"A pretty piece of work, this, for which he brings such a quantity of oats here! And yet they are all the time saying that men are wiser than we are. Can anything possibly be more foolish or ridiculous than to plough up a whole field like this in order to scatter one's oats over it afterward to no purpose. Had he given them to me, or to the bay there, or had he even thought fit to fling them to the fowls, it would have been more like business. Or even if he had hoarded them up, I should have recognized avarice in that. But to fling them uselessly away—why, that is sheer stupidity!"
Meanwhile time passed; and in the autumn the oats were garnered, and the Peasant fed this very Horse upon them all the winter.
There can be no doubt, Reader, that you do not approve of the opinions of the Horse. But from the oldest times to our own days has not man been equally audacious in criticising the designs of a Providence of whose means or ends he sees and knows nothing?
The Wolf and the Cat
A Wolf ran out of the forest into a village—not to pay a visit, but to save its life; for it trembled for its skin.
The huntsmen and a pack of hounds were after it. It would fain have rushed in through the first gateway; but there was this unfortunate circumstance against the scheme that all the gateways were closed.
The Wolf sees a Cat on a partition fence, and says pleadingly, "Vaska, my friend, tell me quickly, which of the moujiks here is the kindest, so that I may hide myself from my evil foes? Listen to the cry of the dogs and the terrible sound of the horns? All that noise is actually made in chase of me!"
"Go quickly, and ask Stefan," says Vaska, the Cat; "he is a very kind man."
"Quite true; only I have torn the skin off one of his sheep."
"Well, then, you can try Demian."