He stood there for a long time, looking at the frozen scene. The fox hugged her three cubs to her – a last, desperate attempt to protect them from the bitter cold. The wind whistled across the frozen lake, and everything seemed not real – more like a picture painted by winter itself.
Instead of continuing on, as anyone else would have done, he… sat down. He pulled off his gloves. He placed his palm on the ice, directly above the fox’s head. Then he opened his backpack, took out an old folding stove and some fuel. And began to melt the ice.
He warmed them hour after hour. Unfortunately, the fox had no chance. But suddenly – one of the cubs, freed from the grip of the ice, moved. Then the other one too. He couldn’t believe his eyes.
By morning, two of the three little foxes were alive.
He wrapped them in his leather jacket, warmed them, and then – and this is the most incredible thing – took them home. There, in a tiny village where people are accustomed to silence and solitude, he… became the father of two little foxes.
Now he doesn’t go to the lake alone every morning. He runs after them, as if on command, two red-furred creatures who have already grown up beside him. And in the village they whisper:
“They are the ones… the ones saved. From the ice. From death. From oblivion.”
And there is respect in their eyes, mixed with a little superstitious fear.
And he just smiles and says:
— I just couldn’t leave them there.
He is such a person.
