“It’s high time, Auntie, to get to business.  You have kicked up your heels in idleness long enough.  I want to make an artiste of you. . . .  Do you want to be an artiste?”

And he began teaching her various accomplishments.  At the first lesson he taught her to stand and walk on her hind legs, which she liked extremely.  At the second lesson she had to jump on her hind legs and catch some sugar, which her teacher held high above her head.  After that, in the following lessons she danced, ran tied to a cord, howled to music, rang the bell, and fired the pistol, and in a month could successfully replace Fyodor Timofeyitch in the “Egyptian Pyramid.”  She learned very eagerly and was pleased with her own success; running with her tongue out on the cord, leaping through the hoop, and riding on old Fyodor Timofeyitch, gave her the greatest enjoyment.  She accompanied every successful trick with a shrill, delighted bark, while her teacher wondered, was also delighted, and rubbed his hands.

“It’s talent!  It’s talent!” he said.  “Unquestionable talent!  You will certainly be successful!”

And Auntie grew so used to the word talent, that every time her master pronounced it, she jumped up as if it had been her name.

VI

An Uneasy Night

Auntie had a doggy dream that a porter ran after her with a broom, and she woke up in a fright.

It was quite dark and very stuffy in the room.  The fleas were biting.  Auntie had never been afraid of darkness before, but now, for some reason, she felt frightened and inclined to bark.

Her master heaved a loud sigh in the next room, then soon afterwards the sow grunted in her sty, and then all was still again.  When one thinks about eating one’s heart grows lighter, and Auntie began thinking how that day she had stolen the leg of a chicken from Fyodor Timofeyitch, and had hidden it in the drawing-room, between the cupboard and the wall, where there were a great many spiders’ webs and a great deal of dust.  Would it not be as well to go now and look whether the chicken leg were still there or not?  It was very possible that her master had found it and eaten it.  But she must not go out of the room before morning, that was the rule.  Auntie shut her eyes to go to sleep as quickly as possible, for she knew by experience that the sooner you go to sleep the sooner the morning comes.  But all at once there was a strange scream not far from her which made her start and jump up on all four legs.  It was Ivan Ivanitch, and his cry was not babbling and persuasive as usual, but a wild, shrill, unnatural scream like the squeak of a door opening.  Unable to distinguish anything in the darkness, and not understanding what was wrong, Auntie felt still more frightened and growled:  “R-r-r-r. . . .”