As my uncle Pyotr Demyanitch, a lean, bilious collegiate councillor,
exceedingly like a stale smoked fish with a stick through it, was
getting ready to go to the high school, where he taught Latin, he
noticed that the corner of his grammar was nibbled by mice.
"I say, Praskovya," he said, going into the kitchen and addressing
the cook, "how is it we have got mice here? Upon my word! yesterday
my top hat was nibbled, to-day they have disfigured my Latin grammar
. . . . At this rate they will soon begin eating my clothes!
"What can I do? I did not bring them in!" answered Praskovya.
"We must do something! You had better get a cat, hadn't you?"
"I've got a cat, but what good is it?"
And Praskovya pointed to the corner where a white kitten, thin as
a match, lay curled up asleep beside a broom.
"Why is it no good?" asked Pyotr Demyanitch.
"It's young yet, and foolish. It's not two months old yet."
"H'm. . . . Then it must be trained. It had much better be learning
instead of lying there."
Saying this, Pyotr Demyanitch sighed with a careworn air and went
out of the kitchen. The kitten raised his head, looked lazily after
him, and shut his eyes again.
The kitten lay awake thinking. Of what? Unacquainted with real life,
having no store of accumulated impressions, his mental processes
could only be instinctive, and he could but picture life in accordance
with the conceptions that he had inherited, together with his flesh
and blood, from his ancestors, the tigers (_vide_ Darwin). His
thoughts were of the nature of day-dreams. His feline imagination
pictured something like the Arabian desert, over which flitted
shadows closely resembling Praskovya, the stove, the broom. In the
midst of the shadows there suddenly appeared a saucer of milk; the
saucer began to grow paws, it began moving and displayed a tendency
to run; the kitten made a bound, and with a thrill of blood-thirsty
sensuality thrust his claws into it.
When the saucer had vanished into obscurity a piece of meat appeared,
dropped by Praskovya; the meat ran away with a cowardly squeak, but
the kitten made a bound and got his claws into it. . . . Everything
that rose before the imagination of the young dreamer had for its
starting-point leaps, claws, and teeth. . . The soul of another is
darkness, and a cat's soul more than most, but how near the visions
just described are to the truth may be seen from the following fact:
under the influence of his day-dreams the kitten suddenly leaped
up, looked with flashing eyes at Praskovya, ruffled up his coat,
and making one bound, thrust his claws into the cook's skirt.
Obviously he was born a mouse catcher, a worthy son of his bloodthirsty
ancestors. Fate had destined him to be the terror of cellars,
store-rooms and cornbins, and had it not been for education . . .
we will not anticipate, however.
On his way home from the high school, Pyotr Demyanitch went into a
general shop and bought a mouse-trap for fifteen kopecks. At dinner
he fixed a little bit of his rissole on the hook, and set the trap
under the sofa, where there were heaps of the pupils' old exercise-books,
which Praskovya used for various domestic purposes. At six o'clock
in the evening, when the worthy Latin master was sitting at the
table correcting his pupils' exercises, there was a sudden "klop!"
so loud that my uncle started and dropped his pen. He went at once
to the sofa and took out the trap. A neat little mouse, the size
of a thimble, was sniffing the wires and trembling with fear.
"Aha," muttered Pyotr Demyanitch, and he looked at the mouse
malignantly, as though he were about to give him a bad mark. "You
are cau--aught, wretch! Wait a bit! I'll teach you to eat my grammar!"
Having gloated over his victim, Poytr Demyanitch put the mouse-trap
on the floor and called:
"Praskovya, there's a mouse caught! Bring the kitten here!
"I'm coming," responded Praskovya, and a minute later she came in
with the descendant of tigers in her arms.
"Capital!" said Pyotr Demyanitch, rubbing his hands. "We will give
him a lesson. . . . Put him down opposite the mouse-trap . . .
that's it. . . . Let him sniff it and look at it. . . . That's
it. . . ."
The kitten looked wonderingly at my uncle, at his arm-chair, sniffed
the mouse-trap in bewilderment, then, frightened probably by the
glaring lamplight and the attention directed to him, made a dash
and ran in terror to the door.
"Stop!" shouted my uncle, seizing him by the tail, "stop, you rascal!
He's afraid of a mouse, the idiot! Look! It's a mouse! Look! Well?
Look, I tell you!"
Pyotr Demyanitch took the kitten by the scruff of the neck and
pushed him with his nose against the mouse-trap.
"Look, you carrion! Take him and hold him, Praskovya. . . . Hold
him opposite the door of the trap. . . . When I let the mouse out,
you let him go instantly. . . . Do you hear? . . . Instantly let
go! Now!"
My uncle assumed a mysterious expression and lifted the door of the
trap. . . . The mouse came out irresolutely, sniffed the air, and
flew like an arrow under the sofa. . . . The kitten on being released
darted under the table with his tail in the air.
"It has got away! got away!" cried Pyotr Demyanitch, looking
ferocious. "Where is he, the scoundrel? Under the table? You wait. . ."
My uncle dragged the kitten from under the table and shook him in
the air.
"Wretched little beast," he muttered, smacking him on the ear. "Take
that, take that! Will you shirk it next time? Wr-r-r-etch. . . ."
Next day Praskovya heard again the summons.
"Praskovya, there is a mouse caught! Bring the kitten here!"
After the outrage of the previous day the kitten had taken refuge
under the stove and had not come out all night. When Praskovya
pulled him out and, carrying him by the scruff of the neck into the
study, set him down before the mouse-trap, he trembled all over and
mewed piteously.
"Come, let him feel at home first," Pyotr Demyanitch commanded.
"Let him look and sniff. Look and learn! Stop, plague take you!"
he shouted, noticing that the kitten was backing away from the
mouse-trap. "I'll thrash you! Hold him by the ear! That's it. . . .
Well now, set him down before the trap. . . ."
My uncle slowly lifted the door of the trap . . . the mouse whisked
under the very nose of the kitten, flung itself against Praskovya's
hand and fled under the cupboard; the kitten, feeling himself free,
took a desperate bound and retreated under the sofa.
"He's let another mouse go!" bawled Pyotr Demyanitch. "Do you call
that a cat? Nasty little beast! Thrash him! thrash him by the
mousetrap!"
When the third mouse had been caught, the kitten shivered all over
at the sight of the mousetrap and its inmate, and scratched Praskovya's
hand. . . . After the fourth mouse my uncle flew into a rage, kicked
the kitten, and said:
"Take the nasty thing away! Get rid of it! Chuck it away! It's no
earthly use!"
A year passed, the thin, frail kitten had turned into a solid and
sagacious tom-cat. One day he was on his way by the back yards to
an amatory interview. He had just reached his destination when he
suddenly heard a rustle, and thereupon caught sight of a mouse which
ran from a water-trough towards a stable; my hero's hair stood on
end, he arched his back, hissed, and trembling all over, took to
ignominious flight.
Alas! sometimes I feel myself in the ludicrous position of the
flying cat. Like the kitten, I had in my day the honour of being
taught Latin by my uncle. Now, whenever I chance to see some work
of classical antiquity, instead of being moved to eager enthusiasm,
I begin recalling, _ut consecutivum_, the irregular verbs, the
sallow grey face of my uncle, the ablative absolute. . . . I turn
pale, my hair stands up on my head, and, like the cat, I take to
ignominious flight.