II

A Mysterious Stranger

But she thought of nothing, she simply whined.  When her head and back were entirely plastered over with the soft feathery snow, and she had sunk into a painful doze of exhaustion, all at once the door of the entrance clicked, creaked, and struck her on the side.  She jumped up.  A man belonging to the class of customers came out.  As Kashtanka whined and got under his feet, he could not help noticing her.  He bent down to her and asked: 

“Doggy, where do you come from?  Have I hurt you?  O, poor thing, poor thing. . . .  Come, don’t be cross, don’t be cross. . . .  I am sorry.”

Kashtanka looked at the stranger through the snow-flakes that hung on her eyelashes, and saw before her a short, fat little man, with a plump, shaven face wearing a top hat and a fur coat that swung open.

“What are you whining for?” he went on, knocking the snow off her back with his fingers.  “Where is your master?  I suppose you are lost?  Ah, poor doggy!  What are we going to do now?”

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

“Oh, you nice funny thing!” said the stranger.  “A regular fox!  Well, there’s nothing for it, you must come along with me!  Perhaps you will be of use for something. . . .  Well!”

He clicked with his lips, and made a sign to Kashtanka with his hand, which could only mean one thing:  “Come along!” Kashtanka went.

Not more than half an hour later she was sitting on the floor in a big, light room, and, leaning her head against her side, was looking with tenderness and curiosity at the stranger who was sitting at the table, dining.  He ate and threw pieces to her. . . .  At first he gave her bread and the green rind of cheese, then a piece of meat, half a pie and chicken bones, while through hunger she ate so quickly that she had not time to distinguish the taste, and the more she ate the more acute was the feeling of hunger.

“Your masters don’t feed you properly,” said the stranger, seeing with what ferocious greediness she swallowed the morsels without munching them.  “And how thin you are!  Nothing but skin and bones. . . .”

Kashtanka ate a great deal and yet did not satisfy her hunger, but was simply stupefied with eating.  After dinner she lay down in the middle of the room, stretched her legs and, conscious of an agreeable weariness all over her body, wagged her tail.  While her new master, lounging in an easy-chair, smoked a cigar, she wagged her tail and considered the question, whether it was better at the stranger’s or at the carpenter’s.  The stranger’s surroundings were poor and ugly; besides the easy-chairs, the sofa, the lamps and the rugs, there was nothing, and the room seemed empty.  At the carpenter’s the whole place was stuffed full of things:  he had