He listened to—he regarded everything with a kind of indignation such as extremes of surprise are apt to cause—drank everything in, as it were, and there in his heart of hearts these things were already existing—there, in some form or other they had always been—no matter what astounding novelties may have been sprung upon him here. Yes, whenever these things came upon him, causing him to leap to the right and the left and turn himself half around his own axis, it always seemed to me as though he were attempting to catch a glimpse of himself and inquiring: “What am I? Who am I? Am I really I?” At the very moment in which the corpse of the duck fell upon the water, Bashan made a leap forward, towards the edge of the escarpment, as though he wished to go down into the river-bed and plunge himself into the water. But then he thought of the current, clamped the brakes upon this sudden impulse, grew ashamed, and once more confined his efforts to staring.
I regarded him with anxiety. After the fall of the duck, I was of the opinion that we had seen enough, and proposed that we should go on. But he had already sat himself down upon his haunches. His face, with ears erected to their utmost extent, was addressed towards the other bank, and when I said to him: “Well, Bashan, shall we go on?” he merely gave a flirt of his head in my direction, as though one should say, not without a certain rudeness: “Please do not disturb me!” and kept on looking. And so I gave in, crossed my feet, leaned on my stick, and also went on watching to see what might now take place.
The duck—one of those very ducks which had so often in impudent security rocked itself on the water before our very noses, was driving on the water—a wreck—no one could tell which part of the bird was bow and which stern. The river is quieter here; the fall is not so great as farther up-stream. Nevertheless the carcass of the duck had been seized at once by the current, whirled about its axis and was beginning to float off. It was clear that if our good man was not merely concerned with having made a good pot-shot and a killing, but also with a more practical purpose, then he would be obliged to put his best leg forward. This he did without losing a moment—everything happened with immense rapidity. No sooner had the duck landed in the water than the man leaped, scrambled, almost tumbled down the escarpment. He carried the shot-gun in his outstretched arm, and once more I was reminded of the opera and the romantic novel, as he went leaping down over the stage-like setting of the stone slope—like some robber chieftain or smuggler bold in a melodrama. With careful calculation he kept a little to the right in an oblique direction, for the drifting duck was being carried away from him and it was necessary to head it off. This he actually succeeded in doing with the butt of his double-barrelled gun—extending this towards his kill with his body bent far forward and with his feet in the water. He managed to halt it in its downward course. And then carefully and not without much effort he steered and piloted it against the stones with the guiding gun-butt and so drew it ashore.