Summary Hare paws
KG Paustovsky
Hare paws
Vanya Malyavin came to the vet in our village from the Urzhen Lake and brought a small warm hare wrapped in a tattered cotton wool jacket. The hare wept and often blinked red eyes from tears…
– Are you stupid? the vet shouted. “You’ll soon be dragging mice to me, bastard!”
“And do not you fret, it’s a very special hare,” Vanya said in a hoarse whisper. – His grandfather sent, ordered to treat.
– From what to treat something?
– His paws are burnt.
The veterinarian turned Vanya face to the door, pushed him into the back and shouted after him:
“Come on, come on!” I do not know how to treat them. Fry it with onions – your grandfather will have a snack.
Vanya did not answer. He went out into the passage, blinked his eyes, pulled his nose and buried himself in the log wall. Tears flowed down the wall. The hare was trembling
– What are you, little fellow? – Asked Vanya, compassionate grandmother Anisya; she led her veterinarian to her only goat. “What are you, dear ones, pouring tears together?” Aw happened what?
“He’s been burned, Grandpa’s hare,” Vanya said quietly. “I’ve burned my paws in a forest fire, I can not run.” Just about, look, die.
“Do not die, little one,” Anisya whispered. “Tell your grandfather, if he wants to go out a big hunt, let him bring him to the city to Karl Petrovich.”
Vanya wiped away his tears and went home to the Urzhen Lake. He did not walk, but ran barefoot along the hot sandy road. A recent forest fire passed north toward the lake. There was a smell of fire and a dry clove. It grew in large islands on the glades.
The hare groaned.
Vanya found on the road fluffy, covered with silvery soft hair leaves, tore them, put them under the pine and unfolded the hare. The hare looked at the leaves, buried their head in them and fell silent.
– What
The hare was silent.
“You would have eaten,” Vanya repeated, and his voice trembled. – Maybe you want to drink?
The hare led a ragged ear and closed his eyes.
Vanya took him in his arms and ran straight through the forest – it was necessary to give the hare as soon as possible a drink from the lake.
Unheated heat was in the summer over the woods. In the morning swirls of white clouds. At noon, the clouds were rapidly bursting up towards the zenith, and were being carried away and disappearing somewhere beyond the sky. A hot hurricane blew for two weeks without a break. The resin, flowing down the pine trunks, turned into an amber stone.
In the morning, the grandfather put on a clean oneuchi (1) and new bast shoes, took a staff and a piece of bread and wandered into the city. Vanya was carrying a rabbit from behind. The hare completely subsided, only occasionally shuddered with all his body and sighed convulsively.
Dryoway puffed over the city a cloud of dust, soft as flour. In it flew chicken down, dry leaves and straw. From a distance it seemed that a quiet fire was blowing over the city.
In the market square was very empty, sultry; the cabs of horses were dozing near the bakery, and on their heads straw hats were worn. Grandfather crossed himself.
“It’s either a horse or a bride-the fool will take care of them!” he said and spat.
They asked the passers-by about Karl Petrovich for a long time, but no one really answered anything. We went to the pharmacy. A fat old man in a pince-nez and in a short white robe shrugged angrily and said:
“I like that!” Quite a strange question! Karl Petrovich Korsh – a specialist in childhood diseases – has already ceased to accept patients for three years. Why do you need it?
Grandfather, stammering with respect to the pharmacist and from shyness, told about the hare.
– I like it! said the apothecary. – Interesting patients were wound up in our city. I like it very much!
He nervously took off his pince-nez, rubbed it, again put it on his nose and stared at his grandfather. Grandfather was silent and stood on the spot. The chemist was also silent. Silence became painful.
– Postal street, three! – Suddenly the apothecary shouted in his heart and slammed some disheveled thick book. – Three!
My grandfather and Vanya made their way to Pochtovaya Street just in time, because of Oka a high thunderstorm came. Lazy thunder stretched beyond the horizon, like a sleepy strongman straightened his shoulders and reluctantly shook the ground. The gray ripples went down the river. Silent lightning surreptitiously, but swiftly and strongly beat in the meadows; far behind the Polans was already burning a haystack lit by them. Large drops of rain fell on a dusty road, and soon it looked like a lunar surface: each drop left a small crater in the dust.
Karl Petrovich played on the piano something sad and melodic, when a disheveled beard of his grandfather appeared in the window.
A minute later, Karl Petrovich was already angry.
“I’m not a vet,” he said, and slammed the piano lid shut. Immediately in the meadows grumbled thunder. “I’ve spent all my life treating children, not rabbits.”
“That the child, that the hare is all one,” muttered his grandfather stubbornly. – All one! Get in touch, show mercy! To the vet, such cases are not subject to our jurisdiction. He used to go on horseback. This hare, you can say, is my savior: I owe him my life, I owe him a gratitude, and you say – quit!
A minute later, Karl Petrovich – an old man with gray disheveled eyebrows, – worried, listened to the stumbling story of his grandfather.
Karl Petrovich finally agreed to heal the hare. The next morning my grandfather left for the lake, and Vanya left Karl Petrovich to go for the hare.
A day later, the entire Post Street, overgrown with goose grass, already knew that Karl Petrovich was treating a rabbit that had been burned in a terrible forest fire and saved some old man. Two days later the whole small city already knew about this, and on the third day a long young man in a felt hat came to Karl Petrovich, called an employee of a Moscow newspaper and asked to talk about a hare.
Hare cured. Vanya wrapped it in a cotton swab and carried it home. Soon the story of the hare was forgotten, and only some Moscow professor long sought from his grandfather that he sold the hare. I even sent letters with stamps to answer. But my grandfather did not give up. Under his dictation, Vanya wrote to the professor:
Hare is not corrupt, a living soul, let him live in freedom. At the same time, I remain Larion Malyavin.
… This fall I spent the night with my grandfather Larion on the Lake Urzhen. The constellations, cold as ice pellets, floated in the water. The dry cane rustled. The ducks were chilly in the thickets and squawked plaintively all night.
Grandpa could not sleep. He sat by the stove and repaired a tattered fishing net. Then he set up the samovar – from it the windows in the hut immediately became misty and the stars from the fire points turned into muddy balls. In the yard barked Murzik. He jumped into the darkness, licked his teeth and bounced off – fought with an impenetrable October night. The hare slept in the hallway and occasionally in a dream loudly pounded his hind paw on the rotten floorboard.
We drank tea at night, waiting for the distant and irresolute dawn, and at tea, my grandfather told me at last the story of the hare.
In August, the grandfather went to hunt on the northern shore of the lake. The forests stood dry like gunpowder. Grandfather caught a rabbit with a ragged left ear. Grandfather shot him from an old, wire-bound gun, but missed. The hare ran away.
Grandfather went on. But suddenly I was worried: from the south, from the side of Lopukhov, I was strongly drawn by the heat. The wind got stronger. The smoke thickened, he was already carrying a white veil through the forest, tightening bushes. It became difficult to breathe.
Grandfather realized that a forest fire had started and the fire was coming straight at him. The wind passed into a hurricane. The fire chased the earth with unheard-of speed. According to the grandfather, even the train could not get away from such a fire. Grandfather was right: during the hurricane the fire was moving at a speed of thirty kilometers per hour.
The grandfather ran across the hummocks, stumbled, fell, smoke gnawed at his eyes, and from behind he could already hear a broad rumble and a crackle of flame.
Death overtook his grandfather, grabbed him by the shoulders, and at that time a hare jumped out from under his grandfather’s feet. He ran slowly and dragged his hind legs. Then only my grandfather noticed that they had been burnt by the hare.
Grandfather was delighted with the hare, as if his own. As an old forest inhabitant, the grandfather knew that animals much better than a man can feel where the fire comes from, and they always save themselves. They are killed only in those rare cases when the fire surrounds them.
Grandfather ran after the hare. He ran, cried with fear and shouted: “Wait, my dear, do not run so much!”
The hare brought his grandfather out of the fire. When they ran out of the forest to the lake, the hare and grandfather both fell from fatigue. The grandfather picked up the hare and carried it home. The hare had its hind legs and belly singed. Then his grandfather healed him and left him.
“Yes,” said the old man, glancing at the samovar so angrily that the samovar was to blame, “yes, and before that hare, it turns out I was very guilty, dear man.”
– What are you guilty of?
– And you go out, look at the hare, on my savior, then you will know. Take the flashlight!
I took a lantern from the table and went out into the hall. The hare was asleep. I bent over him with a lantern and noticed that the left ear of the hare was torn. Then I understood everything.
[1] Onuchi – windings for the foot under the boot or bast shoes,
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