Bulka, too, did not live long after the prisoners had caught him. Soon after his salvation from the prisoners he began to feel unhappy, and started to lick everything that he saw. He licked my hands, but not as formerly when he fawned. He licked for a long time, and pressed his tongue against me, and then began to snap. Evidently he felt like biting my hand, but did not want to do so. I did not give him my hand. Then he licked my boot and the foot of a table, and then he began to snap at these things. That lasted about two days, and on the third he disappeared, and no one saw him or heard of him.
He could not have been stolen or run away from me. This happened six weeks after the wolf had bitten him. Evidently the wolf had been mad.
Bulka had gone mad, and so went away. He had what hunters call the rabies. They say that this madness consists in this, that the mad animal gets cramps in its throat. It wants to drink and cannot, because the water makes the cramps worse. And so it gets beside itself from pain and thirst, and begins to bite. Evidently Bulka was beginning to have these cramps when he started to lick and then to bite my hand and the foot of the table.
I went everywhere in the neighbourhood and asked about Bulka, but could not find out what had become of him, or how he had died. If he had been running about and biting, as mad dogs do, I should have heard of him. No doubt he ran somewhere into a thicket and there died by himself.
The hunters say that when an intelligent dog gets the rabies, he runs to the fields and forests, and there tries to find the herb which he needs, and rolls in the dew, and gets cured. Evidently Bulka never got cured.
He never came back.
THE GRAY HARE
A gray hare was living in the winter near the village. When night came, he p.r.i.c.ked one ear and listened; then he p.r.i.c.ked his second ear, moved his whiskers, sniffed, and sat down on his hind legs. Then he took a leap or two over the deep snow, and again sat down on his hind legs, and looked around him. Nothing could be seen but snow. The snow lay in waves and glistened like sugar. Over the hare"s head hovered a frost vapour, and through this vapour could be seen the large, bright stars.
The hare had to cross the highway, in order to come to a threshing-floor he knew of. On the highway the runners could be heard squeaking, and the horses snorting, and seats creaking in the sleighs.
The hare again stopped near the road. Peasants were walking beside the sleighs, and the collars of their caftans were raised. Their faces were scarcely visible. Their beards, moustaches, and eyelashes were white.
Steam rose from their mouths and noses. Their horses were sweaty, and the h.o.a.rfrost clung to the sweat. The horses jostled under their arches, and dived in and out of snow-drifts. The peasants ran behind the horses and in front of them, and beat them with their whips. Two peasants walked beside each other, and one of them told the other how a horse of his had once been stolen.
When the carts pa.s.sed by, the hare leaped across the road and softly made for the threshing-floor. A dog saw the hare from a cart. He began to bark and darted after the hare. The hare leaped toward the threshing-floor over the snow-drifts, which held him back; but the dog stuck fast in the snow after the tenth leap, and stopped. Then the hare, too, stopped and sat up on his hind legs, and then softly went on to the threshing-floor.
On his way he met two other hares on the sowed winter field. They were feeding and playing. The hare played awhile with his companions, dug away the frosty snow with them, ate the wintergreen, and went on.
In the village everything was quiet; the fires were out. All one could hear was a baby"s cry in a hut and the crackling of the frost in the logs of the cabins. The hare went to the threshing-floor, and there found some companions. He played awhile with them on the cleared floor, ate some oats from the open granary, climbed on the kiln over the snow-covered roof, and across the wicker fence started back to his ravine.
The dawn was glimmering in the east; the stars grew less, and the frost vapours rose more densely from the earth. In the near-by village the women got up, and went to fetch water; the peasants brought the feed from the barn; the children shouted and cried. There were still more carts going down the road, and the peasants talked aloud to each other.
The hare leaped across the road, went up to his old lair, picked out a high place, dug away the snow, lay with his back in his new lair, dropped his ears on his back, and fell asleep with open eyes.
G.o.d SEES THE TRUTH, BUT DOES NOT TELL AT ONCE
In the city of Vladimir there lived a young merchant, Aksenov by name.
He had two shops and a house.
Aksenov was a light-complexioned, curly-headed, fine-looking man and a very jolly fellow and good singer. In his youth Aksenov had drunk much, and when he was drunk he used to become riotous, but when he married he gave up drinking, and that now happened very rarely with him.
One day in the summer Aksenov went to the Nizhni-Novgorod fair. As he bade his family good-bye, his wife said to him:
"Ivan Dmitrievich, do not start to-day! I have had a bad dream about you."
Aksenov laughed, and said:
"Are you afraid that I might go on a spree at the fair?"
His wife said:
"I do not know what I am afraid of, but I had a bad dream: I dreamed that you came to town, and when you took off your cap I saw that your head was all gray."
Aksenov laughed.
"That means that I shall make some profit. If I strike a good bargain, you will see me bring you some costly presents."
And he bade his family farewell, and started.
In the middle of his journey he met a merchant whom he knew, and they stopped together in a hostelry for the night. They drank their tea together, and lay down to sleep in two adjoining rooms. Aksenov did not like to sleep long; he awoke in the middle of the night and, as it was easier to travel when it was cool, wakened his driver and told him to hitch the horses. Then he went to the "black" hut, paid his bill, and went away.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ""Whose knife is this?""
_Photogravure from Painting by A. Kivshenko_]
When he had gone about forty versts, he again stopped to feed the horses and to rest in the vestibule of a hostelry. At dinner-time he came out on the porch, and ordered the samovar to be prepared for him. He took out his guitar and began to play. Suddenly a troyka with bells drove up to the hostelry, and from the cart leaped an officer with two soldiers, and he went up to Aksenov, and asked him who he was and where he came from.
Aksenov told him everything as it was, and said:
"Would you not like to drink tea with me?"
But the officer kept asking him questions:
"Where did you stay last night? Were you alone, or with a merchant? Did you see the merchant in the morning? Why did you leave so early in the morning?"
Aksenov wondered why they asked him about all that; he told them everything as it was, and said:
"Why do you ask me this? I am not a thief, nor a robber. I am travelling on business of my own, and you have nothing to ask me about."
Then the officer called the soldiers, and said:
"I am the chief of the rural police, and I ask you this, because the merchant with whom you pa.s.sed last night has been found with his throat cut. Show me your things, and you look through them!"
They entered the house, took his valise and bag, and opened them and began to look through them. Suddenly the chief took a knife out of the bag, and cried out:
"Whose knife is this?"
Aksenov looked, and saw that they had taken out a blood-stained knife from his bag, and he was frightened "How did the blood get on the knife?"
Aksenov wanted to answer, but could not p.r.o.nounce a word.
"I--I do not know--I--the knife--is not mine!"
Then the chief said:
"In the morning the merchant was found in his bed with his throat cut.