The Rabbit Hunter

The Child's Story

"A Russian Tale"

Peter was an old man who worked in his field like any other peasant... but he was not as clever as he ought to have been. In truth, Peter was, in people's opinion, very dull-witted; but in any case he had an opinion of himself quite different from people's opinions of him!... In his own eyes he was one of the cleverest peasants in the fields of the village, and he counted himself among the most skillful hunters in that region... nay, more than that... he counted himself among the cleverest and most skillful people in all Russia!... And Russia, as you can see on the map, is a very vast country!

Everyone treated Peter gently and kindly, because Peter would do his utmost to lend people a hand whenever they needed help.

One summer's day, the clouds gathered suddenly in the sky, and rain came down in a strange, unaccustomed fashion... The river in Peter's village overflowed and flooded all the farms and fields. People were forced to live on the roofs of their houses and to go about in boats... and they waited for a famine that threatened their lives.

One day at noon, Peter was searching among the people for a boat to go out in and hunt rabbits... He had great difficulty convincing people of what he had resolved to do, for they laughed at him, since all the rabbits had fled.

At last Peter found the boat, and found its oar inside it; and he saw hundreds of rabbits perched on trees floating on the face of the water, having fled from the floodwaters that had drowned their burrows.

Peter thought long as he eyed the flocks of terrified rabbits, and said to himself: By heaven, this is a fine chance to prove my cleverness to the people... Come along, Peter... come along, clever fellow!

Peter drew his boat up close to the rabbits and stretched out a wide plank for them, and the rabbits walked along it, one after another, into the belly of the boat — where there was safety and peace and deliverance from death by drowning!

Peter was delighted at the success of his idea and began talking to himself: Come, you people, and see how clever and quick-witted I am... come, you dunces, and see how many rabbits I have caught in a single stroke, inspired by my own cleverness. They will all call down blessings on me when they find all this enormous number of rabbits with me.

The people on the shore were waiting for Peter to come back with his load... whatever that load might be!... And when the boat drew near the shore, and the people made out the kind of cargo Peter had brought back, their mockery of him turned to admiration, and they began pleading with him to give them some of his rabbits.

But Peter answered them with a wave of his hand and a decisive word from his laughing mouth:

No!... I am going into the rabbit trade, gentlemen! I shall raise these rabbits, feed them and fatten them and sell them at a respectable price!... And on that day any one of you may obtain some of them — for a respectable sum, naturally!

One of the people said to Peter: Let us see your rabbits, so we may buy the good ones.

Peter drew his boat in until it bumped against the shore... and do you know what happened?

In a single moment... in the twinkling of an eye, all the rabbits vanished from sight like a phantom... they all leapt from the boat and fled to the mountains... far away beyond the town!

The people roared with laughter and mockery at the excessive cleverness of Peter, who had left the rabbits free and unbound!... The man was very clever indeed, was he not?!

Uncle Peter hung his head in shame and did not utter a word; he only stood in his place, watching his rabbits flee to the mountains until the last shadow of them vanished from his eyes!