“Come, let him feel at home first,” Pyotr Demyanitch commanded.  “Let him look and sniff.  Look and learn!  Stop, plague take you!” he shouted, noticing that the kitten was backing away from the mouse-trap.  “I’ll thrash you!  Hold him by the ear!  That’s it. . . .  Well now, set him down before the trap. . . .”

My uncle slowly lifted the door of the trap . . . the mouse whisked under the very nose of the kitten, flung itself against Praskovya’s hand and fled under the cupboard; the kitten, feeling himself free, took a desperate bound and retreated under the sofa.

“He’s let another mouse go!” bawled Pyotr Demyanitch.  “Do you call that a cat?  Nasty little beast!  Thrash him! thrash him by the mousetrap!”

When the third mouse had been caught, the kitten shivered all over at the sight of the mousetrap and its inmate, and scratched Praskovya’s hand. . . .  After the fourth mouse my uncle flew into a rage, kicked the kitten, and said: 

“Take the nasty thing away!  Get rid of it!  Chuck it away!  It’s no earthly use!”

A year passed, the thin, frail kitten had turned into a solid and sagacious tom-cat.  One day he was on his way by the back yards to an amatory interview.  He had just reached his destination when he suddenly heard a rustle, and thereupon caught sight of a mouse which ran from a water-trough towards a stable; my hero’s hair stood on end, he arched his back, hissed, and trembling all over, took to ignominious flight.

Alas! sometimes I feel myself in the ludicrous position of the flying cat.  Like the kitten, I had in my day the honour of being taught Latin by my uncle.  Now, whenever I chance to see some work of classical antiquity, instead of being moved to eager enthusiasm, I begin recalling, ut consecutivum, the irregular verbs, the sallow grey face of my uncle, the ablative absolute. . . .  I turn pale, my hair stands up on my head, and, like the cat, I take to ignominious flight.

THE BIRD MARKET

THERE is a small square near the monastery of the Holy Birth which is called Trubnoy, or simply Truboy; there is a market there on Sundays.  Hundreds of sheepskins, wadded coats, fur caps, and chimneypot hats swarm there, like crabs in a sieve.  There is the sound of the twitter of birds in all sorts of keys, recalling the spring.  If the sun is shining, and there are no clouds in the sky, the singing of the birds and the smell of hay make a more vivid impression, and this reminder of spring sets one thinking and carries one’s fancy far, far away.  Along one side of the square there stands a string of waggons.  The waggons are loaded, not with hay, not with cabbages, nor with beans, but with goldfinches, siskins, larks, blackbirds and thrushes, bluetits, bullfinches.  All of them are hopping about in rough, home-made cages, twittering and looking with envy at the free sparrows.  The goldfinches cost five kopecks, the siskins are rather more expensive, while the value of the other birds is quite indeterminate.