Otu was the name of an old lazy cat. Actually Otu wasn't all that old yet, perhaps only five or six, thus at the age which is even rather youthful for the cat. Yet being lazy made Otu old. Otu had real trouble getting his nose lifted from his stomach or tail, he did nothing but sleep, at times beside the warm stove, at others by the side of the kitchen range, then again in the cosy hole underneath the chimney pipe. However, when nobody was in he climbed onto the bed, made himself a nice hollow into the cover which added extra flavour to his sleep, or climbed altogether onto the pillow and curled up there like a snake in sunshine.

Oh, yes, Otu knew to worship sleep, but he was very indifferent and cool towards mice and rats. Anu, the lady of the house, once saw how a mouse ran past Otu almost beneath his nose; Otu slightly opened his sleepy eyes—and then carried on sleeping. Otu seemed to ask himself if he had really seen this mouse or had dreamt it. Whichever way it had been, Otu was prepared neither in the dream nor in the reality to be bothered to mess about with such things as jumping up and swiping the mouse with his paw. As if a pall of laziness hung over Otu all the time and this is why his countenance looked so old, so endlessly sleepy, aloof and tired. As if this eternal sleeping beside the warm stove had been a terribly hard and loathsome task, which one could not avoid doing and yet which bored one endlessly.

Mistress Anu gave Otu an occasional thrashing, tore him out of his sleep and threw him out into a snowdrift. Oh, how Otu complained then, how offended and angry he was! And how harsh and bitter his face was! He sat in the snow-drift like an innocent lamb whom the lady had misused badly. And for a long time he wouldn't move from there in the snow-drift, come what may, even death or frozen paws. Only when the frost started to bite rather harshly did Otu revive somewhat. Slowly, slowly, pushing down his distaste of moving, Out stretched out of the snow-drift—not any further! but to the door and started to miaow sorrowfully. Only that he didn't even feel like miaowing. Perhaps once in a quarter of an hour he did miaow—rather shortly, as a long miaow would have required more effort. He was lazy enough as it was, but supremely so when it came to miaowing. Otu lacked everything apart from sleep.

Otu sat then behind the door, miaowed woefully once every quarter of an hour, felt cold and waited. When the weather wasn't too cold, he tried from time to time to take a nap. And when the door opened, Otu shot inside, as if somebody had thrown him in. Otu was a master for that. For this he was not lazy.

There was still another case when Otu wasn't lazy. The lady of the house had found this out in the course of time.

For example when she left a bowl of milk on the table and cast a glance at the cat lying like a log beside the stove, she saw that this cat was so deeply and sweetly asleep that he seemed not to see or hear a thing. The face of the cat was full of such heavy tiredness and weariness that one felt quite sorry for the poor fellow who had to endure this endless sleeping.

And the lady went out, being totally unconcerned about her milk: this poor miserable creature grappling with sleep wouldn't manage to get at the milk from beside the stove. Oh no, this one would fall asleep halfway or collapse from exhaustion at the table.

However, when the lady returned after a while, she was surprised to find that there were dusty pawmarks near the bowl and the level of the milk had gone down quite considerably, yet the poor sufferer beside the stove continued to be tormented by his sleep, face bitter and troubled, whiskers sulky and eyes closed, as if he could never open them again.

Well then Mistress Anu shouted:

"Otu!"

But Otu had sunk so deep into the abyss of sleep that he didn't seem to have any inkling that waking up ever existed in this world.

"Otu, you rascal, you have been at the milk-bowl!" called the lady.

Yet Otu was in the heaviest sleep and even the tips of his ears didn't move.

Only when the lady stepped near Otu and pushed him not particularly gently with her foot did Otu open his sad eyes troubled with sleep and look uncomprehendingly and most reproachfully into the lady's face.

"You have been at the milk, Otu!" bawled the lady again. "You'll pay for it!"

Otu was so tired and lacklustre that he lowered his head back onto his tail and prepared to disappear again into the depths of sleep.

On such occasions Otu was taken by his neck and thrown out into a snow-drift or some twigs were brought and Otu received short shrift.

Otu put up with this "injustice" as a silent sufferer and didn't change one bit for that. Sleeping and stealing still remained his favourite pastimes.

Mistress Anu found that out, too, how Otu stole. It was sometimes, secretly, even funny to look at. It was already funny that Otu, who outwardly was so deeply asleep and didn't seem to know a thing that went on around him, nevertheless managed to find the right moment for stealing. When something was left within Otu's reach, he never missed a chance however deeply asleep he had been before. Whether it was a bowl of milk or a gravyboat, a soup-tureen or a birch-bark butterdish—if it was within Otu's reach, then, when nobody was in the room or in the kitchen, Otu's sleep evaporated as if by magic and Otu was as sprightly as a year-old kitten.

The lady had seen it. As soon as Otu knew that he was alone, his usually small, sleep-plagued eyes opened quickly and now they were clear and round like lamp-globes. He threw a few glances from those globes in all directions—and Otu, otherwise so weak in the paws, suddenly came alive and walked to the table as if not feeling his paws beneath him. With one big jump he was on the table and without more ado put his nose into a wooden tub, from where he helped himself. And the sweet licking proclaimed then that the milk, soup, broth or some other good food found in the tub tasted very well for Otu.

And Otu was careful: he didn't overdo it. He kept within limits. He took a certain quantity so that it wouldn't be very noticeable, licked his whiskers nicely dry—and quickly back to the stove. There he curled up again, the nose went onto the tail—and Otu had as if never moved.

In summer things were even better. Then one could sleep anywhere: on the roof of the cattle-shed, on the steps of the barn, behind the summer-kitchen or even simply on the grass outside the house. Muri the dog was old, he wasn't interested in chasing cats any longer, and Otu didn't have to worry about the master and mistress, what could they do to him; moreover, there weren't any snow-drifts in summer and it was too much trouble to get painful twigs from the birches in summer—the leaves got in the way.

Thus Otu lived comfortably and was satisfied with life in general.

Yet those who were not satisfied with him were the master and mistress.

Mice and rats did them a lot of damage, yet the cat—with the honorary title king of mice—loved to help himself from a milk-bowl or a soup-tureen; sometimes even stealing a piece of meat from the table.

This started to annoy the master and mistress more and more as time wore on—and because of this clouds appeared in Otu's sky of happiness.

Still, who knows, maybe those clouds brought Otu better luck. Perhaps the story will show in due course.

The master and mistress had discussed Otu's behaviour and manners rather often, but it was difficult to reach a decision.

The master, old Aado, had threatened simply to kill this lazy blighter of a cat and bring from the village another, more alert one.

But Mistress Anu was against the cat being killed.

"I won't have this death on my conscience," she explained. "Be Otu what he is, nevertheless he is our cat and has grown up in our home. One feels for him still. Somehow I don't want him so... "

"Well, but what kind of a dear is he, when he steals like that?" laughed Master Aado. "And the mice will eat the noses from our faces."

"That's true," agreed Anu. "But to kill or drown him, the old devil—this is no better either."

"Well, what should one do then? the master shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know either what to do with him," the mistress, too, shrugged.

And thus the discussions always finished.

To palm the cat off on some neighbour or relative—the lady was too decent to permit that either.

And thus Otu's lazy life continued.

But once during dinner, knocking his pipe against the table, Master Aado mentioned to his wife:

"Do you know I have worked out what to do with our Otu."

The lady was very interested, yet she said:

"Don't start again about killing him with a blow or drowning or even hanging... "

The master smiled smugly.

"Nothing of the kind. I won't take his life. But he should see how he manages to fend for himself. That is most appropriate."

"What do you intend to do?" asked the lady.

"I'll put him into a sack, take him into the forest and let him loose there... Aha! He'll have to see whether he is able to catch mice or not."

The lady reflected.

"Well," she said then, "now in spring and summer that's all very well, if he cares even a little to look for mice. But in winter he'll freeze. And I won't have that again on my conscience."

Now the master became annoyed.

"Take it or leave it, I'll take him into the forest. It's only spring now. Before winter comes he'll have plenty of time to look for a new home after he has mended his ways and learnt to work. A diligent cat is welcome everywhere; that can already be recognized from looks. Nobody wants such a sulky sleepyhead and grumpy-faced lazy-bones like Otu is now, and if he perishes there in the forest, it will be because he was too lazy to look for his own food. It will serve him right. At least I will not have done it with my own hands then."

That was the end of the discussion and the master kept his promise.

On one occasion, when he set out to go to the village, he lifted Otu like a lazy log from the grass, put him into a bag a little bigger than the cat himself was and threw it over his shoulder.

Otu found that in the bag, on the master's back, it was warm and comfortable enough to rest,—and he fell peacefully asleep.

It was a small roadside house where Master Aado and Mother Anu lived. Their children were already grown and had left home to work elsewhere—both in town and in the village. Master Aado and Mother Anu had a small plot of land, a cow, a pig, hens, Muri the dog and Otu the cat. Yet Otu was taken away from home now and his future was uncertain.

It was rather a large forest—a good many kilometres long and wide—into which Master Aado shook Otu out of the bag. The road went through this forest.

Otu fell from the bag into the undergrowth and was very angry that such undignified jokes were played on him. He treated it as a joke that he had been shaken about in a bag for a long time and then thrown out, Otu had not the slightest idea that the master had all this time taken him further away from home. He squatted between some bushes and his aged face, lazy from constant sleeping, was very sullen about such a childish prank the master had played on him.

The master watched him for quite some time, partly with regret, partly with delight and left then. Otu continued sitting down—the weather was warm—and thought that he had been taken in the bag to the fir-grove that was on a hillside near home. Otu had been occasionally in this fir-grove, it was not far. Of course it happened only very seldom, as Otu didn't care for long walks. Yet sometimes he, too, undertook such a walk for pleasure in nice weather.

Why the master brought him here—what's more in a sack—that was beyond Otu's comprehension. However he had previous experience of people playing stupid jokes on him, such as being tossed into a snow-drift, being thrashed with birch-twigs, being shut into the dark threshing-barn and so on. Otu never liked those jokes. In the snow-drift it was cold, being hit with birch-twigs was painful and sitting in the threshing-barn was boring, despite mice scurrying round in there, which was actually the reason Otu had been put there. Yet those tiny squeaking animals didn't interest Otu one little bit.

This too is a silly joke being brought here into the fir-grove—particularly in the bag!—thought Otu to himself, very crossly. However—he looked lazily and smugly into his whiskers—it isn't unpleasant here. The sun is shining warmly, soft moss is underneath the stomach—let's have a nice nap here, then we'll see how to get back home, it's a long way—many steps—and it is no laughing matter to walk that far in warm weather.

And Otu did what he was used to doing: he curled tip nicely, and sank into a deep sleep.

His sleep was sweet, particularly as the lady had fed him well before the master put him into the bag, because the kind-hearted lady felt pity for Otu. Otu faced a dark future after all—let him eat well before leaving home; who knows whether he'll ever get anything else to eat.

And Mistress Anu had even cried secretly a little without the master seeing it, and she had wiped her eyes when he put Otu into the bag.

That of course Otu didn't know, in any case it wouldn't have interested him much. For him it was important that his stomach was full and his sleep pleasant, about everything else he was not particularly concerned.

And so Otu lay asleep on soft moss, the sun was warming him nicely and the birds twittered in the bushes. One, two, even three hours passed.

Suddenly Otu was woken up by the sound of a crow cawing on top of a tree. Otu had heard crows cawing before. Those birds couldn't tolerate cats and started to croak as soon as they saw one. Otu was annoyed about his sleep being disturbed, and he arranged himself more comfortably in order to continue his sleep, hoping this large-beaked noise-maker would soon disappear from here.

Yet the crow didn't intend to fly away or fall silent. There was something very threatening and angry in his voice, he flew from one tree to another and cried out in a quarrelsome tone.

Of course, thought Otu, I am not at home, I am in the fir-grove. So, so. I have noticed before, too, that they—the crows—get particularly angry and shout at me when I go a bit further away from home. Perhaps they hope to get me for their catch. Well, they shouldn't hope, they can't do me any harm however much they shout.

But suddenly some wondrous strange smell penetrated the lazy cat's nose. This smell... Otu was a lazy domestic cat, yet his forebears had once lived in the forest and fought to preserve their lives. The last remnants of those primeval habits had not totally vanished from Otu's body and spirit. Despite being lazy, the blood of his old primeval forebears was flowing in him and the memories of ancient times re-awoke in him with this scent.

This smell... The fur on Otu's neck bristled when he detected this smell. And—wonder of wonders—he was up the nearest tree like a shot. It was very quick, unbelievably quick for Otu! Otu scrabbled up the tree-trunk and didn't stop before he sat down on a thick branch several meters high.

Indeed it was high time that Otu did it, as at the same moment that he jumped onto the tree, a red beast, green eyes shining in his head and a big tail up like a flare, leapt out from behind a bush. Reynard just about caught Otu, only some few centimetres were lacking for the fox's claws to grasp Otu and the latter would have become a pretty fine meal for the sly earth-dweller. Pst, pst, Otu spat from the tree, frightened out of his life and cross. What a ghastly affair! A fox in the home fir-grove! He had never before experienced such a thing. Although he had never seen a fox before, the blood of his ancient ancestors told him what kind of a fellow the fox was and what to fear from him.

The fox sat underneath the tree and eyed the cat with ineffable longing. How he wished he too had such claws that would take him quickly up to the cat! Such a lovely fat plump cat, such a beautiful meal! The good and lazy life had made Otu nicely fat. The fox as an expert in those matters was extremly well able to observe and value it. Yet, how bothersome, now this lovely steak was sitting high up on a bough, cursing and swearing at the fox and spitting in extreme rage.

So be it, thought the fox—let's see, whose resolve to hold out is stronger. You have only a branch to sit upon high up there and you can't walk or move at all. I have soft moss for sitting on and down here I can move round in a wide circle keeping an eye on you from quite some distance. We'll see, we'll see whether we'll get this steak.

And the fox settled down for the siege. He peered longingly towards Otu from time to time and then walked around once again to see if he could find a mouse or an insect for a bite to eat, until this pretty lump became tired perching up in that tree and fell down.

Poor Otu! So far he had just loved to lie down—next to a warm stove or on soft grass, sometimes even on the pillow belonging to his mistress. That had been good and comfortable and hadn't demanded any endurance from limbs and muscles which were really soft and tender from this constant lying down just as if they had been made of cotton wool. Yet, now Otu had to remain motionless for hours for the sake of his life on a branch which wasn't exactly narrow; however for somebody, who up to now had only sat on soft grass or a pillow, to do this on a branch—for hours on end—was no laughing matter!

The fox walked about, ate some snails and insects from time to time, threw himself down and rolled about, paws dangling in the air, growled to himself with relish and pretended to be most comfortable, so as to drive the cat to despair. The cat looked at all this from high up and his seat seemed all the more painful and his limbs screamed from the agony of stiffness. What a disaster! If only he had walked, run, even stretched himself a bit more before; if only he had caught some mice even just for pleasure and in so doing had exerted himself a little, had worn himself out, had practised in order to endure difficulties! But he had always nothing but lain down, been idle, had hardly moved his tail—not to mention the paws—, had done nothing but slept and stolen ready-cooked food from the table, trouble-free, without worries.

The tables were now turned completely for Otu. Such a lazy way of life could now become the reason for his demise.

If his limbs had been used to more physical effort, then it wouldn't have been bad at all to sit high up in this tree and laugh at the fox. Yet now despair awaited him. The fox didn't think of leaving, Otu was exhausted from sitting in one place and keeping himself upright in the tree to the extent that he actually trembled.

The fox below noticed this and was sure of his catch. In the end he didn't move away from the tree any more, just sat there, snapped from time to time after some midges or flies who attacked him, and eyed with growing appetite the lunch he was going to get soon—as the morning had already become lunchtime during these events.

Now and then the fox got up, spun his tail brusquely and strutted proudly round the tree, driving the poor cat even more to despair with his impudence.

How long was this to last?

Otu felt in the end that he couldn't last out very much longer. His limbs were stiff and ached awfully, he trembled as if with fever and miaowed now more pitifully as never before, while at home he had even been lazy to open his mouth.

He was also dispirited by the fact that from here high up in the tree he had noticed that he wasn't near his home. All around was just forest, forest, forest, trees without end, as many as Otu had never seen before. Where was he? Where had he got to? Why was he not near the home? Why was this place not the familiar fir-grove?

All this was terrible!

And a red plunderer, a bloodthirsty enemy was waiting underneath to eat Otu up, to make Otu into a tasty meal for himself!

Otu felt now how lovely it would have been at home, even in the familiar birch-grove, but he also feared that he would never again get there, as his powers of endurance were almost at an end.

Otu was about to faint and fall off, yet then he escaped—through a mere coincidence.

The tree on top of which he was sitting, stood rather near the road, as Master Aado had not taken the cat far from it. However, every now and then people moved on the road—some walking, some with a cart. This of course had no real significance, as the fox hid in the bushes when people went past and afterwards continued his siege. Nobody noticed the cat up there, the tree was after all a fair distance from the road and the cat was sitting hidden in the branches. Some passers-by perhaps even heard the miaowing of the cat, yet thought then that it had only seemed so to them, that it had just been a mistake. After all why should there be a cat in the forest! And even if somebody had noticed the cat, they wouldn't have gone into the forest to investigate. Everybody had their own cats at home. A cat sitting high up in a tree could be considered unusual, yet perhaps even for that there was a good reason.

Thus the normal passers-by did not disturb the fox in his quest for the quarry and the cat couldn't hope for any help from them either.

But as it happened, one of them had a large dog with him. This one was snooping round in the bushes near the road and stumbled upon the fox's tracks. And Otu saw then from the tree how his mentor shot off—the dog after him. Wow! what a pleasant sight that was for Otu. The fox's tail wasn't at all now so splendidly upright as it had been not so long ago. No, this tail was flying now behind the fox like an old and tattered broom. And Reynard himself took to his heels in such a manner that his feet hardly touched the ground. In this way they disappeared into the forest—the fox in front and the dog in pursuit. And Otu was shrewd enough to come down immediately and start to go like the clappers in the opposite direction. In any event he wouldn't have managed to last out in the tree any longer. The dog saved him, so to say, at the very last minute.

And Otu fled and fled. Where to? He didn't know. Only further away from this terrible place where death had been waiting in the wings. The threat of death had swept Otu's laziness away in the space of a few hours.

Otu ran as fast as he could, but he couldn't run for very long, as he wasn't used to it. Besides before that he had been tormented in the tree for a long time and this had tired him terribly and worn him out. Yet he was now, compared with what he had been like before, a more alert and nimble animal. He did get tired but that didn't kill. He stopped for a rest in a thicket and panted hard, but there was nothing seriously wrong with him for all that.

This predicament was dreadful for Otu. He still didn't understand how he had arrived in this large unknown forest. The master had brought him here—that could have been the case, but why? Otu didn't know. That this had been done because of his laziness, neither this fact nor anything else occurred to Otu. He remembered only that he had been put into a bag where he had fallen agreeably asleep: after that he had been rocked in the bag for a while—and then suddenly this forest! Unknown, ghastly, gruesome forest, where there wasn't a house, nor a warm stove, nor a comfortable bed on which it was possible to sleep snugly when nobody was in the room.

Otu panted in the bushes and was very depressed. On top of everything else he felt hunger starting to trouble him. He had made enormous efforts that day, had done gymnastics in a tree and had had a long run, and this all had despite the fear and despair induced a hearty appetite within him. However, the mistress wasn't there any more to whom one could go to cadge food and who, kindhearted as she was, would always give something. Or even if she didn't, then at least she would leave something somewhere, to which Otu, a sly creature that he was, knew how to help himself despite being a lazy cat.

No, here in the forest there were no milk-bowls or soup-tureens, nor butter dishes or cream jugs. Here one had to look after oneself to obtain something.

However, to start with Otu could neither understand all this nor adapt himself to it. He crouched underneath a bush and made no move to obtain food. His face was morose and sullen as always, only his eyes were more clear and wider than usual—his latest experiences had already made them more alert.

The evening arrived, the sun was setting, the forest started to grow dark. Now on top of everything else Otu began to be tormented by fear. Of course he had been afraid of the fox in the daylight too and had wisel remained near a big tree, in order to be able to scoot up the tree if the need arose. But darkness could conceal other dangers too. Despite seeing quite well in the dark, the cat still feels afraid of the darkness to some extent, as he knows instinctively that in the dark of the night there are many more enemies moving around in the forest than in the daytime.

When the night had finally fallen in the forest, Otu could not keep still any more. Hunger, fear and anxiety made him move on. It was necessary to do something, to get at least a little bite to eat and to find somewhere a more secure place, where one could hide and sleep. Until now it had been lovely to sleep beside the stove, also in the bag on the master's back it had still been comfortable and it had even been pleasant to lie down in the forest in the warm sunshine, when the horrors and troubles of the new situation were still unknown. However, now Otu could not fall easily asleep in the forest. A hiding place was urgently needed where one could climb into to feel well and peaceful.

To be continued in Part 2...

Jacob Baranski

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