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. VI
|An Uneasy Night
Auntie had a doggy dream that a porter ran after her with a broom, and
she woke up in a fright.
It was quite dark and very stuffy in the room. The fleas were biting.
Auntie had never been afraid of darkness before, but now, for some
reason, she felt frightened and inclined to bark.
Her master heaved a loud sigh in the next room, then soon afterwards the
sow grunted in her sty, and then all was still again. When one thinks
about eating one's heart grows lighter, and Auntie began thinking how
that day she had stolen the leg of a chicken from Fyodor Timofeyitch,
and had hidden it in the drawing-room, between the cupboard and the
wall, where there were a great many spiders' webs and a great deal of
dust. Would it not be as well to go now and look whether the chicken leg
were still there or not? It was very possible that her master had found
it and eaten it. But she must not go out of the room before morning,
that was the rule. Auntie shut her eyes to go to sleep as quickly as
possible, for she knew by experience that the sooner you go to sleep the
sooner the morning comes. But all at once there was a strange scream not
far from her which made her start and jump up on all four legs. It was
Ivan Ivanitch, and his cry was not babbling and persuasive as usual, but
a wild, shrill, unnatural scream like the squeak of a door opening.
Unable to distinguish anything in the darkness, and not understanding
what was wrong, Auntie felt still more frightened and growled: "R-r-r-r.
. . ."
Some time passed, as long as it takes to eat a good bone; the scream was
not repeated. Little by little Auntie's uneasiness passed off and she
began to doze. She dreamed of two big black dogs with tufts of last
year's coat left on their haunches and sides; they were eating out of a
big basin some swill, from which there came a white steam and a most
appetising smell; from time to time they looked round at Auntie, showed
their teeth and growled: "We are not going to give you any!" But a
peasant in a fur-coat ran out of the house and drove them away with a
whip; then Auntie went up to the basin and began eating, but as soon as
the peasant went out of the gate, the two black dogs rushed at her
growling, and all at once there was again a shrill scream.
"K-gee! K-gee-gee!" cried Ivan Ivanitch.
Auntie woke, jumped up and, without leaving her mattress, went off into
a yelping bark. It seemed to her that it was not Ivan Ivanitch that was
screaming but someone else, and for some reason the sow again grunted in
her sty.
Then there was the sound of shuffling slippers, and the master came into
the room in his dressing-gown with a candle in his hand. The flickering
light danced over the dirty wall-paper and the ceiling, and chased away
the darkness. Auntie saw that there was no stranger in the room. Ivan
Ivanitch was sitting on the floor and was not asleep. His wings were
spread out and his beak was open, and altogether he looked as though he
were very tired and thirsty. Old Fyodor Timofeyitch was not asleep
either. He, too, must have been awakened by the scream.
"Ivan Ivanitch, what's the matter with you?" the master asked the
gander. "Why are you screaming? Are you ill?"
The gander did not answer. The master touched him on the neck, stroked
his back, and said: "You are a queer chap. You don't sleep yourself, and
you don't let other people. . . ."
When the master went out, carrying the candle with him, there was
darkness again. Auntie felt frightened. The gander did not scream, but
again she fancied that there was some stranger in the room. What was
most dreadful was that this stranger could not be bitten, as he was
unseen and had no shape. And for some reason she thought that something
very bad would certainly happen that night. Fyodor Timofeyitch was
uneasy too.
Auntie could hear him shifting on his mattress, yawning and shaking his
head.
Somewhere in the street there was a knocking at a gate and the sow
grunted in her sty. Auntie began to whine, stretched out her front-paws
and laid her head down upon them. She fancied that in the knocking at
the gate, in the grunting of the sow, who was for some reason awake, in
the darkness and the stillness, there was something as miserable and
dreadful as in Ivan Ivanitch's scream. Everything was in agitation and
anxiety, but why? Who was the stranger who could not be seen? Then two
dim flashes of green gleamed for a minute near Auntie. It was Fyodor
Timofeyitch, for the first time of their whole acquaintance coming up to
her. What did he want? Auntie licked his paw, and not asking why he had
come, howled softly and on various notes.
"K-gee!" cried Ivan Ivanitch, "K-g-ee!"
The door opened again and the master came in with a candle.
The gander was sitting in the same attitude as before, with his beak
open, and his wings spread out, his eyes were closed.
"Ivan Ivanitch!" his master called him.
The gander did not stir. His master sat down before him on the floor,
looked at him in silence for a minute, and said:
"Ivan Ivanitch, what is it? Are you dying? Oh, I remember now, I
remember!" he cried out, and clutched at his head. "I know why it is!
It's because the horse stepped on you to-day! My God! My God!"
Auntie did not understand what her master was saying, but she saw from
his face that he, too, was expecting something dreadful. She stretched
out her head towards the dark window, where it seemed to her some
stranger was looking in, and howled.
"He is dying, Auntie!" said her master, and wrung his hands. "Yes, yes,
he is dying! Death has come into your room. What are we to do?"
Pale and agitated, the master went back into his room, sighing and
shaking his head. Auntie was afraid to remain in the darkness, and
followed her master into his bedroom. He sat down on the bed and
repeated several times: "My God, what's to be done?"
Auntie walked about round his feet, and not understanding why she was
wretched and why they were all so uneasy, and trying to understand,
watched every movement he made. Fyodor Timofeyitch, who rarely left his
little mattress, came into the master's bedroom too, and began rubbing
himself against his feet. He shook his head as though he wanted to shake
painful thoughts out of it, and kept peeping suspiciously under the bed.
The master took a saucer, poured some water from his wash-stand into it,
and went to the gander again.
"Drink, Ivan Ivanitch!" he said tenderly, setting the saucer before him;
"drink, darling."
But Ivan Ivanitch did not stir and did not open his eyes. His master
bent his head down to the saucer and dipped his beak into the water, but
the gander did not drink, he spread his wings wider than ever, and his
head remained lying in the saucer.
"No, there's nothing to be done now," sighed his master. "It's all over.
Ivan Ivanitch is gone!"
And shining drops, such as one sees on the window-pane when it rains,
trickled down his cheeks. Not understanding what was the matter, Auntie
and Fyodor Timofeyitch snuggled up to him and looked with horror at the
gander.
"Poor Ivan Ivanitch!" said the master, sighing mournfully. "And I was
dreaming I would take you in the spring into the country, and would walk
with you on the green grass. Dear creature, my good comrade, you are no
more! How shall I do without you now?"
It seemed to Auntie that the same thing would happen to her, that is,
that she too, there was no knowing why, would close her eyes, stretch
out her paws, open her mouth, and everyone would look at her with
horror. Apparently the same reflections were passing through the brain
of Fyodor Timofeyitch. Never before had the old cat been so morose and
gloomy.
It began to get light, and the unseen stranger who had so frightened
Auntie was no longer in the room. When it was quite daylight, the porter
came in, took the gander, and carried him away. And soon afterwards the
old woman came in and took away the trough.
Auntie went into the drawing-room and looked behind the cupboard: her
master had not eaten the chicken bone, it was lying in its place among
the dust and spiders' webs. But Auntie felt sad and dreary and wanted to
cry. She did not even sniff at the bone, but went under the sofa, sat
down there, and began softly whining in a thin voice. VII
|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. . .
."