Short Stories by Chekhov
used to pull her from under the bench by her hind legs, and play such
tricks with her, that she saw green before her eyes, and ached in every
joint. He would make her walk on her hind legs, use her as a bell, that
is, shake her violently by the tail so that she squealed and barked, and
give her tobacco to sniff . . . . The following trick was particularly
agonising: Fedyushka would tie a piece of meat to a thread and give it
to Kashtanka, and then, when she had swallowed it he would, with a loud
laugh, pull it back again from her stomach, and the more lurid were her
memories the more loudly and miserably Kashtanka whined.
But soon exhaustion and warmth prevailed over melancholy. She began to
fall asleep. Dogs ran by in her imagination: among them a shaggy old
poodle, whom she had seen that day in the street with a white patch on
his eye and tufts of wool by his nose. Fedyushka ran after the poodle
with a chisel in his hand, then all at once he too was covered with
shaggy wool, and began merrily barking beside Kashtanka. Kashtanka and
he goodnaturedly sniffed each other's noses and merrily ran down the
street. . . . III
|New and Very Agreeable Acquaintances
When Kashtanka woke up it was already light, and a sound rose from the
street, such as only comes in the day-time. There was not a soul in the
room. Kashtanka stretched, yawned and, cross and ill-humoured, walked
about the room. She sniffed the corners and the furniture, looked into
the passage and found nothing of interest there. Besides the door that
led into the passage there was another door. After thinking a little
Kashtanka scratched on it with both paws, opened it, and went into the
adjoining room. Here on the bed, covered with a rug, a customer, in whom
she recognised the stranger of yesterday, lay asleep.
"Rrrrr . . ." she growled, but recollecting yesterday's dinner, wagged
her tail, and began sniffing.
She sniffed the stranger's clothes and boots and thought they smelt of
horses. In the bedroom was another door, also closed. Kashtanka
scratched at the door, leaned her chest against it, opened it, and was
instantly aware of a strange and very suspicious smell. Foreseeing an
unpleasant encounter, growling and looking about her, Kashtanka walked
into a little room with a dirty wall-paper and drew back in alarm. She
saw something surprising and terrible. A grey gander came straight
towards her, hissing, with its neck bowed down to the floor and its
wings outspread. Not far from him, on a little mattress, lay a white
tom-cat; seeing Kashtanka, he jumped up, arched his back, wagged his
tail with his hair standing on end and he, too, hissed at her. The dog
was frightened in earnest, but not caring to betray her alarm, began
barking loudly and dashed at the cat . . . . The cat arched his back
more than ever, mewed and gave Kashtanka a smack on the head with his
paw. Kashtanka jumped back, squatted on all four paws, and craning her
nose towards the cat, went off into loud, shrill barks; meanwhile the
gander came up behind and gave her a painful peck in the back. Kashtanka
leapt up and dashed at the gander.
"What's this?" They heard a loud angry voice, and the stranger came into
the room in his dressing-gown, with a cigar between his teeth. "What's
the meaning of this? To your places!"
He went up to the cat, flicked him on his arched back, and said:
"Fyodor Timofeyitch, what's the meaning of this? Have you got up a
fight? Ah, you old rascal! Lie down!"
And turning to the gander he shouted: "Ivan Ivanitch, go home!"
The cat obediently lay down on his mattress and closed his eyes. Judging
from the expression of his face and whiskers, he was displeased with
himself for having lost his temper and got into a fight.
Kashtanka began whining resentfully, while the gander craned his neck
and began saying something rapidly, excitedly, distinctly, but quite
unintelligibly.
"All right, all right," said his master, yawning. "You must live in
peace and friendship." He stroked Kashtanka and went on: "And you,
redhair, don't be frightened. . . . They are capital company, they won't
annoy you. Stay, what are we to call you? You can't go on without a
name, my dear."
The stranger thought a moment and said: "I tell you what . . . you shall
be Auntie. . . . Do you understand? Auntie!"
And repeating the word "Auntie" several times he went out. Kashtanka sat
down and began watching. The cat sat motionless on his little mattress,
and pretended to be asleep. The gander, craning his neck and stamping,
went on talking rapidly and excitedly about something. Apparently it was
a very clever gander; after every long tirade, he always stepped back
with an air of wonder and made a show of being highly delighted with his
own speech. . . . Listening to him and answering "R-r-r-r," Kashtanka
fell to sniffing the corners. In one of the corners she found a little
trough in which she saw some soaked peas and a sop of rye crusts. She
tried the peas; they were not nice; she tried the sopped bread and began
eating it. The gander was not at all offended that the strange dog was
eating his food, but, on the contrary, talked even more excitedly, and
to show his confidence went to the trough and ate a few peas himself. IV
|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