A tale

Chibitto, the disgraced dog, was immensely disgraced…
He never brushed his teeth, never took a bath, and, as a rule, slaked his thirst from puddles… and he grew up a very saucy and insolent dog…
You have to know that, in his homeland, all the living beings satisfied their hunger and slaked their thirst by inhaling the scent of grass, leaves, flowers, sea waves, fruit and the like…
Chib, as he was called in his “puppy-hood”, never brushed his teeth, never took a bath, and slaked his thirst from dirty pools…
That’s why he couldn’t tell various scents from each other, and didn’t care a pin for the sweet odor of spring.
Besides, he, the greedy thing, hunted birdies and chickens, and, very often, lifted eggs out of the nest on the sly…
Chibitto was disgracing the fragrant island… he set a bad example to other puppies carried away with discerning various scents and odors, and, one fine day, according to the decision of the council of elders, he was sent into exile. They stupefied him with the balmy winds, threw him in the boat that had no oars… and the boat sailed along the swift currents making a labyrinth around the island…
Chib came to himself on a certain forsaken shore. He bravely jumped out of the boat, gave his usual impudent bark, looked around with defiance, seeking for the victim he could bully… and, all of a sudden, How-How, a lousy mongrel appeared from the shrubs, and greeted him with an amiable bark. Chib snarled at him, and was about to snap at his neck with his sharp teeth when How-How rubbed against his legs… Chibp smelt some rancid odor…
It delighted him as he guessed the lousy creature and he were tarred with the same brush. He gave a loud bark, and made for the heart of the continent…
How-How, too, saw he had to do with an immensely impudent being, and followed him like a true lickspittle…
On their way, they met other dogs, and they, too, admitted Chibitto’s advantages. In a day or two, he was chosen a “chair-dog” of the pack consisting of creatures from distant lands. As for How-How, he was appointed to a post of a “sneak-in-chief”…
Most of the respectable dogs of the village were annoyed on seeing a pack of mongrels, and set about the warning bark.
But a few light-minded creatures were gripped with curiosity, joined the nasty pack, and promised How-How to help him in disgracing Cicino, the brave rooster…
How-How hoped he could succeed in setting that boaster on Chibitto, in other words, on the dark-eyed being… and that the dark-eyed being, in his turn, would bite his head off.
How-How outran his chums in order to lure the rooster from the yard: he was sure to hang about the place in solitude or watch the garden.

How-How slipped skillfully in the familiar yard, greeted, not without flattery, the variegated hens pacing the lawn, and was about to ask them with a false smile where Cicino was, when, all at once, the rooster standing arrogantly on the stump, flapped his wings and shouted at the sooty thing:
“Sure, you’ve come to make your apologies to me… but you just look at yourself! You’d better lick off the dirt from your mug…”
The mongrel was startled, he couldn’t utter a single word for quite a while, and at last, ventured to mumble:
“Yes, I’ve come… I wanted to make my apologies long ago, but those mongrels didn’t let me do that. Look at them waiting at the gates. Upon my word, I crave for getting rid of them,” and he set about licking his sooty mouth with great zeal.
The brave and “fast-winged” rooster guessed that things were not getting on well, gave a shrill crow, jumped down from the stump, and made for the gates.
Cicino, the smart rooster, was immensely smart in word and deed: he liked to wash his beak, to flap his wings shaking off the dust, and to polish his spurs while digging up the ground.
His nicely arranged golden crest shone and glittered…
The pack of mongrels waited at the gates. Their mouths watered on seeing the fat hens.
The dark-eyed mongrel Chibitto held up his head, and sniffed at the air rather suspiciously. Then he strolled round the yard, found an opening in the hedge, and, in no time, was ready to catch a fat hen digging the ground…
Meanwhile, the bold rooster turned round, flew like an arrow towards the mongrel, pecked at his head several times, and pulled out his hair. Then he was quick about flying up and “landed” near the nest of wasps on a tree at the roadside.
The injured mongrel spun round, and then, rushed up to the flock of hens cackling with curiosity.
They scattered in a twinkling of an eye… The brave rooster, with a shrill crow, threw up Chibitto’s stinking hair at the wasps dozing in their nest, and darted away to save the hens…
The horrid smell of Chibitto’s hair made the wasps fly out of the nest…
Soon, they were ready for the attack…
Some of them assaulted the disgraced mongrel, one wasp flew into his ear and stung him bitterly, others stung him mercilessly under the tail… and the rest of them drove away the mongrels lingering about the place…
The only creature they spared for Cicino’s sake was How-How, the lousy mongrel trembling at the wall…
The air was pierced with buzzing noise… Chibitto, the immensely disgraced mongrel, dashed away with a horrible whimper.
About twenty not less injured mongrels followed him barking.
Cicino went on crowing arrogantly… the scared and ashamed creature, How-How, made up his mind to turn over a new leaf: he wanted to live like other respectable dogs…
Chibitto splashed down in the river, stood under the waterfall, and didn’t step aside until washing away all the dirt…
Suddenly, he felt he wanted to go home… to the place where all the dogs had been brushing their teeth since their puppy-hood… where everyone took a bath and mastered the rules of inhaling various smells…
He swam down along the river, reached the seashore, and made his utmost to sniff at the balmy wind blowing from the sea… he was to find the way to the sweet-smelling island surrounded by the labyrinth of currents…
But, you know, he had a special – an odd sense of smell: he couldn’t feel the vivifying fragrance of the waves, to say nothing about the scent of the distant island shrouded in winds…He had a good nose just for a stinking carrion…
He couldn’t guess from where the wind blew, and had no idea about the kinds of winds and the directions of their gusts and rushes…
He barked, he howled, but succeeded neither in smelling nor in making out the direction of gusts.
At last, all exhausted and fatigued, he went and lay on the shore…
Night fell, the moon beamed in the sky… Chibitto slept soundly…
All at once, Terracco, the crawfish, the celebrated charity-monger, showed up. He was the most experienced physician among all the crawfishes of the region…
“You just look at this disgraced mongrel! Chibitto cries for his peaceful puppy-hood, craves for discerning various scents, but he doesn’t seem to know that his dream won’t come true until he washes and cleans out his mouth and nostrils… His jaws and nose stink with the smell of carrion… how can he smell any fragrance?” said the crawfish mockingly.
Then he put in motion his ten legs, made the soundly sleeping mongrel open his jaws, and with the help of his nippers, gave his mouth a good cleaning. Being through with that, he tickled him in the nostrils, and when Chibitto set about sneezing, he splashed water at him with his ten legs, and told him to take slow and deep breaths.
Chibitto almost came out of his sleep. Half-awake, he mused over his puppy-hood, and did his utmost to breathe in the fragrance of the sea.
Then he came out of his sleep once and for all… immediately made friends with Terracco, and wishing to get back to his country, set about training under the direction of the crawfish.
It was no joke to restore the lost years…but he did his best to gain the dignity peculiar to the inhabitants of the fragrant island…
He already kept on brushing his teeth at dawn and at nightfall, drank just pure water, and mastered the science of smelling… Soon he could tell winds from each other, found out all about the breeze… his eyes, too, cleared up, and no one ventured to call him “dark-eyed” any longer…
Terracco trained him with more zeal and diligence for the distant voyage, and taught him everything to the smallest detail about the undercurrents, because the way towards the fragrant island was surrounded by the labyrinth of such currents, but, as luck would have it, the celebrated physician didn’t remember the origin and names of some winds and currents himself…
Even the baby-inhabitants of the fragrant island were aware of such trifles… but Chibitto, first, had to get there…
Terracco hoped that in his own homeland, too, lived smart little ones who would willingly inform Chibitto about the origin, names and directions of different winds and currents…
And then, some day, they, too, together with the immensely disgraced mongrel Chibitto, would visit the fragrant island, the place where all the living beings satisfied their hunger and slaked their thirst by breathing in the scent of grass, leaves, flowers, sea waves, fruit, and the like…

Janri Gogeshvili

Translated from Georgian