ie in his arms and thrust her in his coat, where
Fyodor Timofeyirch already was. It was dark and stuffy there, but
warm. For an instant two green sparks flashed at her; it was the
cat, who opened his eyes on being disturbed by his neighbour's cold
rough paws. Auntie licked his ear, and, trying to settle herself
as comfortably as possible, moved uneasily, crushed him under her
cold paws, and casually poked her head out from under the coat, but
at once growled angrily, and tucked it in again. It seemed to her
that she had seen a huge, badly lighted room, full of monsters;
from behind screens and gratings, which stretched on both sides of
the room, horrible faces looked out: faces of horses with horns,
with long ears, and one fat, huge countenance with a tail instead
of a nose, and two long gnawed bones sticking out of his mouth.

The cat mewed huskily under Auntie's paws, but at that moment the
coat was flung open, the master said, "Hop!" and Fyodor Timofeyitch
and Auntie jumped to the floor. They were now in a little room with
grey plank walls; there was no other furniture in it but a little
table with a looking-glass on it, a stool, and some rags hung about
the corners, and instead of a lamp or candles, there was a bright
fan-shaped light attached to a little pipe fixed in the wall. Fyodor
Timofeyitch licked his coat which had been ruffled by Auntie, went
under the stool, and lay down. Their master, still agitated and
rubbing his hands, began undressing. . . . He undressed as he usually
did at home when he was preparing to get under the rug, that is,
took off everything but his underlinen, then he sat down on the
stool, and, looking in the looking-glass, began playing the most
surprising tricks with himself. . . . First of all he put on his
head a wig, with a parting and with two tufts of hair standing up
like horns, then he smeared his face thickly with something white,
and over the white colour painted his eyebrows, his moustaches, and
red on his cheeks. His antics did not end with that. After smearing
his face and neck, he began putting himself into an extraordinary
and incongruous costume, such as Auntie had never seen before,
either in houses or in the street. Imagine very full trousers, made
of chintz covered with big flowers, such as is used in working-class
houses for curtains and covering furniture, trousers which buttoned
up just under his armpits. One trouser leg was made of brown chintz,
the other of bright