Short Fiction Aleksandr Kuprin (free novel reading sites TXT) 📖

That night Nadya dreamed that she was married to Tommy and that they had many children, tiny, jolly, little baby elephants. The elephant, whom they took back at night to the menagerie, also dreamed of the sweet and affectionate little girl. He dreamt, too, that he had a large tart with walnuts and pistachios as big as a gate.⁠ ⁠…

Next morning the little girl woke, fresh and healthy, and as she used to do before her illness, cried out, in a voice to be heard all over the house, loudly and impatiently:

“I want some milk.”

Hearing this cry, in her bedroom mamma crossed herself devoutly.

But the little girl remembered what had happened yesterday, and she asked:

“Where’s the elephant?”

They explained to her that the elephant had been obliged to go home, that he had children who couldn’t be left by themselves, but that he had left a message for Nadya to say that he hoped she would come and see him as soon as she was well.

The little girl smiled slyly and said:

“Tell Tommy that I’m quite well now.”

It was between six and seven o’clock on a fine September morning when the eighteen-months-old pointer, Jack, a brown, long-eared, frisky animal, started out with the cook, Annushka, to market. He knew the way perfectly well, and so ran confidently on in front of her, sniffing at the curbstones as he went and stopping at the crossings to see if Annushka were following. Finding affirmation in her face, and the direction in which she was going, he would turn again with a decisive movement and rush on in a lively gallop.

On one occasion, however, when he turned round near a familiar sausage-shop, Jack could not see Annushka. He dashed back so hastily that his left ear was turned inside out as he went. But Annushka was not to be seen at the crossroads. So Jack resolved to find his way by scent. He stopped, cautiously raised his wet sensitive nose, and tried in all directions to recognise the familiar scent of Annushka’s dress, the smell of the dirty kitchen-table and mottled soap. But just at that moment a lady came hurriedly past him, and brushing up against his side with her rustling skirt she left behind a strong wave of disgusting Oriental perfume. Jack moved his head from side to side in vexation. The trail of Annushka was entirely lost.

But he was not upset by this. He knew the town well and could always find his way home easily⁠—all he had to do was to go to the sausage-shop, then to the greengrocer’s, then turn to the left and go past a grey house from the basement of which there was always wafted a smell of burning fat, and he would be in his own street. Jack did not hurry. The morning was fresh and clear, and in the pure, softly transparent and rather moist air, all the various odours of the town had an unusual refinement and distinctness. Running past the post-office, with his tail stuck out as stiff as a rod and his nostrils all trembling with excitement, Jack could have sworn that only a moment before a large, mouse-coloured, oldish dog had stopped there, a dog who was usually fed on oatmeal porridge.

And after running along about two hundred paces, he actually saw this dog, a cowardly, sober-looking brute. His ears had been cropped, and a broad, worn, strap was dangling from his neck.

The dog noticed Jack, and stopped, half turning back on his steps. Jack curled his tail in the air provokingly and began to walk slowly round the other, with an air of looking somewhere to one side. The mouse-coloured dog also raised his tail and showed a broad row of white teeth. Then they both growled, turning their heads away from one another as they did so, and trying, as it were, to swallow something which stuck in their throats.

“If he says anything insulting to my honour, or the honour of any well-bred pointer, I shall fasten my teeth in his side, near his left hind-leg,” thought Jack to himself. “Of course, he is stronger than I am, but he is stupid and clumsy. Look how he stands there, like a dummy, and has no idea that all his left flank is open to attack.”

And suddenly⁠ ⁠… something inexplicable and almost supernatural happened. The other dog unexpectedly threw himself on his back and was dragged by some unseen force from the pathway into the road. Directly afterwards this same unseen power grasped Jack by the throat⁠ ⁠… he stood firm on his forelegs and shook his head furiously. But the invisible “something” was pulled so tight round his neck that the brown pointer became unconscious.12

He came to his senses again in a stuffy iron cage, which was jolting and shaking as it was drawn along the cobbled roadway, on a badly-jointed vehicle trembling in all its parts. From its acrid doggy odour Jack guessed at once that this cart must have been used for years to convey dogs of all breeds and all ages. On the box in front sat two men, whose outward appearance was not at all calculated to inspire confidence.

There was already a sufficiently large company in the cart. First of all, Jack noticed the mouse-coloured dog whom he had just met and quarrelled with in the street. He was standing with his head stuck out between two of the iron bars, and he whined pitifully as his body was jolted backwards and forwards by the movement of the cart. In the middle of the cage lay an old white poodle, his wise-looking head lying between his gouty paws. His coat was cut to make him look like a lion, with tufts left on his knees and at the end of his tail. The poodle had apparently resigned himself to his situation with a stoic philosophy, and if he had not sighed occasionally