Forty Stories

Who Is to Blame?

MY uncle Pyotr Demyanich, a lean and bilious collegiate councilor, who bore a close resemblance to a stale smoked catfish with a stick through it, was just about to leave for the high school where he taught Latin when he saw that the binding of his grammar book had been nibbled by mice.

“Good heavens,” he shouted, and ran to the kitchen, where he addressed his remarks to the cook. “Listen, Praskovya, how did the mice get in? God save my soul, yesterday they nibbled at my top hat, and today, if you please, they have begun to ruin my grammar book! Soon enough they will be having a feast on my clothes!”

“I did not bring them here,” Praskovya said. “What do you expect me to do?”

“Well, I expect you to do something. Why don’t you get a cat?”

“We already have a cat, but he is no good.”

Praskovya pointed to a corner in the kitchen where a white kitten, thin as a matchstick, lay curled up asleep beside a broom.

“Why isn’t he any good?” asked Pyotr Demyanich.

“Because he’s only a silly little baby. He’s less than two months old.”

“Hm … Then he must be trained. Training is better than doing nothing.”

Saying this, Pyotr Demyanich sighed with a preoccupied air and left the kitchen. The kitten looked up, surveyed the world with a lazy glance, and then closed his eyes again.

The kitten was not sleeping, but deep in thought. What was he thinking about? He knew absolutely nothing about real life and possessed no store of accumulated impressions: therefore he could only think instinctively and picture life according to concepts inherited, like his flesh and blood, from his ancestors, the tigers (vide Darwin). His thoughts possessed the character of daydreams. In his imagination he saw something resembling the Arabian desert, over which there hovered shadows resembling Praskovya, the stove, the broomstick. Among these shadows a saucer of milk would suddenly appear. This saucer would grow paws, it would move and display a tendency to run away, and the kitten would therefore leap up, give way to a bloodthirsty sensuality, and dig his paws into it. Then the saucer would vanish among the misty clouds, and suddenly there would appear a piece of meat dropped by Praskovya. The meat would give forth a timid little squeak before darting to one side, but the kitten would leap after it and dig his claws into it. Everything that rose up in the imagination of this young dreamer had its origin in sudden leaps, claws, and teeth.… The soul of another lies in darkness, and a cat’s soul more than most, but how near these visions I have just described are to the truth may be seen from the following circumstance: under the influence of his reveries the kitten suddenly jumped up, gazed at Praskovya with glittering eyes, fur bristling, and suddenly hurled himself at the cook, digging his claws into her skirt. Clearly he was born to be a hunter of mice, worthy of his bloodthirsty ancestors. Clearly he was destined by fate to be the terror of cellars, storerooms, and cornbins, and had it not been for education … But nothing is to be gained by anticipating.

When he returned from high school, Pyotr Demyanich went to a local store and bought a mousetrap for fifteen kopecks. After dinner he hung a small morsel of cutlet on the hook and set the trap under the divan, where there was a litter of old exercise books which Praskovya would sometimes use for her own domestic purposes. Exactly at six o’clock that evening, when our worthy Latinist was sitting at table and correcting his students’ exercises, he heard a sudden clop! coming from under the divan—the sound was so loud that my uncle jumped up in the air and dropped his pen. Without any hesitation he marched over to the divan and drew out the mousetrap. In it he found a sleek and tiny mouse, about the size of a thimble, sniffing at the wire cage and shivering with fear.

“Aha!” muttered Pyotr Demyanich, and he gazed at the mouse with the expression of a man about to give it a bad mark. “I’ve caught you now, you little devil! Just you wait! I’ll teach you to eat my grammar book!”

For a while Pyotr Demyanich continued to feast his eyes on the spectacle of his little victim, then he put the mousetrap on the floor and shouted: “Praskovya, the mouse hasn’t got away! Bring the kitten in here!”

“Coming at once!” Praskovya answered, and a few moments later she walked in, carrying in her arms the descendant of tigers.

“Very good,” Pyotr Demyanich murmured, rubbing his hands together. “Now we’ll teach him a lesson. Put him down facing the mousetrap.… That’s right. Let him sniff at it, and have a good look. That’s right.”

The kitten looked wonderingly at my uncle and then at the armchair, and then he sniffed the mousetrap with a look of complete bewilderment. Perhaps it was because he was frightened by the glare of the lamp and the attention he was receiving: suddenly he was off to the door, scampering away in fear and trembling.

“Stop!” shouted my uncle, seizing him by the tail. “Stop, you little idiot! Fool, he’s afraid of the mouse! Look at the mouse! Look hard! I told you to look, didn’t I?”

Pyotr Demyanich lifted the kitten by the scruff of the neck and pushed his nose against the mousetrap.

“Vile, stupid creature!… Praskovya, take him and hold him. Hold him opposite the door of the trap! When I let the mouse out, let the kitten go after him at once. Are you listening? Let him go at once!”

My uncle assumed a mysterious expression and lifted the door. The mouse emerged, uncertain and frightened; it sniffed the air, and then flew quick as an arrow under the divan. When the kitten was let go, he lifted his tail and ran under the table.

“He’s got away! He’s got away!” Pyotr Demyanich shouted, assuming a ferocious expression. “Where is the kitten, the little horror? Under the table, eh? Just you wait!”

My uncle dragged the kitten from under the table and gave him a good shaking.

“What a rascal you are, eh?” he muttered, smacking the kitten across the ear. “Take that! Take that! Will you just stand there gawking the next time? You r-r-r-rascal, you!”

The following day Praskovya heard him shouting for the second time: “Praskovya, we’ve caught a mouse! Bring the kitten here!”

After the abuse he had received the previous day the kitten had taken to hiding under the stove, where he remained throughout the night. When Praskovya pulled him out and carried him by the scruff of the neck to the study, he was trembling all over and mewing pathetically. He was put in front of the mousetrap.

“You see, he has to feel at home,” Pyotr Demyanich said. “Let him look and sniff a bit. Look and learn!” And when he saw the kitten backing away from the trap, he shouted: “Stop, dammit! I’ll tear you to pieces! Hold him by the ear!… That’s right, and now set him down opposite the door.”

My uncle slowly lifted the door. The mouse dived under the kitten’s nose, threw itself against Praskovya’s hand, and then dived under a cupboard, while the kitten, feeling relieved, decided upon a sudden desperate leap in the air and scuttled under the divan.

“That’s the second mouse he has let go!” Pyotr Demyanich roared at the top of his voice. “Do you call that a cat? It’s a silly idiot, that’s what it is, and deserves a thrashing. That’s right—give him a thrashing in front of the mousetrap.”

When the third mouse was caught, the kitten shivered uncontrollably in full view of the mousetrap and its occupant, and dug his claws into Praskovya’s hand.… After the fourth mouse my uncle was beside himself with rage, kicked out at the kitten, and shouted: “Take the filthy thing away! Get it out of the house! Throw it out! The hell with it!”

A year passed. The lean and frail kitten became a wise and sedate tomcat. One day he was making his way through the back yard in search of amatory adventure and was very close to finding what he wanted to find when he suddenly heard a rustling sound and saw a mouse running between the water trough and the stables. My hero’s fur bristled, he arched his back, he hissed, he trembled all over, and ignominiously ran away.

Alas, I sometimes feel I am in the same ludicrous position as this cowardly cat. Long ago, like the kitten, I had the honor of receiving lessons in Latin from my uncle. Now, whenever someone mentions an ancient classic, instead of being moved with eager enthusiasm, I remember my uncle’s gray and sallow face, irregular verbs, ut consecutivum, ablativus absolutus.… I grow pale, my hair stands on end, and like the kitten I take refuge in ignominious flight.

December 1886