"Yes," added Afanasy Ivanovich, "I like them very much. They're tender and slightly tart."
Generally, Pulkheria Ivanovna was in exceptionally good spirits whenever they had guests. A kindly old woman! She belonged entirely to her guests. I loved visiting them, and though I overate terribly, as all their visitors did, and though it was very bad for me, nevertheless I was always glad to go there. However, I think that the very air of Little Russia may possess some special quality that aids digestion, because if anyone here tried to eat like that, he would undoubtedly wind up lying not in his bed but on the table. 10
Kindly old folk! But my narrative is approaching a very sad event which changed the life of this peaceful corner forever. This event will seem the more striking because it proceeded from a quite unimportant incident. But, in the strange order of things, it is always insignificant causes that give birth to great events, and, vice versa, great undertakings have ended in insignificant consequences. Some conqueror gathers all the forces of his state, spends several years making war, his generals cover themselves with glory, and finally it all ends with the acquisition of a scrap of land on which there isn't even room enough to plant potatoes; while, on the other hand, two sausage makers from two towns start fighting over nothing, other towns get involved in the quarrel, then villages and hamlets, then the whole country. But let's drop this reasoning: it's out of place here. Besides, I don't like reasoning that remains mere reasoning.
Pulkheria Ivanovna had a little gray cat that almost always lay curled up at her feet. Pulkheria Ivanovna sometimes patted her and tickled her neck with her finger, which the pampered cat arched as high as she could. It cannot be said that Pulkheria Ivanovna loved her all that much, she was simply attached to her, being used to seeing her all the time. Afanasy Ivanovich, however, often poked fun at this attachment:
"I don't know what you find in a cat, Pulkheria Ivanovna. What good is it? If you had a dog, it would be a different matter: a dog you can take hunting, but what good is a cat?"
"Be quiet, Afanasy Ivanovich," Pulkheria Ivanovna would say, "you just like to talk, that's all. Dogs are untidy, dogs make a mess, dogs break everything, but cats are gentle creatures, they won't do anyone any harm."
However, cats and dogs were all the same for Afanasy Ivanovich; he just said it to poke a little fun at Pulkheria Ivanovna.
Behind their garden was a big woods that had been wholly spared by their enterprising steward-perhaps because the sound of the ax would have come to Pulkheria Ivanovna's ears. It was dense, overgrown, the old tree trunks were covered with rampant hazel bushes and looked like shaggy pigeon legs. This woods was inhabited by wild cats. Wild forest cats should not be confused with those dashing fellows who run over the rooftops of houses. City dwellers, despite their tough character, are far more civilized than the inhabitants of the forests. The latter, on the contrary, are grim and savage folk; they always go about thin, scrawny, meowing in coarse, untrained voices. They sometimes dig subterranean passages under barns and steal lard; they even come right into the kitchen, suddenly jumping through an open window when they notice that the cook has gone out to the bushes. Lofty feelings are generally unknown to them; they live by plunder and kill young sparrows right in their nests. These cats spent a long time sniffing at Pulkheria Ivanovna's meek little cat through a hole under the barn and finally lured her away, as a troop of soldiers lures away a foolish peasant girl. Pulkheria Ivanovna noticed the cat's disappearance and sent people to look for her, but the cat was not to be found. Three days passed; Pulkheria Ivanovna felt sorry, then finally forgot all about it. One day when, after inspecting her kitchen garden, she was coming back with fresh cucumbers she had picked for Afanasy Ivanovich with her own hand, her hearing was struck by a most pitiful meowing. She said, as if instinctively: "Kitty, kitty!" and suddenly out of the weeds came her gray cat, thin, scrawny; it was clear that she had had nothing in her mouth for several days. Pulkheria Ivanovna kept calling her, but the cat stood in front of her, meowing and not daring to come near; it was clear that she had grown quite wild in the meantime. Pulkheria Ivanovna went on ahead of her, still calling the cat, who timorously followed her as far as the fence. Finally, seeing old familiar places, she went inside. Pulkheria Ivanovna at once ordered that she be given milk and meat, and, sitting before her, delighted in the greed with which her poor favorite ate piece after piece and lapped up the milk. The gray fugitive got fat before her eyes and no longer ate so greedily. Pulkheria Ivanovna reached out to pat her, but the ungrateful thing must have grown too used to the predatory cats, or picked up romantic ideas about love in poverty being better than any mansion, since the wild cats were dirt poor; be that as it may, she jumped out the window, and none of the servants could catch her.
The old woman fell to pondering. "It's my death come for me!" she said to herself, and nothing would distract her. All day she was sad. In vain did Afanasy Ivanovich joke and try to find out why she was suddenly so sorrowfuclass="underline" Pulkheria Ivanovna either would not reply or her replies failed totally to satisfy Afanasy Ivanovich. The next day she looked noticeably thinner.
"What's wrong, Pulkheria Ivanovna? You're not sick?"
"No, I'm not sick, Afanasy Ivanovich! I want to announce a special event to you: I know that I will die this summer; my death has already come for me!"
Afanasy Ivanovich's mouth twisted somehow painfully. He tried, however, to overcome the sad feeling in his soul, and said with a smile:
"God knows what you're saying, Pulkheria Ivanovna! You must have drunk peach vodka instead of your usual decoction of herbs."
"No, Afanasy Ivanovich, I didn't drink peach vodka," said Pulkheria Ivanovna.
And Afanasy Ivanovich felt sorry that he had poked fun at Pulkheria Ivanovna, and he looked at her and a tear hung on his eyelash.
"I ask you to carry out my will, Afanasy Ivanovich," said Pulkheria Ivanovna. "When I die, bury me by the church fence. Put my gray dress on me, the one with little flowers on a brown background. Don't put the satin dress on me, the one with the raspberry stripes: a dead woman doesn't need such a dress. What's the good of it? And you could use it: make a fancy dressing gown out of it for when guests come, so that you can look decent when you receive them."
"God knows what you're saying, Pulkheria Ivanovna!" said Afanasy Ivanovich. "Death's a long way off, and you're already frightening us with such talk."
"No, Afanasy Ivanovich, I know now when my death will be.
But don't grieve over me: I'm already an old woman and have lived enough. You're old, too, we'll soon see each other in the next world."
But Afanasy Ivanovich wept like a baby.
"It's sinful to cry, Afanasy Ivanovich! Don't sin and make God angry with your sorrow. I'm not sorry to die. One thing I'm sorry about," a deep sigh interrupted her speech for a moment, "I'm sorry I don't know who to leave you with, who will take care of you when I die. You're like a little child: whoever looks after you must love you."
Here such deep, such devastating heart's pity showed on her face that I think no one could have looked on her at that moment with indifference.
"Watch out, Yavdokha," she said, addressing the housekeeper, whom she had sent for on purpose, "when I die, you must look after the master, cherish him like your own eye, like your own child. See that they cook what he likes in the kitchen. Always give him clean linen and clothes; dress him decently when there happen to be guests, or else he may come out in an old dressing gown, because even now he often forgets which are feast days and which are ordinary. Don't take your eyes off him, Yavdokha, I'll pray for you in the other world, and God will reward you. So don't forget, Yavdokha. You're old now, you don't have long to live, you mustn't heap sin on your soul. If you don't look after him, you won't be happy in this life. I'll ask God personally not to give you a good end. You'll be unhappy yourself, and your children will be unhappy, and none of your posterity will have God's blessing in anything."