka!"
Auntie leaped over the barrier, then across someone's shoulders.
She found herself in a box: to get into the next tier she had to
leap over a high wall. Auntie jumped, but did not jump high enough,
and slipped back down the wall. Then she was passed from hand to
hand, licked hands and faces, kept mounting higher and higher, and
at last got into the gallery. . . .
----
Half an hour afterwards, Kashtanka was in the street, following the
people who smelt of glue and varnish. Luka Alexandritch staggered
and instinctively, taught by experience, tried to keep as far from
the gutter as possible.
"In sin my mother bore me," he muttered. "And you, Kashtanka, are
a thing of little understanding. Beside a man, you are like a joiner
beside a cabinetmaker."
Fedyushka walked beside him, wearing his father's cap. Kashtanka
looked at their backs, and it seemed to her that she had been
following them for ages, and was glad that there had not been a
break for a minute in her life.
She remembered the little room with dirty wall-paper, the gander,
Fyodor Timofeyitch, the delicious dinners, the lessons, the circus,
but all that seemed to her now like a long, tangled, oppressive
dream.