we had to turn off here, and Volodya had stopped the dogs to change
direction. His dogs had one fault-they couldn't take a turning on the
run.
We continued down the new track and after a while the dogs spurted
forward and began to bark. Hark!—what was that? All of a sudden, as if
in answer to the dogs a chorus of barks came from behind a clump of
trees, first remote, then nearer and nearer. It was a long-drawn-out,
wild, confused barking, which sent a chill up your spine.
"Volodya, why are there so many dogs here?"
"They're not dogs, they're foxes."
"Why do they bark?"
"They're cannies!" Volodya shouted over his shoulder. "They bark!"
I had, of course, seen ordinary foxes, but Volodya explained that this
farm was breeding silvery-black foxes, and this was something quite
different. There were no foxes like it anywhere else in the world. A
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white-tipped tail was considered beautiful, but here they were trying to
breed a fox without a single white hair.
In short, he really got me interested, and I was very annoyed when,
some fifteen minutes later, we arrived at the farm gate to find a
watchman there with a rifle slung over his shoulder who told us that the
farm was not open for inspection.
"What is it open for?"
"For scientific work," said the watchman.
"Could we see the director?"
"The director is out."
"Who's in charge?"
"The Senior Research Associate," the watchman said impressively.
"Ah, that's the man we want."
I left Volodya at the gate and went in search of the S.R.A. Obviously
not many people came to the farm, for only a single narrow track ran
through the snow-covered courtyard to the house which the watchman
had pointed out to me. After shaking the snow off my boots I opened the
door and found myself in a large low-ceilinged room which led into
another larger room where a man was sitting at a desk. He got up on
seeing me. He looked at me in a way that was very familiar and
reminded me of Valya Zhukov. The same amiable, slightly mad
expression. He even had the same dark down on his cheeks, only thicker
and blacker. Could this be Valya? I voiced the thought:
"Valya! Is that you?"
"What?" he said in a bewildered way, cocking his head to one side as
Valya used to do.
"Valya, you sonofagun!" I said, my heart giving an enormous bound.
"What's the matter? Don't you recognise me?"
He smiled vaguely and gave me his hand.
"Why, yes," he said in an artificial tone. "I think we have met."
"Think? You think we have met!"
I grabbed his arm and dragged him to the window.
"Look, you cow!"
He looked and gave a vague little laugh.
"Dammit, don't you recognise me?" I said with amazement.
He blinked. Then the vagueness left his face, leaving a real, true Valya
which you could confuse with no one else in the world.
"Sanya!" he yelled with a gasp. "Is that you?"
We embraced and started off arm in arm. In the doorway he kissed
me again.
"So it's you? I’ll be jiggered! When did you arrive?"
"I didn't arrive, I live here."
"What d'you mean?"
"What I say. I've been here six months."
"No, really?" Valya muttered. "But of course, I'm seldom in town, or I
might have run into you. H'm... Six months!"
He led me into another room, which looked much the same as the one
we had just left, except that it had a bed in it and a gun hanging on the
wall. The other room was his study and this was his bedroom.
Somewhere nearby there was a laboratory, judging by the stink in the
house. It struck me as funny how this animal smell went with Valya,
with his absent-looking eyes, his shock of hair and that down on his
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cheeks. Valya had always carried the smell of some animal around with
him.
I reminded myself that I had left Volodya at the gate, and Valya sent a
junior research associate for him. This junior, by the way, was some
thirty years older than Valya, an imposing bearded figure with a queer
thin nose. Apparently, he had made an impression on Volodya, because
they did not come in until half an hour later, chatting in a friendly
fashion, and Volodya announced that Pavel Petrovich-that was the
man's name-had promised to show him the fox kitchen.
"And even treat him to a fox dinner," said Pavel Petrovich.
"Show him the 'jungle'," Valya said.
Volodya flushed and held his breath when he heard the word. Jungle-
it sounded so thrilling.
They went out, leaving Valya and me alone together. We started
reminiscing about Korablev and the boys. After a while Valya reminded
himself that the fox cubs had to be given their medicine.
"Have somebody give it to them."
"No, I've got to do that myself," Valya said. "It's Vigantol, for rickets.
You wait here, I won't be long."
I did not want to part from him and we went off together.
CHAPTER NINE
GOOD NIGHT!
Valya persuaded me to stay the night, and we telephoned the doctor to
say that Volodya would be returning home by himself.
We took a walk in the woods, then went back to Valya's room and had
a drink together. He told me that he had seldom left the farm during the
last six months. He was engaged in interesting work-examining the
stomachs of sables in order to discover what they ate. He had several
stomachs of his own, from the farm and some two hundred or so
presented to him by some animal reservation. And he had discovered a
very interesting thing: that when hunting small furbearers it was
important to spare the ground squirrel, and this was the sable's staple
diet.
I listened to him in silence. We were quite alone, in an empty house,
and the room was absolutely bare—the big, comfortless room of a lonely
man.
"Yes, that's interesting," I said, when Valya had finished. "So the sable
needs ground squirrels to live on? Well, well! And d'you know what you
need most of all? What you're badly in need of? A wife!"
Valya blinked, then laughed.
"What makes you think that?" he said irresolutely.
"Because you live like a dog. And d'you know what kind of wife you
need? One who'd bring you sandwiches in your lab and wouldn't be
demanding on your attention."
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"I don't know," Valya muttered. "I'll marry eventually I suppose.
When I'm through with my thesis I'll be quite free. I'll soon be going
back to Moscow, you know. What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Why don't you marry?"
After a pause, I said: "Oh, it's different with me. I lead a different life—
here today and at the other end of the earth tomorrow. I can't marry."
"No, you ought to marry too," Valya retorted , then, struck by a
sudden thought, he added: "I say, do you remember coming to see me at
the Zoo with Katya, who brought a friend along? What was her name? A
tall girl with plaits."
His face assumed such a gentle, childish expression that I could not
help laughing.
"Yes, of course. Kiren! Good-looking, isn't she?"
"Very," said Valya. "Very."
He wanted to give me his bed, but I preferred a shakedown on the