"So you bite, do you, you devil!" Ochumelov hears suddenly. "Don't let her get away, fellows! It's against the law to bite nowadays. Hold her! A-ahhl"
A canine squeal is heard. Ochumelov looks about and sees a dog dash out of merchant Pichugin's lumberyard, limping on three legs and looking behind it as it runs. It is being chased by a man in a starched cotton shirt, with his vest unbuttoned. He dashes after it, throwing him- self forward, drops to the ground, and seizes the dog by its hind legs. The canine squeal sounds again, and the cry: "Don't let her get away!" Sleepy faces appear in the doorways of the shops, and soon, as though it had sprung out of the ground, a crowd gathers near the l^beryard.
"Looks like trouble, Your Honor," says the policeman. Ochumelov makes a half turn to the left and strides toward the crowd. At the very gates of the lumberyard he sees the man with the unbuttoned vest, described above, holding up his right hand and showing the crowd a bleeding finger. On his rather groggy-looking face Is written, as it were: "I'll let you have it, you brute!" and his very finger looks like the banner of victory. Ochume- lov recognizes Hmkin,1 the goldsmith. In the center of the crowd crouches the culprit responsible for the ^ndal, a white borzoi puppy with a pointed muzzle and a yellow spot on its back, its forepaws spread out, and trembling all over. There is an expression of anguish ^^ terror in its moist eyes.
"What's going on here?" demands Ochumelov, shoul- ^mng his way through the crowd. "What's it about? What's that finger? Who was hollering?"
..Here I'm on my way, Your Honor," begins Hrukin, ^raghing into his fist, "to talk to Mitry Mitrich about firewood, not harming a soul, and all at once this nasty creature for no reason at all snaps at my finger. Excuse me, but I'm a man what works . . . and mine's delicate work. They've got to pay me damages. Maybe it'll be a week before I can move this finger again. It don't say in the law that you must put up with injury from a beast. If they're all going to bite, there'll be no living. . . ."
"Mm. . . . Right!" says Ochumelov severely, clear- ing his throat and knitting his eyebrows. "Right. • . . Whose dog is it? I won't stand for this! I'll teach you to let your dogs run wild. It's time we took notice of these people who won't obey regulations. When he's fined, the scamp, he'll know, thanks to me, what a dog is, and other stray cattle. I'll show him what's what. Yeldyrin," he turns to the policeman, "find out whose dog it is and draw up a report. As for the dog, she must be done away with. At once! She's sure to be mad. Whose dog is it, I ask you?"
"Could be General Zhigalov's," says someone in the Crowd.
"General Zhigalov's? H'mml Yeldyrin, help me off with my coat. It's terribly hotl Guess it's going to rain. There's just one thing I can't make out: how could she possibly bite you?" Ochumelov turns to Hrukin. "How could she reach your finger? She's a little bit of a thing and you're a big husky. You must have scratched your finger on a nail and you got it into your head to blame it on the dog. I know your sort. I know you devils!"
"He poked a cigarette into its snout, Your Honor, for fun, and the dog's no fool—she snapped at him. He's an ugly customer, Your Honor."
"You're lying, you with the one eyel You didn't see it, so why tell lies about it? His Honor is an intelligent gentleman, His Honor knows the difference between a liar and an honest man who speaks God's truth. And if it's me that's lying, let the justice of the peace decide.
He knows what the law says. We're all equal nowadays.
My own brother's a gendarme, if you want to know."
"None of your lip!" says the police inspector.
"No, it's not the GeneraFs," observes the policeman thoughtfully. "The General ain't got none like this. He's got mostly setters."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Sure, Your Honor."
"Of course, I know. The General's dogs are all thor- oughbreds, and worth a lot of money, and this is some kind of mutt! No points, no looks, just a mean tyke. The idea of keeping a dog like that! Where's your brains? If a dog like that turned up in Petersburg or Moscow, do you know what would happen? They wouldn't think twice about the law—to the pound with it! Hrukin, you're the injured party, and don't you drop the case. They've got to be taught a lesson! High time!"
"But maybe she is the General's," the policeman thinks out loud. "It ain't written on her snout. The other day I saw one just like her in the General's courtyard."
"Sure she's the General's," says a voice from the crowd.
"H'mm. . . . Help me on with my coat, brother Yel- dyrin. It's blowing up, getting chilly. You take the dog to the General, and make inquiries. Tell him I was the one that found her and saw he got her back. . . . And tell them there to keep her off the street. . . . It may be a valuable dog, and if every swine pokes his cigarette into her snout she may get damaged. A dog is a delicate creature. . . . And you, you blockhead, put your hand down. What's the sense of sticking up your silly finger? It's your own fault!"
"There's the General's cook! Let's ask him. Hey, Prohor! Come here, brother. Look at this dog. Is that yours?"
"Nonsense! We never had no such dogs."
"No need to ask questions," says Ochumelov. "She's a stray. No use talking about it. I said she was a stray, and she is a stray. To the pound with her and that's all!"
"She's not one of ours," Prohor continues. "She be- longs to the General's brother, he came a few days ago. Our General don't fancy borzois, but His Excellency's brother, he likes 'em."
"You don't mean to say His Excellency's brother is here! Vladimir Ivanych?" asks Ochumelov, and a smile of exaltation suffuses his face. "Good Lordl and I didn't know! Has the dear man come on a visit?"
"Yes, on a visit."
"Good Lord! So the dear man got lonesome for his brother. And to think I didn't know! So the little dog belongs to His Excellency's brother! I'm mighty glad! Take her. She's not a bad little dog! So smart! Chkk! Snapped at that fellow's finger! Ha-ha-ha! What are you shaking about, puppy? Grr-grr . . . The rascal's cross, the little pet!"
Prohor calls the dog and leaves the lumberyard with it ... The crowd howls at Hrukin.
"111 get you yet!" Ochumelov threatens him, and wrapping his coat about him, continues his way across the market place.
1884
The Siren
peace, the Justices withdrew to the chamber where they usually deliberated. They wanted to get into their street clothes, and after resting a while, go off to dine. The Presiding Judge, a very presentable man with fluffy side-whiskers, had failed to concur with his associates in a case that had just been tried and was sitting at a desk hastening to set down his dissenting opinion. An Acting Justice of the Peace, Milkin, a young man with a languid, melancholy face, who had a repu- tation as a philosopher at odds with the world and dis- tressed by the emptiness of existence, stood at a window and gazed sadly out into the courtyard. Two judges had already left. An Honorary Justice, a fat man with a bloated look who breathed heavily, and the Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, a young man of German extrac- tion with a catarrhal complexion, sat on a couch and waited for their colleague to finish writing his opinion so that they could all go to dinner together. Standing before them was the secretary, a short man with side- whiskerS growing close to his ears and a sugary expres- sion on his face. He was looking at the fat man with a honeyed smile and speaking in a low voice:
FT E R one of the sessions of the assizes of the
"We are all hungry now, it's true, but that's because we're tired and it's after three: it's not, my dear Grigory Savvich, what you would call real appetite. I mean real appetite, the wolfish sort, when you're ready to make a meal of your own father. That comes only after physicalexertion, for instance, when you've ridden to hounds, or say after you've been jolted over a hundred versts[2]without a stop in a wretched conveyance. Of course, I won't deny, sir, that imagination has something to do with it, too. Suppose you are coming home after a day's shooting and you want to bring an appetite to your din- ner. Then you mustn't let your mind dwell on anything intellectual. Intellectual things, learned things, ruin the appetite. You know yourself that thinkers and scholars are just nowhere when it comes to eating. Even pigs, pardon the expression, pay more regard to their food than such people do. As I was saying, you are on your way home, and you must make sure that your mind dwells on nothing but the wineglass and the appetizer. Once as I was traveling I closed my eyes and pictured to myself a sucking-pig with horseradish. Well, sir, I became virtually hysterical with sheer appetite! Now this is important: when you drive into your own court- yard, you should be aware of a smell from the kitchen, a smell of something, you know. . . ."