The Goat and the Ram bleated with fright, and Purring Váska held such discourse: “Listen, White Wolf, Prince of all the wolves! Don’t anger our eldest one, for if he should get at you, it will be your end. Don’t you see his beard? that’s where his strength lies. With his beard he strikes down the animals, but with his horns he only flays them. You had better ask him with due respect to let you have your fun with your younger brother that is lying under the haystack.”
So the wolves bowed to the Goat, and surrounded Míshka, and began to tease him. He got up, waxed angry and just grabbed a wolf with each paw; they howled their “Lazarus,” but somehow managed to get away with drooping tails, and they raced as fast as their feet would carry them.
In the meanwhile the Goat and the Ram seized the Cat, and ran into the woods, where they once more met some grey wolves. The Cat crawled up to the top of a pine-tree, and the Goat and the Ram got hold of a branch of the pine-tree with their fore legs, and hung down from it. The wolves stood under the tree, grinned and howled, watching the Goat and the Ram. The grey-browed Cat saw that things were very bad, so he began to throw down pine cones upon the wolves, and kept saying: “One wolf! Two wolves! Three wolves! Just a wolf apiece. It is not so long ago I, Purring Váska, ate up two wolves with all their bones, so I am not hungry yet; but you, big brother, have been out a-hunting bears, and you did not get any, so you may have my share!”
Just as he said that, the Goat could not hold on any longer, and dropped with his horns straight down on a wolf. But Purring Váska yelled out: “Hold him, catch him!” The wolves were so frightened that they started on a run, and did not dare look back. That was the last of them.
THE FOX AND THE PEASANT
Once upon an evening the Fox, feeling grieved, took a walk to divert herself and breathe the fresh air. Though she had not expected it, there presented itself an opportunity to have her revenge, for whom should she see but Vúkol in his cart! As she scented some fish, she decided to steal them. The question now was how to steal them out of Vúkol’s cart. Of course, it was too risky to crawl in, for Vúkol would lay on his whip, or, catching her by her tail, would kill her altogether. So Lísa Patrikyéevna softly ran all around the Peasant, who was hastening home, lay down on the ground and barely breathed. The rogue lay there as if she really were dead: her mouth open, her teeth grinning, her snout turned upwards, her nose flabby; she neither moved, nor heaved, nor wagged her tail.
Vúkol was travelling at a slow pace, when suddenly his nag neighed. “What’s the matter?” spoke Vúkol, rose and looked down the road. “Oh, I see! God has sent me a nice gift. I’ll pick it up; it will be a fine thing for my wife, for its fur is as soft as a shawl.” Having very wisely discussed thus, Vúkol took the Fox by the tail and put her on the fish, and went over the bridge. But Lísa Patrikyéevna was very happy and, to carry out the first part of her program, quietly devoured a good-sized tench; then she started dropping one fish after another on the road, until she had emptied the whole cart. Then she stealthily dropped down from the cart herself and started on a run without turning back, so that the dust flew up.
It grew dark, and murky night was near; Vúkol Sílych pulled his reins, and the horse raced faster. He reached his house, without discovering the theft, and, smiling to his wife, he said with a merry voice to her: “Woman, just look into the cart and see what I have brought you! I found it in the road, near the bridge, by the pines and birches.”
His wife Dárya rummaged in the hay, tossed it to and fro, hoping to find her present. “Where is it? What a shame!” She turned everything upside down, shook the fish bag, but she only got her hands dirty,—the present she did not find. Put out about such a deception, she said to her husband, Vúkol: “What a stupid you are!”
In the meantime Patrikyéevna carried all the fish to her lair, and she had an easy time of it all autumn, and even winter. But this revenge is insignificant: her greater revenge is still ahead. Things are bad for you, Vúkol Sílych! Be prepared for the worst.