V.—THE GREEN KITTEN.[1]
The round window of my chamber looked out upon the prison-yard. It was very high from the ground, but by placing the table against the wall and mounting upon it, I could see everything that was going on in the courtyard. Beneath the window, under the slope of the roof, the doves had built themselves a nest, and when I set about looking out of my window down into the court below, they began cooing above my head.
[1] The original title of this tale was "Zazubrina." Written in 1897.
I had lots of time to make the acquaintance of the inhabitants of the prison-yard from my coign of vantage, and I knew already that the merriest member of that grim and grey population went by the name of Zazubrina.
He was a square-set, stout little fellow, with a ruddy face and a high forehead, from beneath which his large bright, lively eyes sparkled incessantly.
His cap he wore at the back of his head, his ears stuck out on both sides of his shaven head as if in joke; he never fastened the strings of his shirt-collar, he never buttoned his vest, and every movement of his muscles gave you to understand that he was a merry soul and a pronounced enemy of anger and sadness.
Always laughing, alert and noisy, he was the idol of the yard; he was always surrounded by a group of grey comrades, and he would always be laughing and regaling them with all sorts of curious pranks, brightening up their dull and sorrowful life with his hearty, genuine gaiety....
On one occasion he appeared at the door of the prison-quarters ready to go for a walk with three rats whom he had dexterously harnessed as if they were horses. Sometimes his inventiveness took a cruel form. Thus, for instance, he once, somehow, glued to the wall the long hair of one of the prisoners, a mere lad, who was sitting on the floor asleep against the wall, and, when his hair had dried, suddenly awoke him. The lad quickly leaped to his feet, and clapping his slim lean hands to the back of his head, fell weeping to the ground. The prisoners laughed, and Zazubrina was satisfied. Afterwards—I saw it through the window—he fell a comforting the lad, who had left a no inconsiderable tuft of hair on the wall.
Besides Zazubrina, there was yet another favourite in the prison—a plump, reddish kitten, a tiny, playful little animal, pampered by everyone. Whenever they went out for a walk, the prisoners used to hunt him up and take him with them a good part of the way, passing him on from hand to hand. They would run after him, too, in the yard, and let him cling on to their hands and feet with his claws, delighting in the sportive tricks of their pet.