The One

"The One" by Alexei Borodkin (abridged edition of a novel)
А wolf howled at night for the third or fourth night in a row. He did not howled neither loudly and nor pitifully, but somehow ... consistently, as if he were speaking or telling someone something. The wolf howled with long pauses in between, with intonations and sometimes even with excitement.
Why would he want to do that of all of these things? After all, it was a moonless night.