Thaddeus, who was just thirteen years old, killed
the bear with a single stroke of his boar-spear, and just in time.
Close ties were knit between the two families by this occurrence,
and though Thaddeus was neither noble-born nor a soldier, Feodor
considered him his brother and felt toward him as such. Now
Thaddeus had become the greatest timber-merchant of the western
provinces, with his own forests and also with his massive body,
his fat, oily face, his bull-neck and his ample paunch. He quitted
everything at once - all his affairs, his family - as soon as he
learned of the first attack, to come and remain by the side of his
dear comrade Feodor. He had done this after each attack, without
forgetting one. He was a faithful friend. But he fretted because
they might not go bear-hunting as in their youth. 'Where, he would
ask, are there any bears remaining in Courlande, or trees for that
matter, what you could call trees, growing since the days of the
grand-dukes of Lithuania, giant trees that threw their shade right
up to the very edge of the towns? Where were such things nowadays?
Thaddeus was very amusing, for it was he, certainly, who had cut
them away tranquilly enough and watched them vanish in locomotive
smoke.
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