at him…. He is a nonsensical fellow, your honour!”
“That’s a lie, Squinteye! You didn’t see, so why tell lies about it? His honour is a wise gentleman, and will see who is telling lies and who is telling the truth, as in God’s sight…. And if I am lying let the court decide. It’s written in the law…. We are all equal nowadays. My own brother is in the gendarmes… let me tell you… .”
“Don’t argue!”
“No, that’s not the General’s dog,” says the policeman, with profound conviction, “the General hasn’t got one like that. His are mostly setters.”
“Do you know that for a fact?”
“Yes, your honour.”
“I know it, too. The General has valuable dogs, thoroughbred, and this is goodness knows what! No coat, no shape…. A low creature. And to keep a dog like that!… where’s the sense of it. If a dog like that were to turn up in Petersburg or Moscow, do you know what would happen? They would not worry about the law, they would strangle it in a twinkling! You’ve been injured, Hryukin, and we can’t let the matter drop…. We must give them a lesson! It is high time… . !”
“Yet maybe it is the General’s,” says the policeman, thinking aloud. “It’s not written on its face…. I saw one like it the other day in his yard.”
“It is the General’s, that’s certain! “ says a voice in the crowd.
“H’m, help me on with my overcoat, Yeldyrin, my lad… the wind’s getting up…. I am cold…. You take it to the General’s, and inquire there. Say I found it and sent it. And tell them not to let it out into the street…. It may be a valuable dog, and if every swine goes sticking a cigar in its mouth, it will soon be ruined. A dog is a delicate animal…. And you put your hand down, you blockhead. It’s no use your displaying your fool of a finger. It’s your own fault… .”
“Here comes the General’s cook, ask him… Hi, Prohor! Come here, my dear man! Look at this dog…. Is it one of yours?”
“What an idea! We have never had one like that!”
“There’s no need to waste time asking,” says Otchumyelov. “It’s a stray dog! There’s no need to waste time talking about it…. Since he says it’s a stray dog, a stray dog it is…. It must be destroyed, that’s all about it.”
“It is not our dog,” Prohor goes on. “It belongs to the General’s brother, who arrived the other day. Our master does not care for hounds. But his honour is fond of them… .”
“You don’t say his Excellency’s brother is here? Vladimir Ivanitch?” inquires Otchumyelov, and his whole face beams with an ecstatic smile. “‘Well, I never! And I didn’t know! Has he come on a visit?
“Yes.”
“Well, I never…. He couldn’t stay away from his brother…. And there I didn’t know! So this is his honour’s dog? Delighted to hear it…. Take it. It’s not a bad pup…. A lively creature…. Snapped at this fellow’s finger! Ha-ha-ha…. Come, why are you shivering? Rrr… Rrrr…. The rogue’s angry… a nice little pup.”
Prohor calls the dog, and walks away from the timber-yard with her. The crowd laughs at Hryukin.
“I’ll make you smart yet!” Otchumyelov threatens him, and wrapping himself in his greatcoat, goes on his way across the square.
IN THE GRAVEYARD
Translation By Constance Garnett
“THE wind has got up, friends, and it is beginning to get dark. Hadn’t we better take ourselves off before it gets worse?”
The wind was frolicking among the yellow leaves of the old birch trees, and a shower of thick drops fell upon us from the leaves. One of our party slipped on the clayey soil, and clutched at a big grey cross to save himself from falling.
“Yegor Gryaznorukov, titular councillor and cavalier . .” he read. “I knew that gentleman. He was fond of his wife, he wore the Stanislav ribbon, and read nothing…. His digestion worked well… . life was all right, wasn’t it? One would have thought he had no reason to die, but alas! fate had its eye on him…. The poor fellow fell a victim to his habits of observation. On one occasion, when he was listening at a keyhole, he got such a bang on the head from the door that he sustained concussion of the brain (he had a brain), and died. And here, under this tombstone, lies a man who from his cradle detested verses and epigrams…. As though to mock him his whole tombstone is adorned with verses…. There is someone coming!”
A man in a shabby overcoat, with a shaven, bluish-crimson countenance, overtook us. He had a bottle under his arm and a parcel of sausage was sticking out of his pocket.
“Where is the grave of Mushkin, the actor?” he asked us in a husky voice.
We conducted him towards the grave of Mushkin, the actor, who had died two years before.
“You are a government clerk, I suppose?” we asked him.
“No, an actor. Nowadays it is difficult to distinguish actors from clerks of the Consistory. No doubt you have noticed that…. That’s typical, but it’s not very flattering for the government clerk.”
It was with difficulty that we found the actor’s grave. It had sunken, was overgrown with weeds, and had lost all appearance of a grave. A cheap, little cross that had begun to rot, and was covered with green moss blackened by the frost, had an air of aged dejection and looked, as it were, ailing.
“… forgotten friend Mushkin …” we read.
Time had erased the never, and corrected the falsehood of man.
“A subscription for a monument to him was got up among actors and journalists, but they drank up the money, the dear fellows …” sighed the actor, bowing down to the ground and touching the wet earth with his knees and his cap.
“How do you mean, drank it?”
That’s very simple. They collected the money, published a paragraph about it in the newspaper, and spent it on drink…. I don’t say it to blame them…. I hope it did them good, dear things! Good health to them, and eternal memory to him.”
“Drinking means bad health, and eternal memory nothing but sadness. God give us remembrance for a time, but eternal memory — what next!”
“You are right there. Mushkin was a well-known man, you see; there were a dozen wreaths on the coffin, and he is already forgotten. Those to whom he was dear have forgotten him, but those to whom he did harm remember him. I, for instance, shall never, never forget him, for I got nothing but harm from him. I have no love for the deceased.”
“What harm did he do you?”
“Great harm,” sighed the actor, and an expression of bitter resentment
