the ravine was deep and dark.

its yellow clay slopes, overgrown with red-trunked pines, presented craggy ridges; at the bottom flowed a brook. above, right and left, grew a pine forest—dark, ancient, covered with lichen and shubbery. overhead was a grey, heavy, low-hanging sky.

man seldom came to this wild and savage spot.

the trees had in the course of time been uprooted by storms of wind and rain, and had fallen just where they stood, strewing the earth, rotting, emitting thick pungent odours of decaying pinewood. thistles, chicory, milfoil, and wormwood had flourished there for years undisturbed, and they now covered the ground with thorny bristles. there was a den of bears at the bottom of the ravine; many wolves prowled through the forest.

over the edge of the steep, yellow slope hung a fallen pine, and for many years its roots were exposed, raised on high in the air. they looked like some petrified octopus stretching up its hideous tentacles to the elements, and were already covered with lichen and juniper.

in the midst of these roots two great grey birds—a male and a female—had built themselves a nest.

they were large and grey, thickly covered by yellowish-grey and cinnamon-coloured feathers. their wings were short, broad, and strong; their feet, armed with great claws, were covered with black down. surmounting their short, thick necks were large quadratic heads with yellow, rapaciously curved beaks and round, fierce, heavy looking eyes.

the female was the smaller. her legs were more slender and handsome, and there was a kind of rough, heavy gracefulness in the curves of her neck. the male was fierce and stiff; his left wing did not fold properly; he had injured it at the time he had fought other males for his mate.

there was steepness on three sides of their nest. above it was the wide expanse of the sky. around, about, and beneath it lay bones washed and whitened by the rain. the nest itself was made of stones and mud, and overspread with down.

the female always sat in the nest.

the male hummed to himself on the end of a root that was suspended over the steep, alone, peering far into the distance around and below him with his heavy, pensive eyes; perched with his head sunk deep into his shoulders and his wings hanging heavily down.