Author: Leo Tolstoy

English Translation: Progress Publishers, 1975

The translation of world literature to Baluchi language is very limited. The translation of “The Lion and the Dog ”  by Leo Tolstoy, is an attempt by Karim Baluch to introduce popular stories originally in a foreign language to the Baluchi readers.

Wild animals were on show in London. To see them people had to pay money, or bring dogs and cats which were thrown to the wild animals to eat.

Wanting to see the wild animals, a man caught a little dog in the street and brought it to the menagerie. He was admitted, of course, while the little dog was thrown into the lion’s cage to be eaten.

The little dog put its tail between its legs and hid in a corner of the cage, but the lion came over to smell it.

Then the little dog rolled over on its back with its paws in the air and began to wag its tail.

The lion touched it with his paw and turned it over.

The little dog sprang up and sat back on its hind legs.

The lion looked at the little animal, turned his head from side to side, but did not touch it any more.

When his master threw him some meat, the lion tore off a piece, and left it for the little dog.

When the lion lay down to sleep in the evening the little dog lay down beside him, putting its head on his paw.

The dog and the lion lived together in the same cage from that time. The lion never harmed the little dog, but ate his food, slept with the dog and even played with it.

One day a gentleman came to the menagerie and recognised his little dog; he told the menagerie owner that the dog was his and that he wanted it back. The owner was ready to give it to him, of course; but as soon as they called the little dog wanting to take it from the cage the lion roared, his mane standing straight up.

The little dog and the lion lived in the cage for a whole year.

Alter a year the little dog tell ill and died. The lion stopped eating, and kept smelling and licking the little dead dog, touching it with his paw.

When he knew it was dead, he sprang up suddenly, his mane rising, thrashed his sides with his tail, threw himself against the wall, and began to bite the bars and the floor.

He kept throwing himself about the cage all day, roaring, and then lay down beside the little dead dog. The owner wanted to take the dead dog away, but the lion would let no one come near.

Thinking the lion would forget his grief if he had another dog, the owner put a second one in the cage, this one alive. But the lion tore it to pieces at once. Then he put his paws round his little dead friend and lay without stirring for five days.

On the sixth day he was dead.