A minute later there was the sound of grunting.  Kashtanka growled, assumed a very valiant air, and to be on the safe side, went nearer to the stranger.  The door opened, an old woman looked in, and, saying something, led in a black and very ugly sow.  Paying no attention to Kashtanka’s growls, the sow lifted up her little hoof and grunted good-humouredly.  Apparently it was very agreeable to her to see her master, the cat, and Ivan Ivanitch.  When she went up to the cat and gave him a light tap on the stomach with her hoof, and then made some remark to the gander, a great deal of good-nature was expressed in her movements, and the quivering of her tail.  Kashtanka realised at once that to growl and bark at such a character was useless.

The master took away the frame and cried.  “Fyodor Timofeyitch, if you please!”

The cat stretched lazily, and reluctantly, as though performing a duty, went up to the sow.

“Come, let us begin with the Egyptian pyramid,” began the master.

He spent a long time explaining something, then gave the word of command, “One . . . two . . . three!” At the word “three” Ivan Ivanitch flapped his wings and jumped on to the sow’s back. . . .  When, balancing himself with his wings and his neck, he got a firm foothold on the bristly back, Fyodor Timofeyitch listlessly and lazily, with manifest disdain, and with an air of scorning his art and not caring a pin for it, climbed on to the sow’s back, then reluctantly mounted on to the gander, and stood on his hind legs.  The result was what the stranger called the Egyptian pyramid.  Kashtanka yapped with delight, but at that moment the old cat yawned and, losing his balance, rolled off the gander.  Ivan Ivanitch lurched and fell off too.  The stranger shouted, waved his hands, and began explaining something again.  After spending an hour over the pyramid their indefatigable master proceeded to teach Ivan Ivanitch to ride on the cat, then began to teach the cat to smoke, and so on.

The lesson ended in the stranger’s wiping the sweat off his brow and going away.  Fyodor Timofeyitch gave a disdainful sniff, lay down on his mattress, and closed his eyes; Ivan Ivanitch went to the trough, and the pig was taken away by the old woman.  Thanks to the number of her new impressions, Kashranka hardly noticed how the day passed, and in the evening she was installed with her mattress in the room with the dirty wall-paper, and spent the night in the society of Fyodor Timofeyitch and the gander.

V

Talent!  Talent!

A month passed.

Kashtanka had grown used to having a nice dinner every evening, and being called Auntie.  She had grown used to the stranger too, and to her new companions.  Life was comfortable and easy.