I never felt so near dying or my last breath so close to my lips as then; four steps more, and my heart would have burst.
And all this for a partridge worth fifteen sous!
What a strange value passion puts upon things!
I very nearly fainted; but, the fainter I grew, the tighter did I squeeze the partridge to me, so that when I returned to consciousness I had never dropped hold of it for a single second.
M. Picot came up to me and helped me to rise. The partridge was still alive, so he knocked the back of its head on the butt of his gun and stuffed it in my bag, still fluttering in its death agony.
I turned the bag round so that I could gaze through the net and watch the poor creature's end.
Then I discovered that I had neither gun nor cap.
I began to search for my gun, and M. Picot sent Diane after my cap.
And that was the end of my hunting for that day. It was quite enough, thank goodness!