Then he let his nose hang down and drooped his pendent ears, like a full-fledged a*s with eyes dulled, as if he were weary of gazing across over that vast plain, smoking here and there with the dust of the threshing-floors, and he seemed made for nothing else than to die of thirst and enforced treading on sheaves.
At eventide, it was sent to the village with the saddle-bags filled full, and the padrone's boy followed, to prick it in the withers, along the hedges lining the road, that seemed alive with the chattering of the tomtits, and the odor of the catnip and rosemary; and the a*s would gladly have snatched a mouthful, if they had not always kept it on the go, until at last, the blood ran to its legs and they had to take it to the farrier; but this did not trouble the padrone, because
