The seven heavy pheasants dragged painfully at his waist.

Having found the traces of yesterday's stag he crept under a bush into the thicket just where the stag had lain, and lay down in its lair.

He examined the dark foliage around him, the place marked by the stag's perspiration and yesterday's dung, the imprint of the stag's knees, the bit of black earth it had kicked up, and his own footprints of the day before.

He felt cool and comfortable and did not think of or wish for anything.

And suddenly he was overcome by such a strange feeling of causeless joy and of love for everything, that from an old habit of his childhood he began crossing himself and thanking someone.