Years passed.
§ 7
On Bog Hill, near the outskirts of Ré Valley, an elk bull was standing immovable.
It was dawn, when light and darkness intermingle, when the wild animal threads softly to his lair, tramples in a circle for a little while, and then crouches down and closes his eyelids. The few hours out of each twenty-four when death and life are locked in each other’s arms have come to an end. Here and there a drop of blood lies on the earth like some moist red flower, or a heap of loose feathers seems to tell where a bird has undressed; only that particular bird no longer needs feathers.
Still the bull elk on Bog Hill did not move a muscle. His head stood out clearly against the dawn which flooded the eastern sky like a lake of yellow light. His antlers resembled young bushes, and between the tines a dying star twinkled in silvery paleness.
It was no mortal animal standing there; it was a ghost from dead generations, an animal spirit from the eternal hunting-grounds.