Page:Dostoyevsky - The House of the Dead, Collected Edition, 1915.djvu/246

 to butt at the goat; they were knocking their foreheads together for a long time—to play like this with the goat was a favourite pastime of the convicts—when suddenly Vaska skipped on to the topmost step, and as soon as Babay turned aside, the goat instantly reared on its hind legs and bending his fore-legs. inward, he butted with all his might at the back of Babay’s head Bo that the man flew head over heels off the steps to the intense glee of all present, especially Babay himself. Every one was awfully fond of Vaska, in fact.

When he began to be full grown it was decided after a long and earnest deliberation to perform a certain operation on him which our veterinary specialists were very skilful in, “or he will smell so goaty,” said the convicts. After that Vaska grew fearfully fat. The convicts used to feed him, too, as though they were fattening him up. He grew at last into a fine and handsome goat of extraordinary size with very long horns. He waddled as he walked. He, too, used to follow us to work to the diversion of the convicts and of every one we met. Every one knew the prison goat Vaska. Sometimes if they were working on the bank of the river for instance, the convicts would gather tender willow shoots and other leaves and pick flowers on the rampart to decorate Vaska with them; they would wreathe flowers and green shoots round his horns and hang garlands all over his body. Vaska would return to the prison always in front of the convicts, decked out, and they would follow him, and seem proud of him when they met anyone. This admiration for the goat reached such a pitch that some of our men, like children, suggested that they might gild Vaska’s horns. But they only talked of doing this, it was never actually done. I remember, however, asking Akim Akimitch, who, after Isay Fomitch, was our best gilder, whether one could really gild goat’s horns. At first he looked attentively at the goat and after serious consideration he replied that it was perhaps, possible, but that it would not be lasting and would besides be utterly useless. With that the matter dropped. And Vaska might have lived for years in the prison and would perhaps have died of shortness of breath. But one day as he was returning home decked out with flowers at the head of the convicts, he was met by the major in his droshki. “Stop,” he roared, “whose goat is it?” It was explained to him. “What! a goat in the prison and without my permission! Sergeant!” The sergeant came forward and the order was promptly given