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Page 10
It was dark by the time he came back. From his worn-out look, his
unsteady walk, and his dusty clothes, it might be surmised that he had
been running over half Moscow. He stood still opposite the windows of
the mistress's house, took a searching look at the steps where a group
of house-serfs were crowded together, turned away, and uttered once more
his inarticulate "Mumu." Mumu did not answer. He went away. Every one
looked after him, but no one smiled or said a word, and the inquisitive
postilion Antipka reported next morning in the kitchen that the dumb man
had been groaning all night.
All the next day Gerasim did not show himself, so that they were obliged
to send the coachman Potap for water instead of him, at which the
coachman Potap was anything but pleased. The lady asked Gavrila if her
orders had been carried out. Gavrila replied that they had. The next
morning Gerasim came out of his garret, and went about his work. He came
in to his dinner, ate it, and went out again, without a greeting to any
one. His face, which had always been lifeless, as with all deaf-mutes,
seemed now to be turned to stone. After dinner he went out of the yard
again, but not for long; he came back, and went straight up to the hay-
loft. Night came on, a clear moonlight night. Gerasim lay breathing
heavily, and incessantly turning from side to side. Suddenly he felt
something pull at the skirt of his coat. He started, but did not raise
his head, and even shut his eyes tighter. But again there was a pull,
stronger than before; he jumped up before him, with an end of string
round her neck, was Mumu, twisting and turning. A prolonged cry of
delight broke from his speechless breast; he caught up Mumu, and hugged
her tight in his arms, she licked his nose and eyes, and beard and
moustache, all in one instant. . . . He stood a little, thought a minute,
crept cautiously down from the hay-loft, looked round, and having
satisfied himself that no one could see him, made his way successfully
to his garret. Gerasim had guessed before that his dog had not got lost
by her own doing, that she must have been taken away by the mistress's
orders; the servants had explained to him by signs that his Mumu had
snapped at her, and he determined to take his own measures. First he fed
Mumu with a bit of bread, fondled her, and put her to bed, then he fell
to meditating, and spent the whole night long in meditating how he could
best conceal her. At last he decided to leave her all day in the garret,
and only to come in now and then to see her, and to take her out at
night. The hole in the door he stopped up effectually with his old
overcoat, and almost before it was light he was already in the yard, as
though nothing had happened, even--innocent guile!--the same expression
of melancholy on his face. It did not even occur to the poor deaf man
that Mumu would betray herself by her whining; in reality, everyone in
the house was soon aware that the dumb man's dog had come back, and was
locked up in his garret, but from sympathy with him and with her, and
partly, perhaps, from dread of him, they did not let him know that they
had found out his secret. The steward scratched his head, and gave a
despairing wave of his head, as much as to say, "Well, well, God have
mercy on him! If only it doesn't come to the mistress's ears!"
But the dumb man had never shown such energy as on that day; he cleaned
and scraped the whole courtyard, pulled up every single weed with his
own hand, tugged up every stake in the fence of the flower-garden, to
satisfy himself that they were strong enough, and unaided drove them in
again; in fact, he toiled and labored so that even the old lady noticed
his zeal. Twice in the course of the day Gerasim went stealthily in to
see his prisoner; when night came on, he lay down to sleep with her in
the garret, not in the hay-loft, and only at two o'clock in the night he
went out to take her a turn in the fresh air.
After walking about the courtyard a good while with her, he was just
turning back, when suddenly a rustle was heard behind the fence on the
side of the back street. Mumu pricked up her ears, growled--went up to
the fence, sniffed, and gave vent to a loud shrill bark. Some drunkard
had thought fit to take refuge under the fence for the night. At that
very time the old lady had just fallen asleep after a prolonged fit of
"nervous agitation"; these fits of agitation always overtook her after
too hearty a supper. The sudden bark waked her up: her heart palpitated,
and she felt faint. "Girls, girls!" she moaned. "Girls!" The terrified
maids ran into her bedroom. "Oh, oh, I am dying!" she said, flinging her
arms about in her agitation. "Again, that dog, again! . . . Oh, send for
the doctor. They mean to be the death of me. . . . The dog, the dog
again! Oh!" And she let her head fall back, which always signified a
swoon. They rushed for the doctor, that is, for the household physician,
Hariton. This doctor, whose whole qualification consisted in wearing
soft-soled boots, knew how to feel the pulse delicately. He used to
sleep fourteen hours out of the twenty-four, but the rest of the time he
was always sighing, and continually dosing the old lady with cherrybay
drops. This doctor ran up at once, fumigated the room with burnt
feathers, and when the old lady opened her eyes, promptly offered her a
wineglass of the hallowed drops on a silver tray. The old lady took
them, but began again at once in a tearful voice complaining of the dog,
of Gavrila, and of her fate, declaring that she was a poor old woman,
and that every one had forsaken her, no one pitied her, every one wished
her dead. Meanwhile the luckless Mumu had gone on barking, while Gerasim
tried in vain to call her away, from the fence. "There . . . there . . .
again," groaned the old lady, and once more she turned up the whites of
her eyes. The doctor whispered to a maid, she rushed into the outer
hall, and shook Stepan, he ran to wake Gavrila, Gavrila in a fury
ordered the whole household to get up.
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