The bull was jet black, and the corners of its eyes were blood-red. It was just as if it had stood there all the time waiting for him. Escape was impossible; there was nothing for it but to fight. Victor glanced at the ground and saw a stout cudgel, newly cut. He seized it and took up his position. The bull backed like a steam-boat, smoke coming through its nostrils, then rushed forward at full speed.
The cudgel flashed through the air and with a sound like a shot hit the bull right between the eyes. Victor sprang aside, and the bull dashed past him. Then Victor, terrified, saw the monster make for the border of the wood, from whence his sweetheart, in a light summer dress, emerged to meet him.
"Climb up the tree, Anna," he shouted. "The bull's coming!" It was a cry of anguish from the bottom of his soul.
Brilliant and pessimistic dramatist Johann August Strindberg (1849-1912) excelled in fiction as well as in playwriting, writing novels including By the Open Sea and Tschandala, and enchanting, symbolic short stories such as fill this volume.