Page:Complete Works of Count Tolstoy - 02.djvu/216

194 that people lived there in spite of the gnats, he determined to suffer, and patiently endured the stings. Strange to say, toward midday the sensation began to be agreeable to him. It even seemed to him that if it were not for that atmosphere of the gnats which surrounded him, and for that paste of gnats, which under his hand was smeared over his whole perspiring face, and for that disquieting burning over his whole body, the forest of that region would lose its character and charm for him. These myriads of insects were so appropriate to this wild, desperately rich vegetation, to this endless mass of beasts and birds that filled the woods, to this green foliage, to this redolent, warm air, to these runlets of muddy water which oozed on all sides from the Térek, and which bubbled somewhere under the overhanging branches, that that which before had appeared to him terrible and unbearable, now gave him pleasure.

Having passed by the spot where on the previous day they had seen the stag, and not meeting anything there, he wanted to take a rest. The sun stood straight over the forest, and its direct rays burnt his back and head every time he walked out on a clearing or into the road. Seven heavy pheasants weighed heavily on the small of his back. He found the stag's tracks of the previous day, crawled under the bush in the thicket where the stag had been lying the day before, and lay down near the lair. He examined the dark foliage all around him, the damp place, the dung of the previous day, the imprint of the stag's knees, a clump of black earth which the stag had kicked up, and his own tracks of the day before. He felt cool and comfortable; he thought of nothing, wished for nothing.

And suddenly he was overcome by such a strange feeling of causeless happiness and love for everything that, following an old boyish habit, he began to cross himself and to thank somebody for something. It suddenly