In the winter the pines stood motionless and their trunks were a
greyish brown. The snow lay deep, swept into great drifts which
reared in a dark pile towards the ravine. The sky was a grey stretch;
the days short and almost dim.
At night the tree-boles cracked in the frost and their branches
broke. The pale moon shone calmly in the stillness, and seemed to
make the frost still harder.
The nights were weirdly horrible with the frost and the
phosphorescent light of the moon; the birds sat tucked in their nest,
pressing close together to keep themselves warm. Yet still the frost
penetrated their feathers, got into their skin and made their feet,
bills, and backs feel cold. The errant light of the moon was also
disquieting; it made the whole earth appear to be a great wolfish
eye--that was why it shone so terribly!
The birds had no sleep.
They turned painfully in their nest, changing their position; their
large green eyes emitted a greenish light. Had they possessed the
power of thought, they would certainly have longed for the advent of
morning.
While it was still an hour before dawn, as the moon was fading and
the first faint glimmer of daylight approaching, they began to feel
hungry; in their mouths there was a disagreeable, bitterish taste,
and from time to time their craws painfully contracted.
When the grey morning had at last come, the male bird flew off for
his prey; he flew slowly, spreading his wings wide and rarely
flapping them, vigilantly eying the ground beneath him. He usually
hunted for hares. It was sometimes a long while before he found one;
then he rose high over the ravine and set out on a distant flight
from his nest, far away from the ravine into the vast white expanse
of snow.
When there were no hares about, he seized young foxes and magpies,
although their flesh was unsavoury. The foxes would defend themselves
long and stubbornly, biting viciously, and they had to be attacked
cautiously and skilfully. It was necessary to strike the bill at once
into the animal's neck near its head, and, immediately clutching its
back with the talons, to rise into the air--for there the fox ceased
all resistance.
With his prey the bird flew back to his nest by the ravine, and here
he and his mate at once devoured it. They ate but once in the day,
and so satiated themselves that they could move only with difficulty
afterwards, and their crops hung low. They even ate up the snow which
had become soaked with blood. The female threw the bones that
remained down the side of the steep.
The male perched himself on the end of a root, ruffling his feathers
in an effort to make himself more comfortable; and the blood coursed
warmly through his veins after his meal.
The female was sitting in the nest.
Towards evening the male, for some unknown reason, began to croak.
"Oo-hoo-hoo-oo!" he cried in guttural tones, as though the sound in
his throat came from across the water.
Sometimes as he sat solitary on his height, the wolves would observe
him, and one of the famished beasts would begin clambering up the
precipitous side of the ravine.
The female would then take fright, and flap her wings; but the male
would look down calmly with his big, glistening eyes, watching the
wolf slowly clamber, slip and fall headlong downwards, bringing a
heap of snow with it, tumbling over and over and yelping in fright.
The twilight crept on.