XX.
On the following day Olénin went without the old man
to the place where they had scared up the stag. Instead
of going through the gate, he climbed over a hedge of
brambles, just as everybody else in the village would do.
He had not yet got all the thorns out of his mantle, when
his dog, which had run ahead, startled two pheasants. The
moment he entered into the buckthorn thicket, pheasants
flew up at every step. (The old man had not shown him
this place the day before, intending to hunt there with
snares.) Olénin killed five pheasants out of twelve shots,
and, crawling for them under the thorn bushes, grew so
fatigued that the perspiration trickled down his face in
streams. He called back his dog, uncocked his gun, put
the bullets on the shot, and, warding off the gnats with
the sleeves of his mantle, slowly walked toward the place
where he had been the day before. It was, however,
impossible to keep back the dog, which ran upon trails on
the path, and he killed two more pheasants; he lost his
time with them, and did not come to the familiar spot
before midday.
It was a very clear, quiet, warm day. The morning dampness was dried up even in the forest, and millions of gnats literally covered his face, back, and hands. The black dog looked gray under a covering of gnats. The mantle, through which the gnats thrust their stings, looked just as gray. Olénin wanted to run away from the pests; he even thought that it would be impossible to pass a summer in the village. He started homewards; but considering
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