Some time passed, as long as it takes to eat a good bone; the scream was not repeated.  Little by little Auntie’s uneasiness passed off and she began to doze.  She dreamed of two big black dogs with tufts of last year’s coat left on their haunches and sides; they were eating out of a big basin some swill, from which there came a white steam and a most appetising smell; from time to time they looked round at Auntie, showed their teeth and growled:  “We are not going to give you any!” But a peasant in a fur-coat ran out of the house and drove them away with a whip; then Auntie went up to the basin and began eating, but as soon as the peasant went out of the gate, the two black dogs rushed at her growling, and all at once there was again a shrill scream.

“K-gee!  K-gee-gee!” cried Ivan Ivanitch.

Auntie woke, jumped up and, without leaving her mattress, went off into a yelping bark.  It seemed to her that it was not Ivan Ivanitch that was screaming but someone else, and for some reason the sow again grunted in her sty.

Then there was the sound of shuffling slippers, and the master came into the room in his dressing-gown with a candle in his hand.  The flickering light danced over the dirty wall-paper and the ceiling, and chased away the darkness.  Auntie saw that there was no stranger in the room.  Ivan Ivanitch was sitting on the floor and was not asleep.  His wings were spread out and his beak was open, and altogether he looked as though he were very tired and thirsty.  Old Fyodor Timofeyitch was not asleep either.  He, too, must have been awakened by the scream.

“Ivan Ivanitch, what’s the matter with you?” the master asked the gander.  “Why are you screaming?  Are you ill?”

The gander did not answer.  The master touched him on the neck, stroked his back, and said:  “You are a queer chap.  You don’t sleep yourself, and you don’t let other people. . . .”

When the master went out, carrying the candle with him, there was darkness again.  Auntie felt frightened.  The gander did not scream, but again she fancied that there was some stranger in the room.  What was most dreadful was that this stranger could not be bitten, as he was unseen and had no shape.  And for some reason she thought that something very bad would certainly happen that night.  Fyodor Timofeyitch was uneasy too.

Auntie could hear him shifting on his mattress, yawning and shaking his head.

Somewhere in the street there was a knocking at a gate and the sow grunted in her sty.  Auntie began to whine, stretched out her front-paws and laid her head down upon them.  She fancied that in the knocking at the gate, in the grunting of the sow, who was for some reason awake, in the darkness and the stillness, there was something as miserable and dreadful as in Ivan Ivanitch’s scream.  Everything was in agitation and anxiety, but why?  Who was the stranger who could not be seen?  Then two dim flashes of green gleamed for a minute near Auntie.  It was Fyodor Timofeyitch, for the first time of their whole acquaintance coming up to her.  What did he want?  Auntie licked his paw, and not asking why he had come, howled softly and on various notes.