Page:Gorky - Reminiscences of Leo Nicolayevitch Tolstoi.djvu/72

 The mushrooms are gone, but in the hollows Is the heavy smell of mushroom dampness. . . . Very good, very true."

Suddenly a hare got up under our feet. Leo Nicolayevitch started up excited, his face lit up, and he whooped like a real old sportsman. Then, looking at me with a curious little smile, he broke into a sensible, human laugh. He was wonderfully charming at that moment.

Another time he was looking at a hawk in the park: it was hovering over the cattle-shed, making wide circles suspended in the air, moving its wings very slightly as if undecided whether or not the moment to strike had come. Leo Nicolayevitch stood up shading his eyes with his hand and murmured with excitement: "The rogue is going for our chickens. Now, now. . . . it's coming. . . O, he's afraid. The groom is there, isn't he? I'll call the groom. . . ."

And he shouted to the groom. When he shouted, the hawk was scared, swept upwards, swung away, and disappeared. Leo Nicolayevitch sighed, apparently reproaching himself, and said: "I should not have shouted; he would have struck all the same. . . ."

Once in telling him about Tiflis, I mentioned the name of V. V. Flerovsky-Bervi. "Did you know him?" Leo Nicolayevitch asked with interest: "Tell me, what is he like?"

I told him about Flerovsky: tall, long-bearded, thin, with very large eyes; how he used to wear a