A loud, thrilling cry rang out suddenly over our heads, and was at once
repeated a little in front.
‘Those are belated cranes flying to you, to the north,’ said Alice; ‘would
you like to join them?’
‘Yes, yes! raise me up to them.’
We darted upwards and in one instant found ourselves beside the flying
flock.
The big handsome birds (there were thirteen of them) were flying in a
triangle, with slow sharp flaps of their hollow wings; with their heads and
legs stretched rigidly out, and their breasts stiffly pressed forward, they
pushed on persistently and so swiftly that the air whistled about them. It
was marvellous at such a height, so remote from all things living, to see
such passionate, strenuous life, such unflinching will, untiringly cleaving
their triumphant way through space. The cranes now and then called to one
another, the foremost to the hindmost; and there was a certain pride,
dignity, and invincible faith in these loud cries, this converse in the
clouds. ‘We shall get there, be sure, hard though it be,’ they seemed to
say, cheering one another on. And then the thought came to me that men,
such as these birds--in Russia--nay, in the whole world, are few.
‘We are flying towards Russia now,’ observed Alice. I noticed now, not for
the first time, that she almost always knew what I was thinking of. ‘Would
you like to go back?’
‘Let us go back ... or no! I have been in Paris; take me to Petersburg.’
‘Now?’
‘At once.... Only wrap my head in your veil, or it will go ill with me.’
Alice raised her hand ... but before the mist enfolded me, I had time to
feel on my lips the contact of that soft, dull sting....