A HUNGRY she-wolf got up to go hunting. Her cubs, all three of them,
were sound asleep, huddled in a heap and keeping each other warm.
She licked them and went off.
It was already March, a month of spring, but at night the trees
snapped with the cold, as they do in December, and one could hardly
put one's tongue out without its being nipped. The wolf-mother was
in delicate health and nervous; she started at the slightest sound,
and kept hoping that no one would hurt the little ones at home while
she was away. The smell of the tracks of men and horses, logs, piles
of faggots, and the dark road with horse-dung on it frightened her;
it seemed to her that men were standing behind the trees in the
darkness, and that dogs were howling somewhere beyond the forest.
She was no longer young and her scent had grown feebler, so that
it sometimes happened that she took the track of a fox for that of
a dog, and even at times lost her way, a thing that had never been
in her youth. Owing to the weakness of her health she no longer
hunted calves and big sheep as she had in old days, and kept her
distance now from mares with colts; she fed on nothing but carrion;
fresh meat she tasted very rarely, only in the spring when she would
come upon a hare and take away her young, or make her way into a
peasant's stall where there were lambs.
Some three miles from her lair there stood a winter hut on the
posting road. There lived the keeper Ignat, an old man of seventy,
who was always coughing and talking to himself; at night he was
usually asleep, and by day he wandered about the forest with a
single-barrelled gun, whistling to the hares. He must have worked
among machinery in early days, for before he stood still he always
shouted to himself: "Stop the machine!" and before going on: "Full
speed!" He had a huge black dog of indeterminate breed, called
Arapka. When it ran too far ahead he used to shout to it: "Reverse
action!" Sometimes he used to sing, and as he did so staggered
violently, and often fell down (the wolf thought the wind blew him
over), and shouted: "Run off the rails!"
The wolf remembered that, in the summer and autumn, a ram and two
ewes were pasturing near the winter hut, and when she had run by
not so long ago she fancied that she had heard bleating in the
stall. And now, as she got near the place, she reflected that it
was already March, and, by that time, there would certainly be lambs
in the stall. She was tormented by hunger, she thought with what
greediness she would eat a lamb, and these thoughts made her teeth
snap, and her eyes glitter in the darkness like two sparks of light.
Ignat's hut, his barn, cattle-stall, and well were surrounded by
high snowdrifts. All was still. Arapka was, most likely, asleep in
the barn.
The wolf clambered over a snowdrift on to the stall, and began
scratching away the thatched roof with her paws and her nose. The
straw was rotten and decaying, so that the wolf almost fell through;
all at once a smell of warm steam, of manure, and of sheep's milk
floated straight to her nostrils. Down below, a lamb, feeling the
cold, bleated softly. Leaping through the hole, the wolf fell with
her four paws and chest on something soft and warm, probably a
sheep, and at the same moment, something in the stall suddenly began
whining, barking, and going off into a shrill little yap; the sheep
huddled against the wall, and the wolf, frightened, snatched the
first thing her teeth fastened on, and dashed away. . . .
She ran at her utmost speed, while Arapka, who by now had scented
the wolf, howled furiously, the frightened hens cackled, and Ignat,
coming out into the porch, shouted: "Full speed! Blow the whistle!"
And he whistled like a steam-engine, and then shouted: "Ho-ho-ho-ho!"
and all this noise was repeated by the forest echo. When, little
by little, it all died away, the wolf somewhat recovered herself,
and began to notice that the prey she held in her teeth and dragged
along the snow was heavier and, as it were, harder than lambs usually
were at that season; and it smelt somehow different, and uttered
strange sounds. . . . The wolf stopped and laid her burden on the
snow, to rest and begin eating it, then all at once she leapt back
in disgust. It was not a lamb, but a black puppy, with a big head
and long legs, of a large breed, with a white patch on his brow,
like Arapka's. Judging from his manners he was a simple, ignorant,
yard-dog. He licked his crushed and wounded back, and, as though
nothing was the matter, wagged his tail and barked at the wolf. She
growled like a dog, and ran away from him. He ran after her. She
looked round and snapped her teeth. He stopped in perplexity, and,
probably deciding that she was playing with him, craned his head
in the direction he had come from, and went off into a shrill,
gleeful bark, as though inviting his mother Arapka to play with him
and the wolf.
It was already getting light, and when the wolf reached her home
in the thick aspen wood, each aspen tree could be seen distinctly,
and the woodcocks were already awake, and the beautiful male birds
often flew up, disturbed by the incautious gambols and barking of
the puppy.
"Why does he run after me?" thought the wolf with annoyance. "I
suppose he wants me to eat him."
She lived with her cubs in a shallow hole; three years before, a
tall old pine tree had been torn up by the roots in a violent storm,
and the hole had been formed by it. Now there were dead leaves and
moss at the bottom, and around it lay bones and bullocks' horns,
with which the little ones played. They were by now awake, and all
three of them, very much alike, were standing in a row at the edge
of their hole, looking at their returning mother, and wagging their
tails. Seeing them, the puppy stopped a little way off, and stared
at them for a very long time; seeing that they, too, were looking
very attentively at him, he began barking angrily, as at strangers.
By now it was daylight and the sun had risen, the snow sparkled all
around, but still the puppy stood a little way off and barked. The
cubs sucked their mother, pressing her thin belly with their paws,
while she gnawed a horse's bone, dry and white; she was tormented
by hunger, her head ached from the dog's barking, and she felt
inclined to fall on the uninvited guest and tear him to pieces.
At last the puppy was hoarse and exhausted; seeing they were not
afraid of him, and not even attending to him, he began somewhat
timidly approaching the cubs, alternately squatting down and bounding
a few steps forward. Now, by daylight, it was easy to have a good
look at him. . . . His white forehead was big, and on it was a hump
such as is only seen on very stupid dogs; he had little, blue,
dingy-looking eyes, and the expression of his whole face was extremely
stupid. When he reached the cubs he stretched out his broad paws,
laid his head upon them, and began:
"Mnya, myna . . . nga--nga--nga . . . !"
The cubs did not understand what he meant, but they wagged their
tails. Then the puppy gave one of the cubs a smack on its big head
with his paw. The cub, too, gave him a smack on the head. The puppy
stood sideways to him, and looked at him askance, wagging his tail,
then dashed off, and ran round several times on the frozen snow.
The cubs ran after him, he fell on his back and kicked up his legs,
and all three of them fell upon him, squealing with delight, and
began biting him, not to hurt but in play. The crows sat on the
high pine tree, and looked down on their struggle, and were much
troubled by it. They grew noisy and merry. The sun was hot, as
though it were spring; and the woodcocks, continually flitting
through the pine tree that had been blown down by the storm, looked
as though made of emerald in the brilliant sunshine.
As a rule, wolf-mothers train their children to hunt by giving them
prey to play with; and now watching the cubs chasing the puppy over
the frozen snow and struggling with him, the mother thought:
"Let them learn."
When they had played long enough, the cubs went into the hole and
lay down to sleep. The puppy howled a little from hunger, then he,
too, stretched out in the sunshine. And when they woke up they began
playing again.
All day long, and in the evening, the wolf-mother was thinking how
the lamb had bleated in the cattle-shed the night before, and how
it had smelt of sheep's milk, and she kept snapping her teeth from
hunger, and never left off greedily gnawing the old bone, pretending
to herself that it was the lamb. The cubs sucked their mother, and
the puppy, who was hungry, ran round them and sniffed at the snow.
"I'll eat him . . ." the mother-wolf decided.
She went up to him, and he licked her nose and yapped at her,
thinking that she wanted to play with him. In the past she had eaten
dogs, but the dog smelt very doggy, and in the delicate state of
her health she could not endure the smell; she felt disgusted and
walked away. . . .
Towards night it grew cold. The puppy felt depressed and went home.
When the wolf-cubs were fast asleep, their mother went out hunting
again. As on the previous night she was alarmed at every sound, and
she was frightened by the stumps, the logs, the dark juniper bushes,
which stood out singly, and in the distance were like human beings.
She ran on the ice-covered snow, keeping away from the road. . . .
All at once she caught a glimpse of something dark, far away on the
road. She strained her eyes and ears: yes, something really was
walking on in front, she could even hear the regular thud of
footsteps. Surely not a badger? Cautiously holding her breath, and
keeping always to one side, she overtook the dark patch, looked
round, and recognised it. It was the puppy with the white brow,
going with a slow, lingering step homewards.
"If only he doesn't hinder me again," thought the wolf, and ran
quickly on ahead.
But the homestead was by now near. Again she clambered on to the
cattle-shed by the snowdrift. The gap she had made yesterday had
been already mended with straw, and two new rafters stretched across
the roof. The wolf began rapidly working with her legs and nose,
looking round to see whether the puppy were coming, but the smell
of the warm steam and manure had hardly reached her nose before she
heard a gleeful burst of barking behind her. It was the puppy. He
leapt up to the wolf on the roof, then into the hole, and, feeling
himself at home in the warmth, recognising his sheep, he barked
louder than ever. . . . Arapka woke up in the barn, and, scenting
a wolf, howled, the hens began cackling, and by the time Ignat
appeared in the porch with his single-barrelled gun the frightened
wolf was already far away.
"Fuite!" whistled Ignat. "Fuite! Full steam ahead!"
He pulled the trigger--the gun missed fire; he pulled the trigger
again--again it missed fire; he tried a third time--and a great
blaze of flame flew out of the barrel and there was a deafening
boom, boom. It kicked him violently on the shoulder, and, taking
his gun in one hand and his axe in the other, he went to see what
the noise was about.
A little later he went back to the hut.
"What was it?" a pilgrim, who was staying the night at the hut and
had been awakened by the noise, asked in a husky voice.
"It's all right," answered Ignat. "Nothing of consequence. Our
Whitebrow has taken to sleeping with the sheep in the warm. Only
he hasn't the sense to go in at the door, but always tries to wriggle
in by the roof. The other night he tore a hole in the roof and went
off on the spree, the rascal, and now he has come back and scratched
away the roof again."
"Stupid dog."
"Yes, there is a spring snapped in his brain. I do detest fools,"
sighed Ignat, clambering on to the stove. "Come, man of God, it's
early yet to get up. Let us sleep full steam! . . ."
In the morning he called Whitebrow, smacked him hard about the ears,
and then showing him a stick, kept repeating to him:
"Go in at the door! Go in at the door! Go in at the door!"