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.
THE BIRD MARKET
THERE is a small square near the monastery of the Holy Birth which is
called Trubnoy, or simply Truboy; there is a market there on Sundays.
Hundreds of sheepskins, wadded coats, fur caps, and chimneypot hats
swarm there, like crabs in a sieve. There is the sound of the twitter of
birds in all sorts of keys, recalling the spring. If the sun is shining,
and there are no clouds in the sky, the singing of the birds and the
smell of hay make a more vivid impression, and this reminder of spring
sets one thinking and carries one's fancy far, far away. Along one side
of the square there stands a string of waggons. The waggons are loaded,
not with hay, not with cabbages, nor with beans, but with goldfinches,
siskins, larks, blackbirds and thrushes, bluetits, bullfinches. All of
them are hopping about in rough, home-made cages, twittering and looking
with envy at the free sparrows. The goldfinches cost five kopecks, the
siskins are rather more expensive, while the value of the other birds is
quite indeterminate.
"How much is a lark?"
The seller himself does not know the value of a lark. He scratches his
head and asks whatever comes into it, a rouble, or three kopecks,
according to the purchaser. There are expensive birds too. A faded old
blackbird, with most of its feathers plucked out of its tail, sits on a
dirty perch. He is dignified, grave, and motionless as a retired
general. He has waved his claw in resignation to his captivity long ago,
and looks at the blue sky with indifference. Probably, owing to this
indifference, he is considered a sagacious bird. He is not to be bought
for less than forty kopecks. Schoolboys, workmen, young men in stylish
greatcoats, and bird-fanciers in incredibly shabby caps, in ragged
trousers that are turned up at the ankles, and look as though they had
been gnawed by mice, crowd round the birds, splashing through the mud.
The young people and the workmen are sold hens for cocks, young birds
for old ones. . . . They know very little about birds. But there is no
deceiving the bird-fancier. He sees and understands his bird from a
distance.
"There is no relying on that bird," a fancier will say, looking into a
siskin's beak, and counting the feathers on its tail. "He sings now,
it's true, but what of that? I sing in company too. No, my boy, shout,
sing to me without company; sing in solitude, if you can. . . . You give
me that one yonder that sits and holds its tongue! Give me the quiet
one! That one says nothing, so he thinks the more. . . ."
Among the waggons of birds there are some full of other live creatures.
Here you see hares, rabbits, hedgehogs, guinea-pigs, polecats. A hare
sits sorrowfully nibbling the straw. The guinea-pigs shiver with cold,
while the hedgehogs look out with curiosity from under their prickles at
the public.
"I have read somewhere," says a post-office official in a faded
overcoat, looking lovingly at the hare, and addressing no one in
particular, "I have read that some learned man had a cat and a mouse and
a falcon and a sparrow, who all ate out of one bowl."
"That's very possible, sir. The cat must have been beaten, and the
falcon, I dare say, had all its tail pulled out. There's no great
cleverness in that, sir. A friend of mine had a cat who, saving your
presence, used to eat his cucumbers. He thrashed her with a big whip for
a fortnight, till he taught her not to. A hare can learn to light
matches if you beat it. Does that surprise you? It's very simple! It
takes the match in its mouth and strikes it. An animal is like a man. A
man's made wiser by beating, and it's the same with a beast."
Men in long, full-skirted coats move backwards and forwards in the crowd
with cocks and ducks under their arms. The fowls are all lean and
hungry. Chickens poke their ugly, mangy-looking heads out of their cages
and peck at something in the mud. Boys with pigeons stare into your face
and try to detect in you a pigeon-fancier.
"Yes, indeed! It's no use talking to you," someone shouts angrily. "You
should look before you speak! Do you call this a pigeon? It is an eagle,
not a pigeon!"
A tall thin man, with a shaven upper lip and side whiskers, who looks
like a sick and drunken footman, is selling a snow-white lap-dog. The
old lap-dog whines.
"She told me to sell the nasty thing," says the footman, with a
contemptuous snigger. "She is bankrupt in her old age, has nothing to
eat, and here now is selling her dogs and cats. She cries, and kisses
them on their filthy snouts. And then she is so hard up that she sells
them. 'Pon my soul, it is a fact! Buy it, gentlemen! The money is wanted
for coffee."
But no one laughs. A boy who is standing by screws up one eye and looks
at him gravely with compassion.
The most interesting of all is the fish section. Some dozen peasants are
sitting in a row. Before each of them is a pail, and in each pail there
is a veritable little hell. There, in the thick, greenish water are
swarms of little carp, eels, small fry, water-snails, frogs, and newts.
Big water-beetles with broken legs scurry over the small surface,
clambering on the carp, and jumping over the frogs. The creatures have a
strong hold on life. The frogs climb on the beetles, the newts on the
frogs. The dark green tench, as more expensive fish, enjoy an
exceptional position; they are kept in a special jar where they can't
swim, but still they are not so cramped. . . .
"The carp is a grand fish! The carp's the fish to keep, your honour,
plague take him! You can keep him for a year in a pail and he'll live!
It's a week since I caught these very fish. I caught them, sir, in
Pererva, and have come from there on foot. The carp are two kopecks
each, the eels are three, and the minnows are ten kopecks the dozen,
plague take them! Five kopecks' worth of minnows, sir? Won't you take
some worms?"
The seller thrusts his coarse rough fingers into the pail and pulls out
of it a soft minnow, or a little carp, the size of a nail. Fishing
lines, hooks, and tackle are laid out near the pails, and pond-worms
glow with a crimson light in the sun.
An old fancier in a fur cap, iron-rimmed spectacles, and goloshes that
look like two dread-noughts, walks about by the waggons of birds and
pails of fish. He is, as they call him here, "a type." He hasn't a
farthing to bless himself with, but in spite of that he haggles, gets
excited, and pesters purchasers with advice. He has thoroughly examined
all the hares, pigeons, and fish; examined them in every detail, fixed
the kind, the age, and the price of each one of them a good hour ago. He
is as interested as a child in the goldfinches, the carp, and the
minnows. Talk to him, for instance, about thrushes, and the queer old
fellow will tell you things you could not find in any book. He will tell
you them with enthusiasm, with passion, and will scold you too for your
ignorance. Of goldfinches and bullfinches he is ready to talk endlessly,
opening his eyes wide and gesticulating violently with his hands. He is
only to be met here at the market in the cold weather; in the summer he
is somewhere in the country, catching quails with a bird-call and
angling for fish.
And here is another "type," a very tall, very thin, close-shaven
gentleman in dark spectacles, wearing a cap with a cockade, and looking
like a scrivener of by-gone days. He is a fancier; he is a man of decent
position, a teacher in a high school, and that is well known to the
habitués of the market, and they treat him with respect, greet him with
bows, and have even invented for him a special title: "Your
Scholarship." At Suharev market he rummages among the books, and at
Trubnoy looks out for good pigeons.
"Please, sir!" the pigeon-sellers shout to him, "Mr. Schoolmaster, your
Scholarship, take notice of my tumblers! your Scholarship!"
"Your Scholarship!" is shouted at him from every side.
"Your Scholarship!" an urchin repeats somewhere on the boulevard.
And his "Scholarship," apparently quite accustomed to his title, grave
and severe, takes a pigeon in both hands, and lifting it above his head,
begins examining it, and as he does so frowns and looks graver than
ever, like a conspirator.
And Trubnoy Square, that little bit of Moscow where animals are so
tenderly loved, and where they are so tortured, lives its little life,
grows noisy and excited, and the business-like or pious people who pass
by along the boulevard cannot make out what has brought this crowd of
people, this medley of caps, fur hats, and chimneypots together; what
they are talking about there, what they are buying and selling.
AN ADVENTURE (A Driver's Story)
IT was in that wood yonder, behind the creek, that it happened, sir. My
father, the kingdom of Heaven be his, was taking five hundred roubles to
the master; in those days our fellows and the Shepelevsky peasants used
to rent land from the master, so father was taking money for the half-
year. He was a God-fearing man, he used to read the scriptures, and as
for cheating or wronging anyone, or defrauding --God forbid, and the
peasants honoured him greatly, and when someone had to be sent to the
town about taxes or such-like, or with money, they used to send him. He
was a man above the ordinary, but, not that I'd speak ill of him, he had
a weakness. He was fond of a drop. There was no getting him past a
tavern: he would go in, drink a glass, and be completely done for! He
was aware of this weakness in himself, and when he was carrying public
money, that he might not fall asleep or lose it by some chance, he
always took me or my sister Anyutka with him.
To tell the truth, all our family have a great taste for vodka. I can
read and write, I served for six years at a tobacconist's in the town,
and I can talk to any educated gentleman, and can use very fine
language, but, it is perfectly true, sir, as I read in a book, that
vodka is the blood of Satan. Through vodka my face has darkened. And
there is nothing seemly about me, and here, as you may see, sir, I am a
cab-driver like an ignorant, uneducated peasant.
And so, as I was telling you, father was taking the money to the master,
Anyutka was going with him, and at that time Anyutka was seven or maybe
eight--a silly chit, not that high. He got as far as Kalantchiko
successfully, he was sober, but when he reached Kalantchiko and went
into Moiseika's tavern, this same weakness of his came upon him. He
drank three glasses and set to bragging before people:
"I am a plain humble man," he says, "but I have five hundred roubles in
my pocket; if I like," says he, "I could buy up the tavern and all the
crockery and Moiseika and his Jewess and his little Jews. I can buy it
all out and out," he said. That was his way of joking, to be sure, but
then he began complaining: "It's a worry, good Christian people," said
he, "to be a rich man, a merchant, or anything of that kind. If you have
no money you have no care, if you have money you must watch over your
pocket the whole time that wicked men may not rob you. It's a terror to
live in the world for a man who has a lot of money."
The drunken people listened of course, took it in, and made a note of
it. And in those days they were making a railway line at Kalantchiko,
and there were swarms and swarms of tramps and vagabonds of all sorts
like locusts. Father pulled himself up afterwards, but it was too late.
A word is not a sparrow, if it flies out you can't catch it. They drove,
sir, by the wood, and all at once there was someone galloping on
horseback behind them. Father was not of the chicken-hearted
brigade--that I couldn't say--but he felt uneasy; there was no regular
road through the wood, nothing went that way but hay and timber, and
there was no cause for anyone to be galloping there, particularly in
working hours. One wouldn't be galloping after any good.
"It seems as though they are after someone," said father to Anyutka,
"they are galloping so furiously. I ought to have kept quiet in the
tavern, a plague on my tongue. Oy, little daughter, my heart misgives
me, there is something wrong!"
He did not spend long in hesitation about his dangerous position, and he
said to my sister Anyutka:
"Things don't look very bright, they really are in pursuit. Anyway,
Anyutka dear, you take the money, put it away in your skirts, and go and
hide behind a bush. If by ill-luck they attack me, you run back to
mother, and give her the money. Let her take it to the village elder.
Only mind you don't let anyone see you; keep to the wood and by the
creek, that no one may see you. Run your best and call on the merciful
God. Christ be with you!"
Father thrust the parcel of notes on Anyutka, and she looked out the
thickest of the bushes and hid herself. Soon after, three men on
horseback galloped up to father. One a stalwart, big-jawed fellow, in a
crimson shirt and high boots, and the other two, ragged, shabby fellows,
navvies from the line. As my father feared, so it really turned out,
sir. The one in the crimson shirt, the sturdy, strong fellow, a man
above the ordinary, left his horse, and all three made for my father.
"Halt you, so-and-so! Where's the money!"
"What money? Go to the devil!"
"Oh, the money you are taking the master for the rent. Hand it over, you
bald devil, or we will throttle you, and you'll die in your sins."
And they began to practise their villainy on father, and, instead of
beseeching them, weeping, or anything of the sort, father got angry and
began to reprove them with the greatest severity.
"What are you pestering me for?" said he. "You are a dirty lot. There is
no fear of God in you, plague take you! It's not money you want, but a
beating, to make your backs smart for three years after. Be off,
blockheads, or I shall defend myself. I have a revolver that takes six
bullets, it's in my bosom!"
But his words did not deter the robbers, and they began beating him with
anything they could lay their hands on.
They looked through everything in the cart, searched my father
thoroughly, even taking off his boots; when they found that beating
father only made him swear at them the more, they began torturing him in
all sorts of ways. All the time Anyutka was sitting behind the bush, and
she saw it all, poor dear. When she saw father lying on the ground and
gasping, she started off and ran her hardest through the thicket and the
creek towards home. She was only a little girl, with no understanding;
she did not know the way, just ran on not knowing where she was going.
It was some six miles to our home. Anyone else might have run there in
an hour, but a little child, as we all know, takes two steps back for
one forwards, and indeed it is not everyone who can run barefoot through
the prickly bushes; you want to be used to it, too, and our girls used
always to be crowding together on the stove or in the yard, and were
afraid to run in the forest.
Towards evening Anyutka somehow reached a habitation, she looked, it was
a hut. It was the forester's hut, in the Crown forest; some merchants
were renting it at the time and burning charcoal. She knocked. A woman,
the forester's wife, came out to her. Anyutka, first of all, burst out
crying, and told her everything just as it was, and even told her about
the money. The forester's wife was full of pity for her.
"My poor little dear! Poor mite, God has preserved you, poor little one!
My precious! Come into the hut, and I will give you something to eat."
She began to make up to Anyutka, gave her food and drink, and even wept
with her, and was so attentive to her that the girl, only think, gave
her the parcel of notes.
"I will put it away, darling, and to-morrow morning I will give it you
back and take you home, dearie."
The woman took the money, and put Anyutka to sleep on the stove where at
the time the brooms were drying. And on the same stove, on the brooms,
the forester's daughter, a girl as small as our Anyutka, was asleep. And
Anyutka used to tell us afterwards that there was such a scent from the
brooms, they smelt of honey! Anyutka lay down, but she could not get to
sleep, she kept crying quietly; she was sorry for father, and terrified.
But, sir, an hour or two passed, and she saw those very three robbers
who had tortured father walk into the hut; and the one in the crimson
shirt, with big jaws, their leader, went up to the woman and said:
"Well, wife, we have simply murdered a man for nothing. To-day we killed
a man at dinner-time, we killed him all right, but not a farthing did we
find."
So this fellow in the crimson shirt turned out to be the forester, the
woman's husband.
"The man's dead for nothing," said his ragged companions. "In vain we
have taken a sin on our souls."
The forester's wife looked at all three and laughed.
"What are you laughing at, silly?"
"I am laughing because I haven't murdered anyone, and I have not taken
any sin on my soul, but I have found the money."
"What money? What nonsense are you talking!"
"Here, look whether I am talking nonsense."