A piece of white ice lay on the mountaintop, and above the ice a little cloud was silently untying its swaddling bands. Beneath the cloud the lark rejoiced, while above the cloud, above the herds, the hawk, the mountains, the summer camps and the forests, clean winds from other worlds carried a great sun, blazing as they went.
The grass here tasted extraordinarily good, and the field watchman would surely come any moment and shout at the herd for eating the delicious grass, so the herd grazed greedily. They had probably long since had their fill, but the watchman did not come. A little stream began at the ice and ran on among the cows. Out of the corner of their hearing, the cows knew the stream was there. They ate grass; beneath their bellies their milk veins carried rushing torrents of milk, and they kept telling themselves that the stream was there.
The buffalo grazed in a little ravine, immersed in warm fragrance. The breezes had carried no scent out of that ravine, because they had not entered it. The herd might come now and trample and dirty the ravine, so the buffalo grazed with threatening thrusts of her horns. Suddenly the grass lost its flavour and became merely dry straw. The stream was near. But her back began to grow cold. So the cloud had covered the sun. The buffalo tried to shake the shadow off her back with a shudder, but her hide was hardening upon her. Head held high, she waited to see what would happen next, and the blood in her veins slowed and dried up, then became sticky, clogged and stopped, while the world grew deaf and faded in her ears. The world had died and darkened; now the cloud would burst; the breeze, the lark, the stream had gone into hiding… Suddenly her veins widened, and the blood ran in a torrent, easily, with a bubbling sound.
The buffalo came out of the ravine, and in the mist the cows were beautiful, the distances were beautiful, the silent cloud was beautiful, but there was no other buffalo in the herd. Her blood was growing warm; her legs awoke with a little pain and warmth, and pleasant flashes already prickled along her spine from neck to tail. She shifted a foot to go and fight the cows’ bull, but found that she did not want to go: her anger was melting and slipping out of her.
In the deep silence, thread by thread, the grasses wove a gauzy fragrance over the whole face of that green world, and a sweet sadness was woven into the fragrance.
The buffalo lowed.
The cows looked: it was not the field watchman, it was the buffalo, lowing. The cows went on grazing in the abundance of soft, ownerless grass, in the nearness of good water, in the presence of their silky bull, in the rushing flow of milk and their well-fed contentment with the warm sun.
The buffalo set off for the summer camp. Her udder was gently kneaded between her two legs, and she was going to Granny to be milked. The camp on the plateau swayed in her sight and disappeared; in the ravine she tore off a couple of mouthfuls of grass and lost track of her way. Ah yes, she was going to the camp. But why was the herd still grazing? The herd were cows; she was one single buffalo—that was how it was!
She stood at the tent entrance, called and waited for Granny to come out.
“You’re here?” said Granny.
“What brings you here at noon today?” said Granny.
“The herd’s out in the pasture, and you’ve got up and come here.”
“Well, since you’re here, let me milk you.”
“Where have you come with your udder half empty?”
The woman was not milking well; she was hurting the udder. The buffalo bent her neck and sniffed: it was Granny’s smell, Granny’s voice, but this time she was not milking well at all. The buffalo realised that she did not want to be milked. Beyond the far distances, groups of buffalo stood in warm mists, and one of them was sending his sadness to her over forests and roads.
“Hey, Satik… You’re trampling your Granny—who will milk you then?”
“No, you’ve brought no milk, and you haven’t even given what you had.”
“Ow, ow, ow, ow, you’ve trampled your Granny!”
“Minas!… The buffalo looks a bit strange to me.”
“Ah!… My buffalo wants a bull.”
“My buffalo wants a bull. July, August, September… March… March, May… You’ll give birth at a good time. I’ll give your calf hornbeam leaves… There’ll be a green sun, it’ll be May…”
The buffalo stopped on the hilltop and looked across God’s green world towards the tawny valleys far away.
The fox had died on a bare patch among the crags, so that the grass would not get in the way and the hawk in the sky would be sure to see her body. And the fox had died so properly that the breeze swept her tail along.
In the distant tawny valleys, beneath the mists, heated groups of buffalo swayed, and among them a warm, powerful one, his head held high, was sending her his call. The buffalo lowed and sprang from the hilltop towards the gorge…
“What is she doing, what is she doing, what is that beast doing?” the fox rushed over. “I’ve told you a thousand times not to dig that damned house in this soft earth…”
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