Here is the link to the 2261 word story: http://www.chekhovshorts.com/stories/179.html
Travis rating
Chekhov traces the story of a hungry she-wolf hunting for nourishing food during an unseasonably cold March. This isn’t the first time Chekhov given us an animal’s POV. He did in at least two other instances with Kashtanka and in Who Was To Blame?. It is interesting that Chekhov gives the wolf a moral conscious that feels miserable or stealing an old man’s lambs and then after catching prey, wonders what to do with it, even with hunger pangs. Like yesterday, the story ends on a punchline with a senile old man (who reminds me of a punch-drunk boxer) interpreting events as he sees them through his limited lens. I wondered if by giving the puppy a whitebrow if Chekhov is giving a nod to Jack London’s White Fang, but that was published in 1906, so perhaps the influence went the other way around. Chekhov leaves the wolf’s fate open ended and we can only hope for the best for this conscientious carnivore.
Rating: 7