“And then, gentlemen, I howled like a calf and
I am not ashamed to say so; I stooped down to the
friend who had saved my life twice over and kissed
his head, again and again. And I stayed in that
position until my old housekeeper, Praskovya (she,
too, had run in at the uproar), brought me to my senses.
‘How can you, Porfiry Kapitonitch,’ she
said, ’distress yourself so about a dog?
And you will catch cold, too, God forbid.’ (I
was very lightly clad.) ’And if this dog has
lost his life in saving you, it may be taken as a
great blessing vouchsafed him!’
“Though I did not agree with Praskovya, I went
home. And next day a soldier of the garrison
shot the mad dog. And it must have been its destined
end: it was the first time in his life that the
soldier had fired a gun, though he had a medal for
service in 1812. So this was the supernatural
incident that happened to me.”
The speaker ceased and began filling his pipe.
We all looked at each other in amazement.
“Well, perhaps, you have led a very virtuous
life,” Mr. Finoplentov began, “so in recompense
...”
But he broke off at that word, for he saw Porfiry
Kapitonitch’s cheeks grow round and flushed
while his eyes screwed up—he was on the
point of breaking into a guffaw.
“But if one admits the possibility of the supernatural,
the possibility of its participation in everyday life,
so to say,” Anton Stepanitch began again, “then
allow me to ask, what becomes of common sense?”
None of us found anything to say in reply and we remained
in perplexity as before.
1866.
* * * *
*
AN OLD MAN’S STORY
I will tell you my adventures with a watch. It
is a curious story.
It happened at the very beginning of this century,
in 1801. I had just reached my sixteenth year.
I was living at Ryazan in a little wooden house not
far from the bank of the river Oka with my father,
my aunt and my cousin; my mother I do not remember;
she died three years after her marriage; my father
had no other children. His name was Porfiry Petrovitch.
He was a quiet man, sickly and unattractive in appearance;
he was employed in some sort of legal and—other—business.
In old days such were called attorneys, sharpers,
nettle-seeds; he called himself a lawyer. Our
domestic life was presided over by his sister, my
aunt, an old maiden lady of fifty; my father, too,
had passed his fourth decade. My aunt was very
pious, or, to speak bluntly, she was a canting hypocrite
and a chattering magpie, who poked her nose into everything;
and, indeed, she had not a kind heart like my father.
We were not badly off, but had nothing to spare.
My father had a brother called Yegor; but he had been
sent to Siberia in the year 1797 for some “seditious
acts and Jacobin tendencies” (those were the
words of the accusation).
