In this manner still another year passed. Gerásim continued to discharge his avocations as yard-porter and was very well satisfied with his lot, when suddenly an unexpected incident occurred.... Namely, one fine summer day the mistress, with her hangers-on, was walking about the drawing-room. She was in good spirits, and was laughing and jesting; the hangers-on were laughing and jesting also, but felt no particular mirth; the people of the household were not very fond of seeing the mistress in merry mood, because, in the first place, at such times she demanded instantaneous and complete sympathy from every one, and flew into a rage if there was a face which did not beam with satisfaction; and, in the second place, these fits did not last very long, and were generally succeeded by a gloomy and cross-grained frame of mind. On that day, she seemed to have got up happily; at cards, she held four knaves: the fulfilment of desire (she always told fortunes with the cards in the morning),--and her tea struck her as particularly delicious, in consequence whereof the maid received praise in words and ten kopéks in money. With a sweet smile on her wrinkled lips, the lady of the house strolled about her drawing-room and approached the window. A flower-garden was laid out in front of the window, and in the very middle of the border, under a rose-bush, lay Mumú assiduously gnawing a bone. The mistress caught sight of her. "My God!"--she suddenly exclaimed;--"what dog is that?" The hanger-on whom the mistress addressed floundered, poor creature, with that painful uneasiness which generally takes possession of a dependent person when he does not quite know how he is to understand his superior's exclamation. "I ... d .. do .... on't know, ma'am," she stammered; "I think it belongs to the dumb man." "My God!"--her mistress interrupted her:--"why, it is a very pretty dog! Order it to be brought hither. Has he had it long? How is it that I have not seen it before?... Order it to be brought hither." The hanger-on immediately fluttered out into the anteroom. "Man, man!"--she screamed,--"bring Mumú here at once! She is in the flower-garden." "And so her name is Mumú,"--said the mistress;--"a very nice name." "Akh, very nice indeed, ma'am!"--replied the dependent.--"Be quick, Stepán!"