Fifty-Two Stories

CHAPTER FIVE / TALENT! TALENT!

A month went by.

Kashtanka was already used to having a nice dinner every evening and to being called Auntie. She was used to the stranger and to her new companions. Life went on smoothly.

Each day began in the same way. Ivan Ivanych usually woke up first, and he immediately went over to Auntie or the cat, curved his neck, and began talking ardently and persuasively but, as ever, incomprehensibly. Sometimes he held his head high and delivered a long monologue. At first, Kashtanka thought he talked so much because he was very smart, but after a while she lost all respect for him. When he came up to her with his endless speeches, she no longer wagged her tail but treated him as an annoying babbler who wouldn’t let anyone sleep, and answered him unceremoniously with a “grrr…!”

Fyodor Timofeyich, however, was a gentleman of a very different sort. When he woke up, he didn’t make any noise, he didn’t move, he didn’t even open his eyes. He would have been glad not to wake up at all, for he was obviously none too fond of life. Nothing interested him, he treated everything sluggishly and carelessly, despised everything, and even snorted squeamishly at his delicious dinners.

On waking up, Kashtanka would start walking around the room and sniffing in the corners. Only she and the cat were allowed to walk all over the apartment; the goose had no right to cross the threshold of the little room with dirty wallpaper, and Khavronya Ivanovna lived somewhere in a shed out back and only appeared for lessons. The master slept late, had his tea, and immediately started working on his tricks. Every day the sawhorse, the whip, and the hoops were brought into the room, and every day almost the same things were repeated. The lessons lasted for three or four hours and sometimes left Fyodor Timofeyich so exhausted that he staggered like a drunk man, while Ivan Ivanych opened his beak and gasped for breath and the master got red in the face and couldn’t mop the sweat from his brow fast enough.

Lessons and dinner made the days very interesting, but the evenings were rather boring. Usually, in the evening, the master went out somewhere and took the goose and the cat with him. Left alone, Auntie would lie down on her mattress, feeling sad…Sadness crept up on her somehow imperceptibly and came over her gradually, as darkness falls upon a room. She would lose all desire to bark, to eat, to run through the rooms, or even to look. Then two vague figures would appear in her imagination, not quite dogs, not quite people, with sympathetic, dear, but incomprehensible physiognomies; but when they appeared, Auntie began wagging her tail, and it seemed to her that somewhere, sometime, she had known and loved them…And each time, as she was falling asleep, these figures brought to mind the smell of glue, wood shavings, and varnish.

One day, when she was already accustomed to her new life, and had turned from a skinny, bony mutt into a sleek, well-cared-for dog, her master came to her, stroked her and said:

“Auntie, it’s time you got to work. Enough of this sitting around. I want to make an artiste out of you…Would you like to be an artiste?”

And he began teaching her all sorts of things. The first lesson she learned was to stand and walk on her hind legs, which she enjoyed greatly. For the second lesson, she had to jump on her hind legs and catch a piece of sugar that her teacher held high above her head. In the lessons that followed, she danced, ran on the tether, howled to music, rang the bell, and fired the pistol, and in a month she could successfully take Fyodor Timofeyich’s place in the “Egyptian Pyramid.” She was an eager student and was pleased with her own achievements; running, her tongue hanging out, on a tether, jumping through a hoop, and riding on old Fyodor Timofeyich afforded her the greatest pleasure. She followed each successful trick with a loud, delighted yapping. Her teacher was surprised and also delighted!

“Talent! Talent!” he said, rubbing his hands. “Unquestionable talent! You’ll be a positive success!”

And Auntie got so used to the word “talent” that she jumped up each time her master said it, and looked around as if it was her name.