Free The City Jungle by Felix Salten

here!” But she bit her lip.
    Wolf’s ears flew up at the first call. At the second he sprang to his feet as if touched by a live wire.
    â€œWolf!” Marina called again.
    Then he saw her, saw her coming nearer. He threw himself against the bars, rejoicing with a deep, ringing bark that broke into a high note. He wagged his tail madly, contorting his body in an ecstasy of bliss, rolling his eyes, laughing and crying at once. And every gurgling, howling, jubilant bark, every movement, every contortion said but one thing—“At last, at last, you have come!”
    Marina turned to her chauffeur who was following her. “Let me have it.” He was holding a tray.
    â€œThe food?”
    â€œOf course.”
    â€œDon’t you give it to him, please,” said the assistant. “Let the keeper feed him.” He replied to Marina’s inquiring glance with, “He must get to trust him.”
    Meanwhile the wolf was standing pressed against the bars of his cage, singing his gentle impatience in high, long-drawn cadences.
    The keeper took the two dishes.
    â€œWhat do they contain?” asked the assistant and raised the cover curiously.
    â€œMilk,” said Marina with a laugh, “milk in one, and boiled rice with a little meat and marrow bones in the other.”
    The assistant managed a feeble smile. “Do you call that food for a wolf? We certainly never thought of that. We’d have a hard time providing him with that every day.”
    They finally decided that Marina should pay for the food.
    Then she was permitted to enter the narrow enclosure that separated visitors from the bars of the cage. She stretched both hands between the bars. Wolf stood on his hindlegs, and managed to put his forepaws on her shoulders. He tried to reach her face with his lapping tongue. Marina held his head firmly.
    â€œBe brave, old fellow,” she said. “Resign yourself as I’ve resigned myself. Be brave, be patient, it is only half as bad as death.”
    The keeper pushed the dishes into the cage, cautiously, as one gives food to wild animals.
    Marina pushed the wolf away from her gently. “Eat,” she begged, “eat your food!”
    Famished, the wolf leaped on his rice, but he kept careful watch and when Marina took a step away from the bars or merely moved, he rushed over to her.
    People had gathered and were staring curiously.
    Marina waited until Wolf had eaten everything. He came and stood by her. She scratched his head between his ears. “Be brave,” she whispered, “goodbye, I’ll come again!”
    As she released herself from him, he began to howl. She turned to him at once. “Be still, Wolf,” she commanded. “Take care of this!” She threw him another glove. “Take good care of it!”
    The wolf lay down and put his head on the glove, with intense gravity, duty-bound, and was silent.
    Marina left. The wall of people cut her off immediately from his view.

Chapter Eight
    Homecoming
    M IBBEL LAY STRETCHED OUT peaceably in his cage. He was lying on his left side, blinking indifferently out into the zoo where human faces loitered at the bars or sauntered past. Sometimes Mibbel fell asleep, sometimes he woke up, or was awakened by a human voice, a call, or by moaning roars from one of his kinsfolk in the neighboring cages. Then he would long for Hella, his mate.
    When would he see her again, nestling awake or asleep against her soft warm flanks? Why did they keep him from her? He was happy in her company, and would certainly not harm his little sons.
    That Hella had two little sons he had heard some time before from Vasta, the mouse.
    Why did they separate him from his own kin? He could not understand it at all. Nor did he understand those two-legged creatures in whose power his whole life had been spent.
    His thoughts had so often followed this closed ­circle, a hundred times a day, and they were following it again as he