Anton Chekhov
The police superintendent Otchumyelov is walking across the market square wearing a new overcoat and carrying a parcel under his arm.A red-haired policeman strides after him with a sieve full of confiscated gooseberries in his hands.There is silence all around.Not a soul in the square...The open doors of the shops and taverns look out upon God's world disconsolately,like hungry mouths;there is not even a beggar near them.
"So you bite,you damned brute?" Otchumyelov hears suddenly."Lads,don't let him go!Biting is prohibited nowadays!Hold him!ah...ah!"
There is the sound of a dog yelping.Otchumyelov looks in the direction of the sound and sees a dog,hopping on three legs and looking about her,run out of Pitchugin's timber-yard.A man in a starched cotton shirt,with his waistcoat unbuttoned,is chasing her.He runs after her,and throwing his body forward falls down and seizes the dog by her hind legs.Once more there is a yelping and a shout of "Don't let go!" Sleepy countenances are protruded from the shops,and soon a crowd,which seems to have sprung out of the earth,is gathered round the timber-yard.
"It looks like a row,your honour..." says the policeman.
Otchumyelov makes a half turn to the left and strides towards the crowd.He sees the aforementioned man in the unbuttoned waistcoat standing close by the gate of the timber-yard,holding his right hand in the air and displaying a bleeding finger to the crowd.On his half-drunken face there is plainly written:"I'll pay you out,you rogue!" and indeed the very finger has the look of a flag of victory.In this man Otchumyelov recognises Hryukin,the goldsmith.The culprit who has caused the sensation,a white borzoy puppy with a sharp muzzle and a yellow patch on her back,is sitting on the ground with her fore-paws outstretched in the middle of the crowd,trembling all over.There is an expression of misery and terror in her tearful eyes.