ELEVEN

The young man went with his father the bailiff to inform the old prince that the village zemstvo was now Soviet.

“Good,” the prince said, “good.”

“They will be coming to tell you, you must leave. They will no doubt take away the estate and do what they will with it.”

“Good,” the prince repeated, “good.”

Then the bailiff said to his son, “Now tell us about the bear.” “The bear?” the old prince asked.

The young man said, “This morning, walking around the estate for what may be the last time, I came on a bear’s lair in the snow.”

The prince sat up. “A bear hibernating on my land. I used to hear stories when I was a child of such things, but from generations and generations back. A bear on my land.” The prince smiled. “We’ll go draw it early tomorrow morning.”

“The sooner the better,” the young man’s father said.

“You mean, before the bear is killed by my new masters?” The prince sat back. “I have never, ever killed a bear, and I would have once thought it impossible that I ever would, impossible because I am and always have been against hunting. And now I want to kill this bear.”

In the morning, when the young man and his father got to the prince, they found him with his old valet—older even than the prince—who was cleaning the prince’s carbine, which the prince, his hands trembling, was not capable of doing.

At the entrance to the ravine, the horses were stopped and the men got down from the old shooting car into the snow and put on their snowshoes. The young man’s father attached the leashes to the dogs and was pulled forward by them, ahead of the others, through the ravine. When they got to the end of the ravine, facing the snow-covered clearing, the Samoyeds strained at their leashes and began to tremble. On the other side of the clearing was the bear’s lair, and over it hung a thin cloud of steam.

The prince said, “We must get closer.”

The young man’s father told him and the valet to go ahead, carefully, and put up a snow butt nearer the bear, and the two trudged over the snow, wooden spades on their shoulders. The old valet was quicker in throwing up the snow butt than the young son of the bailiff. Then the prince, his carbine at the ready, and his bailiff, his carbine on a strap over his shoulder and pulled as before by the Samoyeds, took positions behind the butt.

Nodding at the Samoyeds, the prince whispered to the young man’s father, “Slip their leashes.”

The bailiff slipped the leashes on the Samoyeds and then made the sign of the cross.

The two dogs held low, their mouths wide open, their fangs and gums exposed. One of them bounded ahead of the other, then the first raced ahead to the bear’s lair. They jumped round and round the mound of snow, advancing on it and retreating, snarling. From time to time, one of them would stop short and bite its rump, then, as if it momentarily forgot what it was doing, would stare at the lair, then, remembering, would begin again to worry the mound. These pauses seemed to make them aware that they were ridiculous, and their ferocity was to try to convince themselves that what they were doing wasn’t ridiculous. The mound of snow didn’t appear to be at all worried.

The prince said to his bailiff, “Call the dogs back.”

Astounded, the bailiff asked, “Call them back?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think I can. I don’t think they’ll come.”

“Call them.”

The bailiff, frowning, stood and called. Surely, the prince knew the dogs couldn’t be called back. The dogs stiffened and went still. The bailiff called them again. But, gone still only momentarily to recollect something they had forgotten, they after the moment sprang at opposite sides of the mound and with frenzy dug at the snow. A great black paw swung out from the side of the mound and struck one of the dogs so it fell back with a high yelp. The dog returned to the mound while, on the other side, the second dog continued to dig crazily. The whole mound rose, rose and cracked and broke into pieces that fell from the black bear rising onto its hind legs, and growling so the sounds of the dogs seemed far away. The bear knocked one of the dogs to the side, where it lay in the snow shuddering and bleeding from a wound in its chest, then the bear turned to the other dog, fell to its front paws, and advanced on it as the dog leapt forward, its teeth bared, to bite into the bear’s neck, but the bear, slowly and heavily, sat back and swung at the dog with such force it flew into the air and dropped, its back broken. Whining, the dog tried to crawl away.

The prince, trembling, raised his double-barreled shotgun to sight the bear, who simply remained standing on his hind legs. Slowly, the prince lowered the carbine. Sweat was running down his face. Everyone watched the bear, who was motionless. And then suddenly the prince raised his gun and shot and the bear raised its arms out wide and then folded them in, and fell sideways.