[1878]
The last day of July; for a thousand versts around,
Russia, our native land.
An unbroken blue flooding the whole sky; a single
cloudlet upon it, half floating, half fading away.
Windlessness, warmth ... air like new milk!
Larks are trilling; pouter-pigeons cooing; noiselessly
the swallows dart to and fro; horses are neighing
and munching; the dogs do not bark and stand peaceably
wagging their tails.
A smell of smoke and of hay, and a little of tar,
too, and a little of hides. The hemp, now in
full bloom, sheds its heavy, pleasant fragrance.
A deep but sloping ravine. Along its sides willows
in rows, with big heads above, trunks cleft below.
Through the ravine runs a brook; the tiny pebbles
at its bottom are all aquiver through its clear eddies.
In the distance, on the border-line between earth
and heaven, the bluish streak of a great river.
Along the ravine, on one side, tidy barns, little
storehouses with close-shut doors; on the other side,
five or six pinewood huts with boarded roofs.
Above each roof, the high pole of a pigeon-house; over
each entry a little short-maned horse of wrought iron.
The window-panes of faulty glass shine with all the
colours of the rainbow. Jugs of flowers are painted
on the shutters. Before each door, a little bench
stands prim and neat; on the mounds of earth, cats
are basking, their transparent ears pricked up alert;
beyond the high door-sills, is the cool dark of the
outer rooms.
I lie on the very edge of the ravine, on an outspread
horse-cloth; all about are whole stacks of fresh-cut
hay, oppressively fragrant. The sagacious husbandmen
have flung the hay about before the huts; let it get
a bit drier in the baking sunshine; and then into
the barn with it. It will be first-rate sleeping
on it.
Curly, childish heads are sticking out of every haycock;
crested hens are looking in the hay for flies and
little beetles, and a white-lipped pup is rolling
among the tangled stalks.
Flaxen-headed lads in clean smocks, belted low, in
heavy boots, leaning over an unharnessed waggon, fling
each other smart volleys of banter, with broad grins
showing their white teeth.
A round-faced young woman peeps out of window; laughs
at their words or at the romps of the children in
the mounds of hay.
Another young woman with powerful arms draws a great
wet bucket out of the well.... The bucket quivers
and shakes, spilling long, glistening drops.
Before me stands an old woman in a new striped petticoat
and new shoes.
Fat hollow beads are wound in three rows about her
dark thin neck, her grey head is tied up in a yellow
kerchief with red spots; it hangs low over her failing
eyes.
