Fifty-Two Stories

CHAPTER FOUR / FEATS OF WONDER

After a while, the stranger came back in carrying an odd thing that looked like a sawhorse. A bell hung from the crosspiece of this wooden, crudely made sawhorse, and there was also a pistol tied to it. Strings were tied to the clapper of the bell and the trigger of the pistol. The stranger set the sawhorse down in the middle of the room, spent a long time tying and untying something, then turned to the goose and said:

“Ivan Ivanych, you’re on!”

The goose came up to him and stood with a look of anticipation.

“All right,” said the stranger, “let’s begin from the very beginning. First, bow and make a curtsy. Quick, now!”

Ivan Ivanych stretched his neck, nodded his head all around, and scraped the floor with his foot.

“Good boy…Now, play dead!”

The goose turned on his back with his feet sticking up in the air. After a few more simple tricks of this sort, the stranger suddenly clutched his head with an expression of horror and cried, “Fire! Help! The house is burning!”

Ivan Ivanych ran to the sawhorse, took the string in his beak, and rang the bell.

The stranger was very pleased. He stroked the goose’s neck and said:

“Good boy, Ivan Ivanych! Now imagine that you’re a jeweler and sell gold and diamonds. Imagine now that you come to your shop one day and find robbers there. What would you do in that case?”

The goose took the other string in his beak and pulled. A deafening shot rang out. Kashtanka, who had liked the bell ringing very much, was so delighted by the pistol shot that she ran around the sawhorse barking.

“Auntie, sit!” the stranger shouted. “No barking!”

The shooting was not the end of Ivan Ivanych’s workout. For a whole hour more, the stranger drove the goose around him on a tether, cracking his whip while the goose had to leap over a hurdle, jump through a hoop, and rear up on his tail with his feet waving in the air. Kashtanka couldn’t keep her eyes off of Ivan Ivanych, howled with delight, and several times started to run after him, yelping. Having worn out the goose and himself as well, the stranger mopped his brow and shouted:

“Marya, tell Khavronya Ivanovna to come here!”

A moment later, grunting was heard. Kashtanka growled, put on a brave expression, and moved closer to the stranger, just in case. The door opened and an old woman looked in, muttered something, and let in a very ugly black pig. Paying no attention at all to Kashtanka’s growling, the pig raised her snout and grunted happily. She seemed very pleased to see her master, Ivan Ivanych, and the cat. She came up to the cat and gently nudged him under his stomach with her snout, then struck up a conversation with the goose. Her movements, her voice, and the quivering of her tail expressed nothing but good nature. Kashtanka realized at once that it was useless to growl and bark at such a character.

The master took away the sawhorse and shouted:

“Fyodor Timofeyich, you’re on!”

The cat got up, stretched lazily, and reluctantly, as if doing a favor, went over to the pig.

“We’ll start with the Egyptian Pyramid,” said the master.

He spent a long time explaining something, then gave the command, “One…two…three!” At the word “three,” Ivan Ivanych flapped his wings and jumped up onto the pig’s bristly back…When he had steadied himself by balancing with his wings and neck, Fyodor Timofeyich slowly and lazily, with obvious scorn, looking as if he despised his art and would not give a penny for it, climbed onto the pig’s back, then reluctantly got up on the goose 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 tomcat yawned, lost his balance, and tumbled off the goose. Ivan Ivanych wobbled and fell off, too. The stranger yelled, waved his arms, and began explaining again. After working for a whole hour on the pyramid, the untiring master began teaching Ivan Ivanych to ride the cat, then he started teaching the cat to smoke, and so on.

The lessons ended, the stranger mopped his brow and went out. Fyodor Timofeyich sniffed scornfully, lay down on his mat, and closed his eyes. Ivan Ivanych went to the trough, and the pig was led away by the old woman. The day was so full of new impressions that Kashtanka did not notice where the time went. In the evening, she and her mattress were installed in the room with the dirty wallpaper, where she spent the night in the company of Fyodor Timofeyich and the goose.