The Green Kitten by Maksim Gorki

8/8/2019 The Green Kitten by Maksim Gorki

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Notch

The round window of my cell looked out upon the prison-yard. It was avery high window, but by placing the table against the wall and climbingon it, I could see everything that was going on in the yard. Above the

window, under the eaves, pigeons had built themselves a nest, and when Ilooked out of my window into the court below, they cooed above my head.

I had sufficient time to acquaint myself from my vantage-point with theinmates of the prison, and I knew that the merriest member of that sullenand humdrum crew went by the nickname of Notch.

He was a square-set, stout fellow, with a ruddy face and high foreheadfrom under which his large eyes always shone brightly. He wore his cap onthe back of his head, and his ears struck out on both sides of his funnyhead in a funny fashion. He never fastened the strings of his shirt-collar,he never buttoned his jacket, and every movement of his muscles made itplain that he housed a soul incapable of dejection and bitterness.

Always on the go, always full of laughter and noise, he was the idol of theprison; he was always surrounded by a crowd of gray-clad comrades, andhe amused and entertained them by various curious pranks, brighteningup their dull, bleak days with his hearty gaiety.

On one occasion he emerged from his cell for his walk with three ratsingeniously harnessed with strings as if they were horses. He ran afterthem through the yard, shouting that he was driving a troika. The rats,maddened by his shouts, rushed about, while the prisoners laughed likechildren, looking at this stout man and his troika.

Apparently he believed that he existed solely to divert people. To achievethis he stopped at nothing. Sometimes his inventiveness assumed cruelforms. Thus, for instance, he once managed to glue to the wall the hair ofa prisoner, a mere boy who was sitting on the ground asleep against thewall, and when the glue had dried, he suddenly awoke him. The ladquickly leaped to his feet, and clutching his head with his slim, leanhands, fell weeping to the ground. The prisoners guffawed, and Notch was

content. Afterwards--I saw it through the window--he comforted the boy,who had left quite a tuft of his hair on the wall.

Besides Notch, there was yet another favorite in the prison--a plumpauburn kitten, a playful little animal pampered by all. When they came outfor their regular walk, the prisoners invariably hunted it up and playedwith it for a long time. They would pass it on from hand to hand, fun afterit in the yard, let it scratch their hands and faces which were animated bythis sport with the pet.

When the kitten appeared on the scene, it diverted the general attention

from Notch, and the latter was by no means pleased with this preference.At heart Notch was an artist, and as such he had an inordinate amount of


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amour-propre. When his public devoted itself to the kitten, he, left alone,would sit down in a corner of the court-yard and from there watch hiscomrades, who in those moments forgot him. And from my window Iwatched him and felt everything that filled his soul during such moments.It seemed to me that Notch was bound to kill the kitten at the first

opportunity, and I was sorry for the jolly prisoner. The desire to be thecenter of attention is pernicious to man, for nothing deadens the soul soquickly as the desire to please.

When you are in prison even the growth of mold on its walls seemsinteresting. It is therefore easy to understand the interest with which Ifollowed from my window the little drama below, a man's jealousy of akitten, and it is easy to understand, too, the impatience with which Iawaited the denouement. It came in this way.

One bright, sunny day, when the prisoners had poured out of their cells

into the yard, Notch noticed in a corner a pail of green paint, left by themen who were painting the prison roof. He went up to it, pondered over it,and dipping his finger into the paint, smeared his mustaches with it. Thegreen mustaches on his red phiz caused an outburst of laughter. A lad inthe group, in imitation of Notch, proceeded to paint his upper lip; butNotch dipped his whole hand into the pail and dexterously smeared theboy's entire face with the paint. The lad sputtered and shook his head,Notch danced around him, and the public roared, encouraging itsentertainer with shouts of approval.

Just at that moment the auburn kitten appeared in the court-yard. Itwalked across the yard without haste, gracefully lifting its paws; it wavedits arched tail, and was evidently unafraid of getting under the feet of thecrowd which was milling around Notch and the bespattered boy, who wasenergetically rubbing his face with his palm and smearing the stickymixture of oil and verdigris all over it.

"Fellows!" someone exclaimed. "Mishka is here."

"Ah, the little rascal!"

"Hi, there, Ginger! Pussy!"

They seized the kitten and passed it from hand to hand; everybodyfondled it.

"They don't starve him! See how fat he is!"

"How fast he's growing!"

"He scratches, the little devil!"

"Leave him alone. Let him jump!"

"I'll hump my back for him. Jump, Mishka!"


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Nobody paid any attention to Notch. He stood alone, rubbing the paint offhis mustaches with his fingers, and glancing at the kitten which wasjumping on the shoulders and backs of the prisoners. This amusedeverybody very much, and there was continual laughter.

"Mates! Let's paint the cat!" Notch's voice was heard. There was animploring note in his suggestion.

The crowd's response was noisy.

"But he'll croak!" declared one.

"From paint? What an idea!"

"Go on, Notch, paint him!" a broad-shouldered chap with a flaming redbeard cried enthusiastically. "Such a thing to think of! What a devil of a

fellow!"

Notch already had the kitten in his hands and was walking over to the pailof paint.

Look, mates, look at that, [sang Notch]

Watch me paint the ginger cat.

We'll paint it green, it will be great,

And do a dance to celebrate.

There was a burst of laughter, and the prisoners, holding their sides,made way for Notch. I saw plainly how, grasping the kitten by its tail, he

dipped it into the pail, and dancing, sang:Stop your mewing, kitty, cease!

Give your godfather some peace!

The laughter was louder than ever.

"Oh, cock-eyed Judas!" piped a thin voice.

"Oh, gracious!" another groaned.

They were choking with laughter, suffocating with it; it twisted the bodiesof these men, bent them double, shook them, and it rumbled through the

air, powerful, carefree, growing louder and louder until it reached thepitch of hysteria. From the windows of the women's wing of the prisonpeered smiling faces, framed in white kerchiefs. The guard, backedagainst the wall, thrust out his bulging middle, and clasping it with bothhands, let out volleys of thick, low-pitched laughter that fairly choked him.

The laughter scattered the men in all directions. Cutting astoundingcapers, Notch did a squatting jig, singing by way of accompaniment:

Oh, Life is a funny thing!

Once there was a cat all gray,

But her son, the auburn puss,Leads a life that's green today!


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"Enough, devil take you!" groaned the man with the flaming beard.

But Notch was in high feather. Around him rioted the wild laughter ofthese men in gray, and Notch knew that it was he, and he alone, who wasmaking them laugh.

His awareness of this was evident in every gesture of his, in everygrimace of his mobile, clownish face, and his whole body twitched withthe joy of his triumph. Now he held the kitten by the head, and shakingthe excess paint from its coat, he went on dancing and improvising withthe ecstasy of an artist conscious of his victory over the crowd:

Come, dear brothers, let us look

At the saints' names in the book;

Pussy needs a name, I vow.

Pray, what shall we call her now?

Everything laughed around the crowd of prisoners, possessed by insanegaiety; the sun laughed on the windowpanes through the grating; the bluesky smiled above the prison-yard, and even its old, dirty walls seemed tobe smiling with the smile of one who must suppress his gaiety, no matterhow it may riot within him. From behind the gratings of the windows in thewomen's wing, women's faces peered down into the yard; they toolaughed and their teeth sparkled in the sun. Everything was reborn, as itwere, having shaken off the dull grayness that weighed one down withennui and dejection; everything came alive, suffused with this purifyinglaughter which, like the sun, makes even dirt seem more decent.

Having set the green kitten on the grass, little islands of which, springingup between the stones, gave a motley look to the prison-yard, Notch,excited, out of breath, and sweating, continued to perform his wild jig.

But the laughter was already dying down. There had been too much of it,and it was beginning to tire people. Some were still shrieking hysterically;some continued laughing, but not so steadily. Finally a moment camewhen all were silent, except Notch, who was still singing a dancetune, andthe kitten, which, crawling on the grass, was mewing softly andplaintively. It was almost indistinguishable from the grass in color, and thepaint must have blinded it and interfered with its movements; the sticky,

big-headed creature tottered stupidly on its trembling paws, stopping nowand then as if glued to the grass, and mewing continually. Notchcommented thus on the kitten's movements:

Christian people, look at that!

The green puss don't know where he's at.

Mishka, once the ginger cat,

Cannot find a place to squat!

"Very clever, you beast," said a red-headed fellow.

The audience was looking at its artist with sated eyes.

"He's mewing," declared the youth, nodding in the direction of the kitten,


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and looked at his comrades. They watched the kitten in silence.

"Is he going to stay green the rest of his life?" asked the lad.

"How long do you think he'll live?" spoke up a tall, gray-haired prisoner,

squatting near Mishka. "He'll get dry in the sun, his fur will be gluedtogether, and he'll croak."

The kitten kept on mewing piercingly, causing a change in the mood ofthe prisoners.

"He'll croak?" asked the lad. "And what about giving him a wash?"

No one answered him. The little green ball was writhing at the feet ofthese coarse men, and was piteous in its helplessness.

"Phew! I'm all in a sweat!" cried Notch, throwing himself on the ground.No one paid any attention to him.

The lad edged over to the kitten and took him up in his hands, butimmediately set him down on the grass again, declaring:

"He's awfully hot."

Then he looked at his comrades and said sadly:

"Poor Mishka! No more Mishka for us. Why did you have to kill the beast?"

"Maybe he'll get over it," said the red-headed man.

The hideous green creature kept crawling on the grass, while twenty pairsof eyes watched it, and by now there was not the trace of a smile on asingle face. All were sullen and silent, all looked as wretched as the kitten,as though it had communicated its suffering to them and they felt itspangs.

"Get over it!" grinned the lad, raising his voice. "That's likely! There wasMishka, we all liked him.Why are you torturing him? Maybe we'd betterput him out of his misery."

"And who did it all?" cried the red-headed prisoner angrily. "It's him, thisdevil of a clown!"

"Well," said Notch soothingly, "didn't we all do it together?"

And he hugged himself as if he were cold.

"All together!" said the lad, mockingly. "That's good! You're the only oneto blame! You are!"

"Don't you bellow, you calf!" Notch advised him meekly.


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The old man took up the kitten, and having examined it carefully,suggested:

"If you bathe him in kerosene, the paint will come off."

"I say, take him by the tail and throw him over the wall," said Notch, andadded, with a smirk, "Simple matter."

"What!" roared the red-headed man. "Suppose I threw you over the wall,would you like it?"

"The devil!" cried the lad, and, snatching the kitten from the old man'shands, set off at a run. The old man and several others followed him.

Notch remained alone among the men, who looked at him with angry,sullen eyes. They seemed to be waiting for him to make a move.

"It wasn't just me, mateys," Notch whined.

"Shut up!" cried the red-headed man, glancing round the court-yard. "Notjust you! And who else was there?"

"But you were all in it," said the clown distinctly.

"You dog!"

The red-headed man punched Notch on the mouth. The artist backedaway, only to receive a blow in the neck.

"Mates!" he begged pitifully. But his mates saw that the two guards werea good distance away, and huddling in a thick crowd around their idol,knocked him down with a few blows. From afar the crowd could have beentaken for a group engaged in lively conversation. Surrounded and hiddenby them, Notch lay at their feet. From time to time a muffled sound washeard: they were kicking Notch in the ribs, kicking without haste, withoutanger, waiting until the man, writhing like a snake in the grass, shouldexpose a particularly choice spot for a kick.

This lasted some three minutes. Suddenly the guard shouted:

"Hey, you devils! Don't go too far!"

The prisoners did not stop the torture all at once. One by one they leftNotch, and every one of them took leave of him with a kick.

When they had gone, he remained lying on the ground. He lay prone, hisshoulders shook--he must have been crying--and he kept coughing andexpectorating. Then, cautiously, as though afraid of falling apart, hebegan to raise himself from the ground. He leaned on his left hand, thenbent one leg, and howling like a sick dog, he sat up.

"Don't you pretend!" shouted the red-headed man threateningly.


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Notch swayed and rose quickly to his feet.

Then, staggering, he walked to one of the walls of the prison. One handwas pressed against his chest, the other was stretched out in front of him.He reached the wall, and standing erect, he bowed his head. He was

coughing.

I saw dark drops falling on the ground; I could see them distinctly againstthe gray background of the prison wall.

In order not to soil the public building with his blood, Notch made anobvious effort to shed it on the ground so that not a drop of it should geton the wall.

They laughed at the clown.

The kitten was not seen any more. And Notch had no rival for theattention of the inmates of the prison.

1897.

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The Green Kitten by Maksim Gorki