Fifteen Rabbits Page 11

  Stiff-legged, the dog slowly drew near, his neck stretched out, his tail lifted straight and almost imperceptibly quivering. “For the last time,” he growled deeply, “will you give it to me or not?”

  The fox whisked to one side. “Thief,” he hissed, “you cowardly robber! I won’t fight you!”

  The duck lay unguarded in front of the dog. He seized it greedily, buried his teeth in its still warm breast. Then he raised his head, his mouth full of bloody feathers. He shook himself and spat.

  The fox began to laugh.

  Again the dog bit into the duck, again and again, in the back, the neck, the wings. Finally he gave it up.

  “I’ll never be able to do it!” he sighed. “I’ve never done such a thing, never dared to do it. . . .”

  “And you want to be free?” mocked the fox.

  The dog grew faint. The taste of the raw flesh turned his stomach. The down that still stuck to his mouth and throat made him want to vomit. He sat down and let his tongue loll out.

  He was quite helpless.

  The fox crept forward cautiously. “If you’ll permit me,” he said sarcastically, and began to devour the duck, expertly, deliberately, with relish.

  Watery saliva dripped from the dog’s tongue as he looked on enviously. “I must learn to do that,” he snapped, faint with hunger and nausea. “I’ll learn to do it yet!”

  “Well,” the fox looked at him, “you’ve already killed enough . . .”

  “Yes,” the dog admitted, “plenty—rabbits, pheasants, partridges, even deer.”

  “Well then?” The fox was puzzled.

  “Oh, they were all badly wounded. I simply found them. I just stopped their escape and gave them the finishing touches.”

  “And didn’t you ever taste even a little of them yourself?”

  “Never!” The dog held his head erect. “Never was I so forgetful of my duty,” he said with conviction.

  The fox blinked over at him. “You’re still proud of it?”

  “You don’t understand such things,” the dog answered loftily.

  The fox laughed aloud. “No,” he said, “I don’t understand such things. Always to be putting yourself out for Him, always to be pursuing others for Him, betraying them, killing them, only for Him, never for yourself . . . No, I’m not stupid enough to understand that.”

  Both grew silent. After a while the fox began again. “What do you eat anyway?” He had finished with the duck by now and was satisfied. He licked his chops and felt in a comfortable humor, and inquisitive.

  Hesitantly, embarrassedly, the dog explained. “I can eat only cooked food. All my life long I’ve eaten only cooked food. Now I’m old.”

  “What’s that . . . cooked food?” the fox inquired.

  The dog tried to explain the matter. “Meat that He roasts or stews on the fire in a pot.” He grew more and more embarrassed.

  Shaking his head, the fox said, “Fire . . . roasts . . . stews . . . pots . . . I’ve never heard of such things. I don’t know what to make of it!”

  The dog sprang up. “Now I’m going to live by myself!” he cried. “In the forest . . . like you! Free! Free!” He was beside himself. “I no longer believe in Him. I know now that He’s bad . . .” But suddenly, shaken with grief, he wailed, “Yet in spite of that, in spite of that . . . I love Him! I love Him!”

  “Why did you leave Him then, if you love Him?” inquired the fox.

  “Because he was cruel to me!” All his woes burst forth at once. The dog told his troubles and his heart grew heavy in the process. The more he recalled his heartache the stronger grew his indignation. “My name is Iago,” he said, “that’s the name He gave me. Oh, He was kind to me, He was tender . . . He let me stay with Him, in His rooms.”

  “What are rooms?” the fox demanded.

  The dog kept right on talking. “But since the other has been there!” he moaned. “The young one; since He’s had Treff, He’s changed! Now it’s only Treff who gets petted! He kicks me away with His foot! Only Treff is allowed to stay with Him, I have to sleep outside in the cold! When that beastly Treff attacked me, and I wanted to defend myself against him, I got beaten for it! Only I! But I couldn’t stand the torture, the agony! I can’t stand it! It’s too cruel, too cruel!” He fastened his despairing eyes on the fox. “Why is it? Why is it? Because I’m old now, and Treff is young?”

  The fox had risen and drew nearer. “Everything you tell me is so strange,” he said, “I don’t understand a word. What is . . . a beating?”

  Stammering, the dog informed him.

  The fox’s eyes flashed, “And you didn’t leap at His throat?”

  Iago was horrified. “At Him? At Him?” he cried. “How can you even think of such a thing? Don’t you know that He is all-powerful?”

  The fox walked slowly around Iago and sniffed him carefully. “You smell strange,” he said calmly, “strange and bad. You’re different from us. Anyone who can take a beating, anyone who can submit to a beating as something natural, will never be free!”

  “I won’t submit any longer,” howled the dog. “I’ve run away from Him.”

  “Run back to Him again,” cried the fox, “run home again. You’ll never be able to live among free creatures!”

  The dog pulled himself together. “Oh, you,” he said, “you’re simply jealous of me . . . because I was with Him.”

  “Your mistake,” answered the fox. “If I didn’t despise you so much, I’d have to pity you.”

  He turned his back and walked off. The dog followed him and wanted to seize him. But the fox swished his bushy tail in the dog’s face, uttered a wild, scornful howl and slipped away.

  Iago stood bewildered, rubbed his face and muzzle in the snow, shook himself and muttered, “I’ll succeed! I’ve got to succeed!”

  He immediately began to rummage around for prey. A gnawing hunger spurred him on, and a last flare-up of defiance.

  It was Hops and Plana whom he frightened out of their beds.

  When they heard him coming, panting loudly, on padding feet, Hops whispered, “He isn’t dangerous! Running away will be a game with him.”

  So it proved. Both rabbits fled apart, in opposite directions. Iago twisted around. Then he followed Plana, who ran in a circle that made him dizzy. He gave Plana up and set out after Hops, who had immediately challenged him to leave Plana. But Hops’ tricks were mysteries to Iago. After a while he felt himself completely worn out. The rabbits had disappeared.

  The dog remained alone.

  He thought of his master with a longing that caused him bitter pain, with reproaches that failed to afford him any solace, but only a yearning that kept intensifying.

  He thought of all the free creatures in the forest who despised him. He had tried to be a comrade to them, but it was only his homelessness and humiliation that impelled him.

  A wild homesickness overcame him.

  “What am I to do in this world?” he cried, and his outcry echoed lonely in the stillness of the night.

  Chapter Nineteen

  THE SNOW HAD FROZEN HARD so that it crunched in the forest. It cracked on the branches of the trees when a squirrel whisked over it or a bird hopped from limb to limb.

  The noise kept the rabbits’ nerves in a state of continual terror. They were constantly afraid that some marauder was slinking up.

  But in the fields they lay in the furrows and hollows, could hear instantly whatever was approaching in the distance, had but to raise their ears quickly or sit up on their hind legs, and they could always see the danger threatening them, even from afar. Sometimes, at midday, they enjoyed the soft caresses of the pale sun. Yes, the sun could still shine warmly now and again. Then the rabbits grew more confident and scraped among the clods for a little food. But soon those pleasant hours passed, too. The frost set in still worse.

  Hops and Plana were sitting in the middle of the field.

  The forest ranged far beyond them, and its black and white wall of trees and bushes made a
level arc halfway around the vast, snow-covered flat plain. On the farther side, the roofs of the houses in the village were visible, with the church spire towering above them. The rabbits, not knowing exactly what these structures might signify, paid little attention to them.

  Plana twitched the fur on her back; she was impatient.

  “I wonder if it will ever be the way it was before?” she sighed.

  Hops wiggled his whiskers. “What do you mean . . . ?”

  “Oh!” Plana grew ecstatic. “Oh, everything green . . . The days warm . . . warm at night . . . singing in the trees. And wonderfully good things everywhere, delicious things, more than you need . . . many, many more . . . I wonder if it will ever come again?”

  Hops sat upright. “I think . . . I believe it will be that way again.”

  Plana closed her eyes, overwhelmed by her recollection. “Oh! that was a happy time!”

  “Yes,” Hops agreed, “it certainly was. Now the times are hard. But they predicted it.”

  “Who?”

  “The old folks.”

  “Yes,” Plana had lost her brief enthusiasm, “but they didn’t say that good times will surely come back, did they?”

  Hops, too, let his ears drop. But he wanted to say something comforting and murmured, “Well, in any case, we’ll just have to wait.”

  “Do you remember how glorious it was out here in the fields?”

  “Don’t think about it now; it simply makes you sad.”

  Plana brushed her forepaws across her face. “We can’t imagine it any more as things are . . .”

  Hops stiffened; his ears and whiskers twitched.

  Crouched low, Plana asked, “What is it?”

  Hops remained erect. “I don’t know, but something’s wrong.”

  “Danger?”

  Still erect, Hops replied, “I don’t know . . . so many rabbits are running . . .”

  “Are they rabbits we know?” Plana was curious, but she did not stir.

  “No, they’re absolute strangers.” Hops was excited. “Strange how they run this way and that.”

  “It’s no concern of ours,” said Plana, but she, too, grew excited.

  Hops looked farther afield. “They are so far away.” He wanted to give the appearance of calm. “It’s hard to tell whether we know any of them or not.”

  “Lie down,” Plana begged. His alertness worried her. “Lie down again.”

  Hops was about to obey.

  Suddenly a string of partridges whirred over, rustling close to the ground, and they heard the low warning, “Save yourselves!” They were gone again.

  Then, from the other side a second string of partridges whirred up, soaring high in the air. They uttered the same warning.

  Hops and Plana stood as if they had been jerked to their feet. They turned bewilderedly in circles.

  Then they saw that the whole vast field had become alive with swarming, leaping rabbits.

  “What shall we do? What shall we do?” wailed Plana.

  “I don’t understand it at all,” Hops stammered.

  Suddenly his mother ran by in wild flight.

  “Mother!” Hops called. “Mother!”

  The old mother rabbit checked herself and nearly tumbled head over heels. Then she sat down, breathing heavily.

  “Mother,” Hops pleaded, “which way shall we run?”

  “Away!” she panted. “Away!” And remained sitting there. Her flanks were trembling.

  Stout old Fosco came galloping along and sat down beside Hops’ mother.

  “Horrible!” he panted. “Horrible!”

  “But what is it?” Hops and Plana asked together.

  “The worst there is. The very worst,” he declared.

  “Fly! Fly!” commanded Hops, taking courage at his own decision.

  “Impossible!” Fosco replied in a hopeless tone.

  Hops’ mother turned and turned, raised her ears and let them fall. Her silence bore witness to her despair.

  Rabbits kept running incessantly across the field. Their dark, streaking bodies shot back and forth in confused lines across its white surface.

  Ivner and Mamp rushed up; Nella and Olva joined them. A pair of strangers halted by the group.

  Mamp attempted to jest. “The whole tribe has gone crazy . . .” he said, “and as nearly as I can see I have, too.”

  “The time for joking is past,” Fosco reprimanded.

  Then the thunder crashed, cracked and crackled as if to confirm Fosco’s words.

  Although the noise was far off, and the report reached them very faintly, all the rabbits began to tremble.

  From afar they saw the fire flash from the mouths of many guns; then they heard a peal that seemed to tear the air to shreds.

  Hops turned in the opposite direction. “Come, Plana,” he said dully. “Come! This way!”

  “Stop,” Fosco commanded.

  At the same time the fiery mouths spurted on that side, too.

  Then the rabbits saw that they were surrounded. On every side danger crashed and thundered at them; everywhere flashed the sharp, little flames that preceded the thunder.

  Lugea, Klipps and Sitzer rushed by. Lugea began at once. “I’m beside myself! What haven’t I been through! What haven’t I seen! How can I describe it to you . . . ?”

  Fosco interrupted her gruffly. “Don’t describe anything, and don’t chatter!”

  Lugea wanted to feel outraged, wanted to retort with something cutting, but she perceived that they were in very little humor for it. She kept silent.

  Fosco gave counsel and orders. No one had ever seen the old fellow so agitated, but everyone admired how he kept hold, how he controlled himself.

  “We must go through the thunder,” he said, and his voice was almost calm; they could hear only a slight tremor in it. “We must go through the midst of the thunder.” He stopped for he could not go on. “Wait! Wait,” he added after a few moments, “there’s no sense in exhausting ourselves yet. But when the right moment comes, it means running with all your strength, running like the wind . . . not close together . . . everyone for himself!”

  “That’s what Trumer always said,” Hops whispered to Plana. “Everyone for himself!”

  “We must pass very close to the thunder,” Fosco said. “Only swiftness and cunning can save you.”

  Hops’ mother stood up; her eyes traveled about the group. “Many of us are dying now,” she said with an effort, “many of us will die today before we flee. I want to say farewell to you . . .”

  Incessantly He banged, clattered, clamored with His mysterious thunder-arms, and drew constantly nearer.

  Presently the little group saw how, far off, at the edge of the field, He started up by the hundred. He spread around them in a circle. But not all of Him had thunder-arms. There were five or six who simply ­carried sticks.

  The little group saw, too, how many rabbits spun around on their heads after the crashing salvoes, tumbled head over heels, the whites of their bellies showing, kicking until they lay motionless.

  Here and there, on the outside of the circle, they observed dogs that sprang upon the wounded rabbits. The fallen creatures tried to get to their feet and slip away. Then a dog would overtake them, seize them in his jaws, and the piteous death screams of the poor creatures would horrify the terror-stricken survivors.

  Fosco sat stiffly erect, his ears lifted high, his whole body quivering with readiness to flee.

  Hops kept close to Plana and remained silent.

  All the rabbits as they sat together were trembling in mortal fear and with feverish anticipation of flight.

  Mamp, the jovial, was the first to lose heart. His face fell from moment to moment. He became restless and ran to and fro frantically. Suddenly he began to gallop straight up to the circle that He was drawing tighter and tighter.

  Fosco called after him, “Not along the line of beaters!”

  But Mamp did not heed him. For a moment he did not even heed himself. He had forgotte
n all his tricks, all his cunning. He was frantic with the agony of fear, frantic with desire to escape. As he approached the deafening thunder, his consciousness and his purpose faded. Blindly he ran along the line of fire, ran on, driven by the dully throbbing hope that somewhere it would not crash.

  Four times Mamp spun head over heels. His bloody head dyed the snow red. Disfigured and dead, he lay for a moment on his back, then rolled over gently on his side.

  His comrades watched. Horror gripped them.

  “He faced it,” said Hops’ mother sadly, “now it’s our turn.”

  Lugea could be restrained no longer. She carried Klipps and the utterly despondent Nella along with her. They rushed forward quite close together.

  “Separate!” Fosco commanded them. “Separate!”

  “Keep quiet, you old fool,” Lugea flung back.

  The next minute she spun over on her head, fell with a touchingly gentle gesture that was not at all like her, and did not stir again.

  Klipps rolled over and over, lithe and elastic, as if he were performing a feat. He raised his head again and crawled forward painfully on his belly. No one noticed him.

  Nella dropped as if she had been struck by lightning. Like a stunned fly, she remained on the spot where she was hit and died instantly.

  Then something strange occurred.

  A dog appeared in the middle of the circle and ran the length of the fire-spurting line. He was in the greatest danger.

  The thunder ceased wherever the dog appeared.

  Everywhere the dog went He burst into shouts, abuse and curses.

  Hops, who hung passionately on Fosco’s words, had recovered his clear head and decisive firmness. He perceived the opportunity; he comprehended that it was less dangerous to keep close to the dog.

  “Come, Plana,” he whispered, turned to his mother and whispered, “Come now, mother.”

  Then he ran. “Farewell, my Plana,” he thought at the same time. “Farewell, dear mother.” But he did not say anything. He simply called to Plana, “Keep close to the dog! To the dog!”

  Plana followed him at once. His mother hesitated.

  “Shall I . . . ?” she asked Fosco.

  “Perhaps he’s right . . .” he answered. “I can’t tell you anything better now.”