The little samovar slowly began to get hot, and all at once, unexpectedly, broke into a tremulous bass hum.

“Oh, you’ve started humming!” grumbled Zotov.  “Hum away then, and bad luck to you!”

At that point the old man appropriately recalled that, in the preceding night, he had dreamed of a stove, and to dream of a stove is a sign of sorrow.

Dreams and omens were the only things left that could rouse him to reflection; and on this occasion he plunged with a special zest into the considerations of the questions:  What the samovar was humming for? and what sorrow was foretold by the stove?  The dream seemed to come true from the first.  Zotov rinsed out his teapot and was about to make his tea, when he found there was not one teaspoonful left in the box.

“What an existence!” he grumbled, rolling crumbs of black bread round in his mouth.  “It’s a dog’s life.  No tea!  And it isn’t as though I were a simple peasant:  I’m an artisan and a house-owner.  The disgrace!”

Grumbling and talking to himself, Zotov put on his overcoat, which was like a crinoline, and, thrusting his feet into huge clumsy golosh-boots (made in the year 1867 by a bootmaker called Prohoritch), went out into the yard.  The air was grey, cold, and sullenly still.  The big yard, full of tufts of burdock and strewn with yellow leaves, was faintly silvered with autumn frost.  Not a breath of wind nor a sound.  The old man sat down on the steps of his slanting porch, and at once there happened what happened regularly every morning:  his dog Lyska, a big, mangy, decrepit-looking, white yard-dog, with black patches, came up to him with its right eye shut.  Lyska came up timidly, wriggling in a frightened way, as though her paws were not touching the earth but a hot stove, and the whole of her wretched figure was expressive of abjectness.  Zotov pretended not to notice her, but when she faintly wagged her tail, and, wriggling as before, licked his golosh, he stamped his foot angrily.

“Be off!  The plague take you!” he cried.  “Con-found-ed bea-east!”

Lyska moved aside, sat down, and fixed her solitary eye upon her master.

“You devils!” he went on.  “You are the last straw on my back, you Herods.”

And he looked with hatred at his shed with its crooked, overgrown roof; there from the door of the shed a big horse’s head was looking out at him.  Probably flattered by its master’s attention, the head moved, pushed forward, and there emerged from the shed the whole horse, as decrepit as Lyska, as timid and as crushed, with spindly legs, grey hair, a pinched stomach, and a bony spine.  He came out of the shed and stood still, hesitating as though overcome with embarrassment.

“Plague take you,” Zotov went on.  “Shall I ever see the last of you, you jail-bird Pharaohs! . . .  I wager you want your breakfast!” he jeered, twisting his angry face into a contemptuous smile.  “By all means, this minute!  A priceless steed like you must have your fill of the best oats!  Pray begin!  This minute!  And I have something to give to the magnificent, valuable dog!  If a precious dog like you does not care for bread, you can have meat.”