There
was a moment of calm. A great, clear day fell on the countryside like a
fisherman’s net. In the sky, suddenly depleted of rain but still
shivering, a stuttering groan floated by.
It
had the effect of a fist in my face. I stopped. I looked. I looked
especially in the direction of some high grass where it seemed that the
cry was coming from. Two great crows flew up from the grass. I
recognized them. They were the old savages of the plateau. The old, hard
ones who hunted rats and marmots during winter and who fly in the
spring towards our gentler slopes, towards more savory prey.
They rose above the grass, with a simple shrug of their shoulders. Just enough to set themselves in the olive tree.
The
groaning began again. The crows watched me. They began crackling like
breaking branches. It was a warning. Then, from the grass, a rook flew
up. A big rook heavily built, with a soft flight, which caught himself
in a shaft of wind, wobbled on its two wings and fell like a wave in the
emptiness of the valley. There was no mistaking it: it was a satisfied
animal.
The cry again.
I
chased away the crows with stone throws. I approached the grass. The
cry had stopped. I looked: there was a little shivering of fur which
guided me. It was a hare. A magnificent beast in pain and confused. She
had just given birth to her little ones, all new. They were two bloody
sponges all pockmarked by beak thrusts, torn apart by the bill of the
rook. The poor thing. She was lying on her side. She, too, was wounded,
her living flesh torn. The pain was visible like a large living thing.
It was stuck in that large wound of her belly and you could see it
moving inside like a beast wallowing in the mud.
The hare no longer moved.
On
my knees beside her, I gently caressed the thick fur burning with fever
and especially there on the spine of the neck where caresses are
gentlest. All that was left to do was give compassion, it was the only
thing left: compassion, an entire heart filled with compassion, to
soften, to say to the creature:
“No, you see, someone is suffering from your suffering, you are not alone. I cannot cure you, but I can protect you.”
I caressed and the creature did not complain any longer.
And
then, looking at the hare in the eyes, I saw that she was not
complaining any longer because I was even more terrible to her than the
crows.
It
was not appeasement that I had brought there, next to this agony, but
terror, a terror so great that from that point on it was useless to
complain, useless to call for aid. All that remained was to die.
I
was a man, and I had killed all hope. The creature died of fright
beneath my misunderstood compassion; my caressing hand was even crueler
than the beak of the rook.
A great fence separated us.