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session was wildly exciting. Every return of the grown-ups was a delight—in them and in the plenty they brought with them. Every mealtime was a loving struggle for more until his belly was round and full. Every sleep time was a deep peace. He was obedient and cheerful in doing everything the grown-ups asked of him. He was enchanted by their affection and by their lavish attention to his wee and poo and his personal cleanliness. He was careful to show good manners over bones and food, if also showing self-respect in guarding his own fiercely. To his brothers and sisters he was imperious, inventive, playful, but also solicitous. He could spend long happy hours stroking and licking their relaxed and bliss-filled bodies. They passed him chance kisses and sniffed inquiries as to his wellbeing. They ran to him if something scared them; then, strengthened by him, they bristled and snarled.
    If there had been hot beef soup, everything would have been perfect.
     
    Romochka was startled when he saw a large pale patch moving in the darkness by the grey entrance hole, and realised that White Sister had become a young dog.
    Midwinter was over and the days filtered in, weakly at first, then longer and stronger. In the returning daylight their new faces and forms became familiar again, and he noticed for the first time that Golden Bitch touched him less than the others, and that he knew her least from the long winter rub.
    Golden Bitch treated him with the distance and tolerance accorded all puppies, but where the puppies also got her disdain, Romochka got her attention. She didn’t do anything with him. She sat on her haunches, neat and collected, breathing in the smells at the entrance hole, watching him. There was nothing hostile in her regard but nothing else overt either. Over time this glance became less introspective and keener. She pricked her ears at the sounds he uttered and the games he played with the puppies, but didn’t move from her post. He bumped into her only if the puppies rolled that way, yet she never did anything to punish him. He became used to feeling her regard turned his way and seeing her eyes bright in the thin gloom of daylight. This gaze was his main contact with her. She was often the last to lie down on the nest, and so was at the outer fringe when he was at the centre, curled half asleep with the four young dogs and Mamochka.
    Romochka enjoyed Golden Bitch watching him. He knew that she liked him. He didn’t guess her bewilderment, so he aimed to get what the growing puppies now occasionally got—an affectionate licking. Not a cleaning such as Mamochka would give, but a definite, approving kiss, and an occasional invitation to learn something when she brought a live rat or mole into the lair. He imagined a day when her satisfaction at his learning enveloped him too. But whenever he leapt in to show his skill, she would sit back on her haunches and watch him: interested, but without participation or encouragement, just as she watched from the entrance hole.
    In late winter, with the young dogs’ larger bodies hemming Romochka in, testing his strength now with their vigorous play, a discord crept in among the five siblings. One week Romochka felt them all as equally playful, if different from each other. The next week one of them was no longer playing. Black Sister slipped from being funny as the snappiest, sharpest-toothed and sharpest-witted to being savage and genuinely angry. She ruined the fun they had been having and Romochka was annoyed. As the balmier air seeped in through the snow, the lair became a place of unexpected explosions, incomprehensible fights.
    When the big dogs were away, there was no one there to check their fighting or bring peace. They ganged up on Black Sister playfully but she bit Romochka hard and often and reduced White Sister to submission, snarling and snapping until she had the lighter dog on the ground baring throat and belly. She ignored or rebuked her brothers and