Fifty-Two Stories by Anton Chekhov & Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky

Author:Anton Chekhov & Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2020-04-13T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWO / A MYSTERIOUS STRANGER

But she did not think about anything and only wept. When soft, fluffy snow had completely covered Kashtanka’s back and head, and she had sunk into a deep slumber from exhaustion, suddenly the door clicked, creaked, and hit her on the side. She jumped up. A man came out, belonging to the category of customers. As Kashtanka squealed and got under his feet, he could not help noticing her. He leaned down and asked:

“Where did you come from, pooch? Did I hurt you? Oh, poor thing, poor thing….Well, don’t be angry, don’t be angry…I’m sorry.”

Kashtanka looked up at the stranger through the snowflakes that stuck to her eyelashes and saw before her a short, fat little man with a plump, clean-shaven face, wearing a top hat and an unbuttoned fur coat.

“Why are you whining?” the man went on, brushing the snow from her back. “Where is your master? You must be lost. Oh, poor pooch! What shall we do now?”

Catching a warm, friendly note in the stranger’s voice, Kashtanka licked his hand and whined even more pitifully.

“You’re a nice, funny one!” said the stranger. “A real fox! Well, nothing to be done. Come with me, maybe I’ll find some use for you…Well, phweet!”

He whistled and made a gesture to Kashtanka which could only mean: Let’s go! Kashtanka went.

In less than half an hour she was sitting on the floor of a large, bright room, with her head cocked, looking tenderly and curiously at the stranger, who was sitting at the table eating supper. He ate and tossed her some scraps…At first he gave her bread and the green rind of cheese, then a small piece of meat, half of a dumpling, some chicken bones, and she was so hungry that she gobbled them up without tasting anything. And the more she ate, the hungrier she felt.

“Your master doesn’t feed you very well,” said the stranger, seeing with what fierce greed she swallowed the unchewed pieces. “And what a scrawny one! Skin and bones…”

Kashtanka ate a lot, yet she didn’t feel full, only groggy. After supper she sprawled in the middle of the room, stretched her legs and, feeling pleasantly weary all over, began wagging her tail. While her new master sat back in an armchair, smoking a cigar, she wagged her tail and kept trying to decide where she liked it better—at this stranger’s or at the cabinetmaker’s. At the stranger’s the furnishings were poor and ugly. Apart from the armchairs, the sofa, the lamp, and the rugs, he had nothing, and the room seemed empty. At the cabinetmaker’s, the whole place was chock-full of things: he had a table, a workbench, a pile of wood shavings, planes, chisels, saws, a basin, a goldfinch in a cage….The stranger’s room had no particular smell, while at the cabinetmaker’s there was always a fog and the wonderful smell of glue, varnish, and wood shavings. Still, being with the stranger had one great advantage: he gave her

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