my dogs

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Lev Tolstoy 1873 portrayed by Ivan Kramskoi

My Dogs is a short story by Lev Tolstoy , which - written for children - brings together eight episodes about two dogs and appeared in St. Petersburg in 1875 in the 3rd Russian reader of the anthology Rasskasy is «Novoi asbuki» .

content

  • Buljka

The first-person narrator got the stocky bull biter Buljka as a young dog and raised him himself. Once, Buljka bit a bear's ear and didn't let go when the bear pressed on the biter with its heavy weight. Only pouring cold water over her brought Buljka to her senses. When the narrator entered the Caucasus for military service , he left his dog in the apartment. Buljka smashed a window pane and followed his master over twenty weres in the midday glow.

  • Buljka and the boar

In November, the wild boars in the Caucasus are usually so full of grapes, cones, apples, pears, blackberries, acorns and sloes that they cannot get through the hunt for too long without a break. So the narrator followed Buljka until the dog stopped in front of a bush. After the boar was shot, the wild boar fled with a grunt and the bull biter remained lying in the grass with its stomach slashed. At first, the narrator did not care about his dog, but followed the wounded boar and killed him. Together with his comrade, the narrator stuffed the hanging bowels back into Buljka's stomach. While the dog was being sewn up, he kept licking his master's hand. The prey was dragged out of the forest by a horse that Buljka carried on his back. After six weeks the bull biter recovered.

  • The pheasants

Pheasants, as the wild chickens are called in the Caucasus, are hunted by simply letting the farm dog run after the pheasants. As soon as the pheasants fly up a tree, they can be shot in peace. The hunting method has a disadvantage. The pheasants hide in the foliage.

If, on the other hand, a chicken dog is brought along, the hunt is more intelligent. The chicken dog follows the trail; smells. The chicken dog cautiously creeps closer and closer to the prey until it is exposed. At that moment the hunter shoots.

  • Milton and Buljka

For the pheasant hunt, the narrator acquired the tall chicken dog Milton. Buljka once ran after Milton on a pheasant hunt; always wanted to be first and scare away the prey prematurely. The day of the hunt was spoiled for the narrator because Buljka refused to be sent home and the way back would have been too long. But Milton turned out to be so smart that the hunting trip ended up being a success. Milton always stepped sideways from the hot trail, sniffing off to the side until Buljka searched there - always in vain of course - and was able to get close enough to the pheasants.

  • The turtle

Once Milton tried to bite a small turtle to death in the grass. The narrator prevented this by throwing them away. Milton persisted in his plan until the turtle, which had withdrawn head and legs into its impenetrable shelter, at a suitable moment scratched the dog's mouth with one of its paws. Milton had to let go, whimpering, but still not giving up, barking, and burying the turtle in a hole he had dug himself.

  • Buljka and the wolf

When a wolf attacked a piglet in the village, Milton and Buljka rushed forward. The narrator's rifle failed and the wolf escaped. During the scuffle until the hunter arrived, Buljka got a minor wolf bite. The wolf came back unexpectedly, but fled again - this time from the screams of the villagers. The narrator suspected rabies as the cause of the unusual behavior and burned the small wound in Buljka with gunpowder.

Before the narrator returned to Russia from the Caucasus, he stayed in Pyatigorsk for two months. He had previously given Milton to an old Cossack who was also a hunter. One day convicts were being led through the Pyatigorsk Spa, grabbing stray dogs by iron hooks and beating them to death with clubs. Buljka was accidentally hooked because he was not wearing a collar. The bullbiter was able to tear itself away at the last moment.

  • The end of Buljka and Milton

Milton, trained to hunt feathered game, was taken with him to hunt wild boar by the old Cossack, slit open by a young boar, not sewn up by anyone, and perished. Buljka, infected with rabies, became vicious, crept into the thicket and disappeared.

literature

My dogs in Leo Tolstoy: Selected stories for the young (contains What people live on . The pilgrims . The bear hunt . The prisoner in the Caucasus . Yermak and the conquest of Siberia ). OC Recht Verlag, Munich 1922

Web links

  • The texts at online at tolstoy-lit.ru (Russian, from the line Булька )
    • Buljka (Russian Булька, page 138): online
    • Buljka and the Boar (Russian Булька и кабан, p. 139): online
    • The pheasants (Russian Фазаны, p. 141): online
    • Milton and Buljka (Russian Мильтон и Булька, p. 143): online
    • The turtle (Russian Черепаха, p. 143): online
    • Buljka and the Wolf (Russian Булька и волк, p. 145): online
    • What happened to Buljka in Pyatigorsk (Russian Что случилось с Булькой в ​​Пятигорске, p. 146) online
    • The end of Buljka and Milton (Russian Конец Бульки и Мильтона, p. 148) online
    • online at planetaskazok.ru (Russian, illustrated)
  • Entry in the list of works of folk tales (1872–1887), alphabet (1875)
  • at fantlab.ru: 3rd Russian reader from 1875 from 17th entry from the bottom (Russian)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Рассказы из "Новой азбуки", in German stories from the New Alphabet
  2. ↑ in vol. 10. Stories 1872–1886 of the edition LN Tolstoy: Collected works in 22 volumes , Verlag für Künstlerische Literatur, Moscow 1982