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Updated: May 17, 2025
My uncle assumed a mysterious expression and lifted the door of the trap. . . . The mouse came out irresolutely, sniffed the air, and flew like an arrow under the sofa. . . . The kitten on being released darted under the table with his tail in the air. "It has got away! got away!" cried Pyotr Demyanitch, looking ferocious. "Where is he, the scoundrel? Under the table? You wait. . ."
Obviously he was born a mouse catcher, a worthy son of his bloodthirsty ancestors. Fate had destined him to be the terror of cellars, store-rooms and cornbins, and had it not been for education . . . we will not anticipate, however. On his way home from the high school, Pyotr Demyanitch went into a general shop and bought a mouse-trap for fifteen kopecks.
And Praskovya pointed to the corner where a white kitten, thin as a match, lay curled up asleep beside a broom. "Why is it no good?" asked Pyotr Demyanitch. "It's young yet, and foolish. It's not two months old yet." "H'm. . . . Then it must be trained. It had much better be learning instead of lying there." Saying this, Pyotr Demyanitch sighed with a careworn air and went out of the kitchen.
After the outrage of the previous day the kitten had taken refuge under the stove and had not come out all night. When Praskovya pulled him out and, carrying him by the scruff of the neck into the study, set him down before the mouse-trap, he trembled all over and mewed piteously. "Come, let him feel at home first," Pyotr Demyanitch commanded. "Let him look and sniff. Look and learn!
Having gloated over his victim, Poytr Demyanitch put the mouse-trap on the floor and called: "Praskovya, there's a mouse caught! Bring the kitten here! "I'm coming," responded Praskovya, and a minute later she came in with the descendant of tigers in her arms. "Capital!" said Pyotr Demyanitch, rubbing his hands.
"Stop!" shouted my uncle, seizing him by the tail, "stop, you rascal! He's afraid of a mouse, the idiot! Look! It's a mouse! Look! Well? Look, I tell you!" Pyotr Demyanitch took the kitten by the scruff of the neck and pushed him with his nose against the mouse-trap. "Look, you carrion!
As my uncle Pyotr Demyanitch, a lean, bilious collegiate councillor, exceedingly like a stale smoked fish with a stick through it, was getting ready to go to the high school, where he taught Latin, he noticed that the corner of his grammar was nibbled by mice. "I say, Praskovya," he said, going into the kitchen and addressing the cook, "how is it we have got mice here?
He went at once to the sofa and took out the trap. A neat little mouse, the size of a thimble, was sniffing the wires and trembling with fear. "Aha," muttered Pyotr Demyanitch, and he looked at the mouse malignantly, as though he were about to give him a bad mark. "You are cau aught, wretch! Wait a bit! I'll teach you to eat my grammar!"
My uncle slowly lifted the door of the trap . . . the mouse whisked under the very nose of the kitten, flung itself against Praskovya's hand and fled under the cupboard; the kitten, feeling himself free, took a desperate bound and retreated under the sofa. "He's let another mouse go!" bawled Pyotr Demyanitch. "Do you call that a cat? Nasty little beast! Thrash him! thrash him by the mousetrap!"
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