a table, a bench, a heap of shavings, planes, chisels, saws, a cage with a goldfinch, a basin. . . .  The stranger’s room smelt of nothing, while there was always a thick fog in the carpenter’s room, and a glorious smell of glue, varnish, and shavings.  On the other hand, the stranger had one great superiority—­he gave her a great deal to eat and, to do him full justice, when Kashtanka sat facing the table and looking wistfully at him, he did not once hit or kick her, and did not once shout:  “Go away, damned brute!”

When he had finished his cigar her new master went out, and a minute later came back holding a little mattress in his hands.

“Hey, you dog, come here!” he said, laying the mattress in the corner near the dog.  “Lie down here, go to sleep!”

Then he put out the lamp and went away.  Kashtanka lay down on the mattress and shut her eyes; the sound of a bark rose from the street, and she would have liked to answer it, but all at once she was overcome with unexpected melancholy.  She thought of Luka Alexandritch, of his son Fedyushka, and her snug little place under the bench. . . .  She remembered on the long winter evenings, when the carpenter was planing or reading the paper aloud, Fedyushka usually played with her. . . .  He used to pull her from under the bench by her hind legs, and play such tricks with her, that she saw green before her eyes, and ached in every joint.  He would make her walk on her hind legs, use her as a bell, that is, shake her violently by the tail so that she squealed and barked, and give her tobacco to sniff . . . .  The following trick was particularly agonising:  Fedyushka would tie a piece of meat to a thread and give it to Kashtanka, and then, when she had swallowed it he would, with a loud laugh, pull it back again from her stomach, and the more lurid were her memories the more loudly and miserably Kashtanka whined.

But soon exhaustion and warmth prevailed over melancholy.  She began to fall asleep.  Dogs ran by in her imagination:  among them a shaggy old poodle, whom she had seen that day in the street with a white patch on his eye and tufts of wool by his nose.  Fedyushka ran after the poodle with a chisel in his hand, then all at once he too was covered with shaggy wool, and began merrily barking beside Kashtanka.  Kashtanka and he goodnaturedly sniffed each other’s noses and merrily ran down the street. . . .

III

New and Very Agreeable Acquaintances

When Kashtanka woke up it was already light, and a sound rose from the street, such as only comes in the day-time.  There was not a soul in the room.  Kashtanka stretched, yawned and, cross and ill-humoured, walked about the room.  She sniffed the corners and the furniture, looked into the passage and found nothing of interest there.  Besides the door that led into the passage there was another door.  After thinking a little Kashtanka scratched on it with both paws, opened it, and went into the adjoining room.  Here on the bed, covered with a rug, a customer, in whom she recognised the stranger of yesterday, lay asleep.