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No   bird    flies   near,   no  tiger   creeps;     alone   the     whirlwind,  wild    and

black,  assails the tree    of  death   and sweeps  away    with    death   upon    its

back.

ALEXANDER   PUSHKIN,

“The    Upas    Tree”^1

THE TIGER’S ROAR ECHOED AWAY, AND SO, TOO, DID THAT

FUSILLADE of rifle shots. The steady south wind carried off the gun
smoke, and the crowfoot and wormwood nodded to themselves as if all
was well. Svetly Creek flowed on, silent and invisible beneath its
carapace of ice, and Alexander Gorborukov took a step forward. Later, he
would say that it had been like watching a movie in slow motion, one in
which he was powerless to intervene. Shibnev and Pionka would agree
that the events in that decisive moment were as vivid as a film, but that
there was nothing slow about them. Less than a minute had passed from
when they first set foot in the clearing to when they stopped shooting.

The first thing Trush remembers is someone saying, “Yurka! Are you
alive?”
With his friends’ help, the dead man stood. He said, “Oh!” several
times in succession. His eyes were big and round and, for a moment, he
did not know if they were gazing on this world or the next. After colliding
with Trush, the tiger’s momentum had caused it to somersault over him
and now the tiger lay in the snow, pawing blindly in its death throes.