It really was cold, not only because of the wind, which impudently blew right in upon us, but because of our wet clothes.
"Perhaps you'd like something to eat? I have bread, potatoes, and two roasted ravens ... have some?"
"Ravens?" I inquired inquisitively.
"Never tasted them? They're not bad...."
He chucked me a large piece of bread.
I didn't try the raven.
"Come, try them! In the autumn they're capital. And after all it is much more pleasant to eat raven angled for by your own hands than bread or fat given to you by the hand of a neighbour out of the window of his house, which, after you have accepted it as an alms, you always want to burn."
His remarks were reasonable—reasonable and interesting. The use of raven as an article of food was new to me but did not cause me any surprise I knew that in winter at Odessa "the lower orders" eat rats, and at Rostov—slugs. There was nothing improbable in it Even the Parisians, when in a state of siege, were glad to eat all sorts of rubbish, and there are people who all their life long live in a state of siege.
[1] Himself.
"And how do you catch your ravens?" my desire for information led me to ask.