The old man kept looking at the patches of invasive vegetation at the far end of the plain. It was around this hour that the hind would approach the hut. The first time he had seen her she had leapt terror-stricken out of the overgrown weeds, as if pursued by a hunter. She had paused for a moment, looking around her with big, gentle, chestnut-coloured eyes like those of a girl, before vanishing again swiftly and silently, crossing the clearing as if flying over it. She was fawn-coloured, with legs that looked like polished wood, and grey horns as delicate as the stems of dried asphodels.

The next day her visit lasted hardly longer than the first. The hind spotted the old man; looked at him, and fled. He would never forget that look, which had about it something almost human, at once pleading, tender and diffident. At night he would dream of the young deer fleeing across the plain. He would pursue her, manage to catch her by her back legs and hold her tightly in his arms, afraid and with her heart racing. Never before – not with an ailing newborn lamb, or with a calf condemned to be butchered; not with an injured marten or with a leveret – had he been moved to such burning tenderness. The palpitations of the creature connected directly with his own heart. He would return with her to his lonely hut, and it seemed to him that he was no longer alone in the world, mocked and derided by everyone, even by his own servant.

But in reality, unfortunately, things did not turn out like this. The hind came a little closer each day, but as soon as she would spot the manservant or some other stranger, or if the old man gave any sign of movement, she would launch herself into the distance like a low-flying bird, leaving in her wake a faint silver groove between the reeds on the other side of the clearing. When on the other hand the old man was sat motionless on his stone stool, she would linger, still diffident as ever, grazing on the grass but lifting her beautiful delicate head every so often, startled by every sound, turning tail and sprinting from side to side before leaping into the cover provided by the weeds – then returning, advancing and looking at the old man.

Those eyes filled the shepherd with tenderness. He smiled at her across the silence, just as the god Pan must have smiled at the hinds in mythological forests: and the creature continued to advance, treading lightly with her slim legs, as if she was actually fascinated by that smile, lowering her muzzle from time to time as if to smell the treacherous earth.

She was lured by the milk and bread that the old man would place at a certain distance. One day she took a small piece of ricotta and fled; on another, she reached the bowl, but no sooner had she brushed the surface of the milk with her tongue than she started, springing into the air with all four hoofs off the ground, as if it was scorching underfoot, then took flight again. But she returned immediately. A series of more frequent flights and returns followed, becoming less timorous, almost flirtatious. She would leap into the air, turn around on herself as if trying to catch her own tail between her teeth, scratch her ear with her hoof, peer at the old man giving him the impression that she had become less fearful and stressed – and that she was returning his smile.