"Start it now, start it!"
And as Demyán shouted this, the peasants in the circuit cried, each with
a different tone of voice: "Come now! OO-oo-oo!" and the women cried, in
their thin voices: "Ai! Eekh!"
The bear was in the circle. Demyán was driving him. In the circuit the
people shouted, and only my companion and I stood still, did not speak
or move, and waited for the bear. I stood, and looked, and listened, and
my heart went pitapat. I was clutching my gun and trembling. Now, now he
will jump out, I thought, and I will aim and shoot, and he will fall--
Suddenly I heard to the left something tumbling through the snow, only
it was far away. I looked into the tall pine forest: about fifty steps
from me, behind the trees, stood something large and black. I aimed and
waited. I thought it might come nearer. I saw it move its ears and turn
around. Now I could see the whole of him from the side. It was a huge
beast. I aimed hastily. Bang! I heard the bullet strike the tree.
Through the smoke I saw the bear make back for the cover and disappear
in the forest. "Well," I thought, "my business is spoiled: he will not
run up to me again; either my companion will have a chance to shoot at
him, or he will go through between the peasants, but never again toward
me." I reloaded the gun, and stood and listened. The peasants were
shouting on all sides, but on the right, not far from my companion, I
heard a woman yell, "Here he is! Here he is! Here he is! This way! This
way! Oi, oi, oi! Ai, ai, ai!"
There was the bear, in full sight. I was no longer expecting the bear
to come toward me, and so looked to the right toward my companion. I saw
Demyán running without the snow-shoes along the path, with a stick in
his hand, and going up to my companion, sitting down near him, and
pointing with the stick at something, as though he were aiming. I saw my
companion raise his gun and aim at where Demyán was pointing. Bang! he
fired it off.
"Well," I thought, "he has killed him." But I saw that my companion was
not running toward the bear. "Evidently he missed him, or did not strike
him right. He will get away," I thought, "but he will not come toward
me."
What was that? Suddenly I heard something in front of me: somebody was
flying like a whirlwind, and scattering the snow near by, and panting. I
looked ahead of me, but he was making headlong toward me along the path
through the dense pine growth. I could see that he was beside himself
with fear. When he was within five steps of me I could see the whole of
him: his chest was black and his head was enormous, and of a reddish
colour. He was flying straight toward me, and scattering the snow in all
directions. I could see by the bear's eyes that he did not see me and in
his fright was rushing headlong. He was making straight for the pine
where I was standing. I raised my gun, and shot, but he came still
nearer. I saw that I had not hit him: the bullet was carried past him.
He heard nothing, plunged onward, and did not see me. I bent down the
gun, almost rested it against his head. Bang! This time I hit him, but
did not kill him.
He raised his head, dropped his ears, showed his teeth,--and straight
toward me. I grasped the other gun; but before I had it in my hand, he
was already on me, knocked me down, and flew over me. "Well," I thought,
"that is good, he will not touch me." I was just getting up, when I
felt something pressing against me and holding me down. In his onrush he
ran past me, but he turned around and rushed against me with his whole
breast. I felt something heavy upon me, something warm over my face, and
I felt him taking my face into his jaws. My nose was already in his
mouth, and I felt hot, and smelled his blood. He pressed my shoulders
with his paws, and I could not stir. All I could do was to pull my head
out of his jaws and press it against my breast, and I turned my nose and
eyes away. But he was trying to get at my eyes and nose. I felt him
strike the teeth of his upper jaw into my forehead, right below the
hair, and the lower jaw into the cheek-bones below the eyes, and he
began to crush me. It was as though my head were cut with knives. I
jerked and pulled out my head, but he chawed and chawed and snapped at
me like a dog. I would turn my head away, and he would catch it again.
"Well," I thought, "my end has come." Suddenly I felt lighter. I looked
up, and he was gone: he had jumped away from me, and was running now.
When my companion and Demyán saw that the bear had knocked me into the
snow, they dashed for me. My companion wanted to get there as fast as
possible, but lost his way; instead of running on the trodden path, he
ran straight ahead, and fell down. While he was trying to get out of the
snow, the bear was gnawing at me. Demyán ran up to me along the path,
without a gun, just with the stick which he had in his hands, and he
shouted, "He is eating up the gentleman! He is eating up the gentleman!"
And he kept running and shouting, "Oh, you wretched beast! What are you
doing? Stop! Stop!"
The bear listened to him, stopped, and ran away. When I got up, there
was much blood on the snow, just as though a sheep had been killed, and
over my eyes the flesh hung in rags. While the wound was fresh I felt no
pain.
My companion ran up to me, and the peasants gathered around me. They
looked at my wounds, and washed them with snow. I had entirely forgotten
about the wounds, and only asked, "Where is the bear? Where has he
gone?"
Suddenly we heard, "Here he is! Here he is!" We saw the bear running
once more against us. We grasped our guns, but before we fired he ran
past us. The bear was mad: he wanted to bite me again, but when he saw
so many people he became frightened. We saw by the track that the bear
was bleeding from the head. We wanted to follow him up, but my head hurt
me, and so we drove to town to see a doctor.
The doctor sewed up my wounds with silk, and they began to heal.
A month later we went out again to hunt that bear; but I did not get the
chance to kill him. The bear would not leave the cover, and kept walking
around and around and roaring terribly. Demyán killed him. My shot had
crushed his lower jaw and knocked out a tooth.
This bear was very large, and he had beautiful black fur. I had the skin
stuffed, and it is lying now in my room. The wounds on my head have
healed, so that one can scarcely see where they were.