Page:The Complete Works of Lyof N. Tolstoi - 11 (Crowell, 1899).djvu/582

558 it stopped, squinting with its black eyes, the white of which had filled with blood. But again the tail cracked, and the bull sprang forward and reached the required spot. The striker approached, took aim, and struck. But the blow missed the mark. The bull leaped up, shook its head, roared, and, covered with blood, got free and rushed back. The men in the doorway all sprang aside. But the butchers, with the dash of men inured to danger, quickly caught the rope, again the tail operation, and again the bull was in the chamber, where he was dragged under the bar, from which he did not again escape. The striker quickly took aim at the spot where the hair divides like a star, and, notwithstanding the blood, found it, struck, and the fine animal, full of life, fell, its head and legs writhing as it was bled and the head skinned.

"There, the cursed devil has fallen on the wrong side again," grumbled the butcher as he cut the skin from the head.

Five minutes later the head was stuck up, red instead of black, without skin, the eyes, that had shone with such splendid color five minutes before, fixed and glassy.

Afterward I went into the compartment where small animals are slaughtered,—a spacious chamber with asphalt floor, and tables with backs, on which sheep and calves are killed. Here the work was already finished; there were only two butchers in the chamber. One was blowing into the leg of a dead lamb and patting the swollen stomach with his hand; the other, a young fellow in a frock besmeared with blood, was smoking a cigarette. There was no one else in the long, dark chamber, pervaded with the smell of blood. After me there entered a man, apparently an ex-soldier, bringing in a young yearling ram, black with a white mark on its neck, with its legs tied. This animal he placed upon one of the tables, as if upon a bed. The old soldier greeted the butchers, with whom he was evidently acquainted, and began to ask about when their master let them have leave. The fellow with the cigarette approached with