inspects the body up close, but “half with loathing” of the dead creature, it’s smell, and disgusting appearance, and yet with a “strange love”, he shows how he strangely likes the animal and starts to care about the changes that it is going through, to renew nature. A change has happened to the author, the original concern for “keeping reverence for knowledge” has conflicted with an attempt “for control, to be still, to quell the passion of the blood.” Eberhart caps his heart with his hand because he no longer has the appreciation for the groundhog as he did, but that now he has an awareness of life....
