"Zaro had heard something extraordinary. His description of someone trying to play a violin was setting it a little high, musically. It was like the plucking of a string on a double-bass. The note was loud and sustained, dying gradually away. It was being struck about once a minute and throbbed through the forest. We looked at one another in wonderment and started a stealthy general move in the direction of the sound.
Fortunately, and quitte accidentally, we reached the source from downwind - and froze. We were on the edge of a clearing, on the other side of which was a tree blasted by lightning. The main trunk had fallen outwards from the clearing without having torn itself completely free from its lower part.
At the break, about five or six feet above the ground, a long splinter stuck straight up. And as we watched the splinter was drawn back until it was bent like a bow. Then it was released, and the 'music' vibrated on our ears. The performer : a great black Siberian bear, reared up on his hind legs to his full and impressive height.
Peering round the trees we saw him pull at the splinter again and again, standing each time with his head on one side listening in comical puzzlement to the sound he was producing. The performance lasted several minutes before he got tired of it and shambled off - away from us."
- Slavomir Rawicz, The Long Walk, 1956.
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