Romashov strode on, and followed a sort of path of bricks which led across the yard to the house.
A couple of enormous, mouse-coloured young bull-dogs ran out of a corner, and one of them greeted him with a rough but not unfriendly bark.
Romashov snapped his fingers at it, which was answered in delight by awkward, frolicsome leaps and still noisier barking.
The other bull-dog followed closely on Romashov’s heels, and sniffed with curiosity between the folds of his cape.
Far away in the court, where the tender, light green grass had already sprouted up, stood a little donkey philosophizing, blinking in delight at the sun, and lazily twitching its long ears.
Here and there waddled ducks of variegated hues, fowls and Chinese geese with large excrescences over their bills. A bevy of peacocks made their ear-splitting cluck heard, and a huge turkey-cock with trailing wings and tail-feathers high in the air was courting the favourite sultana of his harem.
A massive pink sow of genuine Yorkshire breed wallowed majestically in a hole.
“Colonel Brehm,” dressed in a Swedish leather jacket, stood at a window with his back to the door, and he did not notice Romashov as the latter entered the room.
He was very busy with his glass aquarium, into which he plunged one arm up to the elbow, and he was so absorbed by this occupation that Romashov was obliged to cough loudly twice before Rafalski turned round and presented his long, thin, unshaven face and a pair of old-fashioned spectacles with tortoise-shell rims.
“Ah, ha—what do I see?—Sub-lieutenant Romashov?
Very welcome, very welcome!” rang his friendly greeting.
“Excuse my not being able to shake hands, but, as you see, I am quite wet.
I am now testing a new siphon.
I have simplified the apparatus, which will act splendidly.
Will you have some tea?”
“I am very much obliged to you, but I have just breakfasted.
I have come, Colonel, to——”
“Of course you have heard the rumour that our regiment is to be moved to garrison another town,” interrupted Rafalski, in a tone as if he had only resumed a conversation just dropped.
“You may well imagine my despair.
How shall I manage to transport all my fishes?
At least half of them will die on the journey.
And this aquarium too; look at it yourself.
Wholly of glass and a yard and a half long.
Ah, my dear fellow” (here he suddenly sprang into a wholly different train of thought), “what an aquarium they have in Sebastopol!
A cistern of continually flowing seawater, big as this room, and entirely of stone.
And lighted by electricity too.
You stand and gaze down on all those wonderful fishes—sturgeons, sharks, rays, sea-cocks—nay, God forgive me my sins! sea-cats, I mean.
Imagine in your mind a gigantic pancake, an arshin and a half in diameter, which moves and wags—and behind it a tail shaped like an arrow. My goodness, I stood there staring for a couple of hours—but what are you laughing at?”
“I beg your pardon, but I just noticed a little white rat sitting on your shoulder.”
“Oh, you little rascal! Who gave you leave?”
Rafalski twisted his head and produced with his lips a whistling but extraordinarily delicate sound that was remarkably like the cheeping noise of a rat.
The little white, red-eyed beast, trembling all over its body, snuggled up to Rafalski’s cheek, and began groping with its nose after its master’s mouth and chin-tuft.
“How tame your animals are, and how well they know you!” exclaimed Romashov.
“Yes, they always know me well enough,” replied Rafalski.
After this he drew a deep sigh and sorrowfully shook his grey head.
“It is unfortunate that mankind troubles itself and knows so little about animals.
We have trained and tamed for our use or good pleasure the dog, the horse, and the cat, but how much do we know about the real nature and being of these animals? Now and then, of course, some professor—a marvel of learning—comes along—may the devil devour them all!—and talks a lot of antediluvian rubbish that no sensible person either understands or has the least profit from. Moreover, he gives the poor innocent beasts a number of Latin nicknames as idiotic as they are unnecessary, and to crown it all, he has the impudence to demand to be immortalized for all this tomfoolery, and pretty nearly venerated as a saint. But what can he teach us, and what does he know himself, of animals and their inner life?
No! take any dog you like, live together with it for a time, side by side, and, by the study of this intelligent, reflecting creature, you will get more matter for your psychology than all the professors and teachers could dream.”
“But perhaps there are works of that nature, though we do not yet know them?” suggested Romashov shyly.
“Books, did you say?
Yes, of course, there are plenty.
Just glance over there. I have a whole library of them.”
Rafalski pointed to a long row of shelves standing along the walls.
“Those learned gentlemen write a whole lot of clever things, and show great profundity in their studies.
Yes, their learning is absolutely overwhelming.
What wonderful scientific instruments, and what acuteness of intellect! But all that is quite different from what I mean.
Not one of all these great celebrities has hit upon the idea of observing carefully, only for a single day, for instance, a dog or cat in its private life.
And yet how interesting and instructive that is. To watch closely how a dog lives, thinks, intrigues, makes itself happy or miserable.
Just think, for example, what all those clowns and showmen can effect.
One might sometimes think that one was subjected to an extraordinary hypnosis.