BĂșlka and the Wolf (Tolstoy)
Division into chapters is editorial.
Departure preparations and the moonlit night
The narrator prepared to leave the Caucasus, where fighting continued and nighttime travel required armed guards for safety. He planned an early departure and chose not to sleep that night.
His friend came to see him off, and they spent the entire evening and night sitting together in the village street in front of his cabin.
The night was moonlit with mist, so bright that one could read despite the moon being invisible. In the middle of the night, they suddenly heard a pig squealing in the yard across the street. Someone cried out that a wolf was attacking the pig.
The narrator rushed into his house, grabbed a loaded gun, and ran back outside.
The wolf attacks and the gun misfires
Everyone gathered at the gate of the yard where the pig was squealing and called to him. Milton rushed after him, thinking they were going hunting, while BĂșlka pricked his short ears and tossed from side to side, as if asking whom he should attack.
When I ran up to the wicker fence, I saw a beast running straight toward me from the other side of the yard. That was the wolf.
The wolf ran up to the fence and jumped on it. The narrator stepped aside and aimed his gun. The moment the wolf jumped down from the fence to his side, he aimed almost touching the wolf with the gun and pulled the trigger.
I aimed, almost touching him with the gun, and pulled the trigger; but my gun made 'Click' and did not go off. The Wolf did not stop, but ran across the street.
The gun had misfired at the crucial moment, allowing the wolf to escape.
The chase and fight at the ditch
Milton and BĂșlka immediately pursued the wolf. Milton stayed near the wolf but was afraid to grab him, while BĂșlka, despite running as fast as he could on his short legs, could not keep up.
Milton was near to the wolf, but was afraid to take hold of him; and no matter how fast BĂșlka ran on his short legs, he could not keep up with him.
They all ran as fast as they could after the wolf, but both the wolf and the dogs disappeared from sight. Only at the ditch at the end of the village did they hear low barking and whimpering, and saw dust rising in the moonlit mist as the dogs fought with the wolf. When they reached the ditch, the wolf was gone, and both dogs returned with raised tails and angry faces.
BĂșlka snarled and pushed me with his head: evidently he wanted to tell me something, but did not know how.
Upon examining the dogs, they found a small wound on BĂșlka's head. He had evidently caught up with the wolf before it reached the ditch but hadn't managed to grab it, while the wolf snapped at him and escaped. The wound was small and not dangerous.
The wolfs mysterious return
They returned to the cabin and discussed what had happened. The narrator was angry about the gun misfiring and thought about how the wolf would have been killed if the gun had fired properly. His friend wondered how the wolf had managed to creep into the yard. An old Cossack declared there was nothing remarkable about it.
Suddenly the dogs darted off again, and they saw the same wolf in the middle of the street. This time it ran so fast when it heard their shout that the dogs could not catch up with it. After this second appearance, the old Cossack was fully convinced that it was not a wolf but a witch.
Treating BĂșlkas wound and concerns about rabies
The narrator had a different theory about the wolf's strange behavior. He thought it was a mad wolf, because he had never seen or heard of a wolf returning toward people after being driven away. To treat BĂșlka's wound, he poured powder on it and set it on fire, burning out the sore spot.
He burned the wound with powder to destroy any poisonous saliva before it could enter the bloodstream. However, he knew that if the saliva had already entered the blood, it would spread throughout the body, making a cure impossible.