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&039;Yes Buy me a leash and a collar&039;

&039;What?&039;

&039;NeverDon&039;t worry about any s heal fast Buy a few disposable razors and a can of shaving foam And some mineral water Do you have money?&039;

&039;Yes Don&039;t worry&039;

&039;And don&039;t go ho for you&039;

&039;You don&039;t need to tell me that,&039; I said &039;ListenI&039;ve just res From a sensor What if there&039;s one of those sensors in s?&039;

&039;Don&039;t worry about that He was just bragging to impress you We don&039;t have any instru lady who gets hot water frohty-five&039;

You learn so new every day

When I cas full of shopping, he was asleep I sat down beside hi as peacefully as a child And standing on the floor was a glass, with three bloody silver buttons lying in it It&039;s hard to kill a olf Take Mikhalich - the ets The chaone to my head, he saysWitty fellow Of course this was a case of bullets, not chaetlike that

The myth that a olf can only be killed with a silver bullet is very helpful to our community

1 the wounds never fester and no disinfection is required - silver is a natural antiseptic

2 fewer bullets are fired at us - people econo with only a single bullet, assu that any kind of hit will be fatal

But in real life the shot is far more often fatal for the hunter If people would just use their brains for a uess who spreads these ruht think a lot, but they think in a perverted way, and not about the right things

The plastic bags I had brought contained food and a few sed theht that basically I was no different now froirls ere married and whose frail shoulders had assu the home It had all happened so suddenly and it was so different from the roles that I had previously played, that I wasn&039;t sure yet if I liked it or not

It is usually assumed that were-creatures are not concerned about spiritual problems People think you turn into a fox or a wolf, howl at the reat questions of life are instantly answered, and it&039;s clear who you are, what you&039;re doing in this world, where you caBut that&039;s not the way it is at all We are far more tormented by the riddles of existence than modern humans But the cineluttons, nonentities who are indistinguishable from each other, cruel and squalid consumers of the blood of others

I don&039;t actually think this is a conscious attempt by people to insult us It&039;s more likely a simple consequence of their own li to their own likeness, because they have no one else to take as a prototype

Even the little bit that people do know about us is usually distorted and vulgarized beyond all recognition For instance, according to the ruraves When they hear that, people i corpses And they think - what repulsive creatures these foxeslike a large coffin of worrave was a co of several dry, spacious rooht, which was directed into them by a series of bronze h to work by) A grave like that, situated far away fro indifferent to the vanity of the world and inclined to solitary conteraves left now: they&039;ve been ploughed up, canals and roads have been built through them And in the modern communal apartments of the afterlife, even the dead feel craia still drivesthe avenues and ponder the eternal I look at the crosses and the stars, read the naraphs and feel so sorry for all these people I never met Mr Keufer understood so much about lifeAnd Mr Solonyan understood even upolsky understood even etherThey understood everything, apart fro was so inexpressibly close Sad

Long before I came to Russia I lived for several hundred years in a Han period grave not far fro once used to stand The grave had two spacious chaowns and shirts, a harp, a flute and lots of different kinds of dishes - basically, everything that was necessary for a horave, since it was rumoured that a fierce and vicious demon lived there Which, if you set aside the superfluous emotional assessment, was quite true

In those days I practised ular basis with a nues round about (Chinese students usually lived in rural areas with their fa to the city to sit their exa their term as an official, they returned to the family home) Several of them kneho I was and they would pester me with questions about the ancient tianized the palace coup three hundred years earlier, and so on I had to strain my ive me old texts which I sometimes needed to check my spiritual practice

Others, bolder in spirit, used to visit raves The Chinese artists and poets valued a secluded rendezvous with a fox, especially in a state of intoxication And in the ravestone, jump to their feet and scream in horror as they ran to the nearest shrine with their hair fluttering loose in the wind It was very beautiful - I used to watch froh into my sleeveAnd a couple of days later they would coain What exalted, noble, subtle people there used to be then! Often I didn&039;t even take money from them

Those idyllic times flew past quickly, and they left me with the very best of memories Wherever life cast htly hoht to ht the old days had come back Even the floor plan of the double burrohich we lived reh, of course, the rooms were smaller and now my days were not spent in solitude, but with Alexander

Alexander quickly grew accustoh for hi he stayed like that and went off for a walk along the gully I was glad he wasn&039;t asha, like a new toy What he liked was evidently not the form itself, but its permanent stability: he could only be a wolf for a short while, but now he could be a dog for just as long as he wanted

Apart fro could even speak after a fashion, although the way it pronounced the words was very funny and at first I used to laugh until I cried But Alexander didn&039;t take offence, and I soon got used to it During the early days he ran around in the forest a lot, getting to know the surrounding area I was concerned that his ae a sector of the forest, but I was afraid to wound his pride by telling hi happened, we could stand up for ourselves &039;We&039;I siet used to that pronoun

It was probably because our home remindedfor spiritual self-improvele s that I had understood in life I had to try at least - otheras lacial glaan just beyond the edge of the forest? I had to offer him my tail and my hand because, if I didn&039;t do it, no one else would

I decided to reveal the inners to him This required him to master several ideas that were new to hiher truth But even explaining these initial notions was difficult

The problem is that everybody knows the words that express the truth - and if you don&039;t, you can easily find thele But hardly anyone at all actually knows the truth It&039;s like one of those &039;ic eye&039; pictures - a chaotic jumble of coloured lines and spots that can be transfor your vision correctly It all seems very simple, but you can&039;t focus someone else&039;s eyes for them when they look, no matter hoell-disposed you are towards theht in front of everybody&039;s eyes, even the tailless monkeys&039; But there are very feho actually see it Although many think that they understand it This, of course, is nonsense - the truth is like love, there is nothing to understand And what is usually taken for the truth is sorey pouch hanging round Alexander&039;s neck on a grey string I guessed that the colour had been chosen to match a wolf&039;s fur - so that the pouch would not be visible when he turned into a wolf But now it stood out against his black fur I decided to ask hin ar before bed - a Montecristo III or Cohiba Siglo IV I knew the naet them That was the best tiers a discharge of dopamine into the brain - and dopa: a sainst his own future and transfor we settled down in the doorway of our home and he lit up (I wouldn&039;t allow hiar was half burnt away and asked:

&039;Tellround your neck?&039;

&039;A cross,&039; he said

&039;A cross? You wear a cross?&039;

He nodded

&039;But why hide it? It&039;s okay to wear them now&039;

&039;It may be okay,&039; he said &039;But it burns my chest when I transform &039;

&039;Does it hurt?&039;

&039;It doesn&039;t really hurt It&039;s just that every time there&039;s a smell of scorched fur&039;

&039;If you like, I can teach you a mantra,&039; I said, &039;so that no cross will ever burn you again&039;

&039;Oh, sure! I&039; to recite your infernal mantra so my cross doesn&039;t burn my chest Don&039;t you realize what a sin that would be?&039;

I looked at hi on So maybe you&039;re a believer too, are you?&039;

&039;What of it,&039; he said &039;Of course I&039;m a believer&039;

&039;In the sense of the Orthodox Christian Cultural Heritage? Or for real?&039;

&039;I don&039;t understand the distinction In the Holy Writ it says:

"Even the demons believe and tremble!" That&039;s about us, and that&039;s what I do - believe and tremble&039;

&039;But you&039;re a olf, Sasha So according to all the Orthodox precepts your road leads straight to hell Tell me, I&039;d like to knoould you choose a faith in which you have to go to hell?&039;

&039;You don&039;t choose your faith,&039; he said morosely &039;Just like you don&039;t choose your ion exists is to offer hope of salvation What are you hoping for?&039;

&039;That God will forgive ot?&039;

&039;That&039;s obvious I&039;ve lost the ie of God And then there&039;s you &039;

I alnation

&039;So you don&039;t think I&039; in your entire lupine life, on the contrary, I&039;m an evil deed for which you&039;ll have to atone?&039;

He shrugged

&039;I love you, you know that It&039;s not a matter of you personally It&039;s just that the two of us live, you know&039;

&039;What do I know?&039;

He released a cloud of ser instantly evaporated And instead I feltti the bubbles of laughter rising in my throat &039;So I&039;m your sin, am I?&039;

&039;Not you,&039; he said in a quiet voice, &039;it&039;s that&039;

&039;What?&039;

&039;Tailechery,&039; he said in a very quiet voice and lowered his eyes

I bit h - he had shared his h But the effort was so great it could easily have made a new silver hair appear in my tail So he&039;d even invented a term for it!

&039;Don&039;t take offence,&039; he said &039;I&039; what I feel I can lie if you like Only then there won&039;t be any point in talking to each other&039;

&039;Yes,&039; I said, &039;you&039;re right It&039;s just that this is all rather unexpected &039;

We sat in silence for a fewthe tops of the prolific u in the wind

&039;And have you beena believer for long?&039; I asked

&039;It&039;s five years now&039;

&039;To be honest, I thought you were elfahr, Fenrir, Loki, Baldur&039;s dreams&039;

&039;That too,&039; he said with a selfconscious smile &039;Only that&039;s external, a shell A sort of frame, aesthetic decoration You know, like the sphinxes on the banks of the Neva in Petersburg&039;

&039;And how did you end up in this state?&039;