'And slowly something began to draw him,
Back to the country, to the garden dark,
Where lime-trees are so huge, so full of shade,
And lilies of the valley, sweet as maids,
Where rounded willows o'er the water's edge
Lean from the dyke in rows, and where the oak
Sturdily grows above the sturdy field,
Amid the smell of hemp and nettles rank...
There, there, in meadows stretching wide,
Where rich and black as velvet is the earth,
Where the sweet rye, far as the eye can see,
Moves noiselessly in tender, billowing waves,
And where the heavy golden light is shed
From out of rounded, white, transparent clouds:
There it is good....'
_(From a poem, devoted to the flames.)_
The reader is, very likely, already weary of my sketches; I hasten to
reassure him by promising to confine myself to the fragments already
printed; but I cannot refrain from saying a few words at parting about a
sportman's life.
Hunting with a dog and a gun is delightful in itself, _für sich_,
as they used to say in old days; but let us suppose you were not born a
sportsman, but are fond of nature all the same; you cannot then help
envying us sportsmen.... Listen.
Do you know, for instance, the delight of setting off before daybreak in
spring? You come out on to the steps.... In the dark grey sky stars are
twinkling here and there; a damp breeze in faint gusts flies to meet you
now and then; there is heard the secret, vague whispering of the night;
the trees faintly rustle, wrapt in darkness. And now they pull the hood
over the cart, and lay a box with the samovar at your feet. The
trace-horses move restlessly, snort, and daintily paw the ground; a
couple of white geese, only just awake, waddle slowly and silently
across the road. On the other side of the hedge, in the garden, the
watchman is snoring peacefully; every sound seems to stand still in the
frozen air--suspended, not moving. You take your seat; the horses start
at once; the cart rolls off with a loud rumble.... You drive--drive past
the church, downhill to the right, across the dyke.... The pond is just
beginning to be covered with mist. You are rather chilly; you cover your
face with the collar of your fur cloak; you doze. The horse's hoofs
splash sonorously through the puddles; the coachman begins to whistle.
But by now you have driven over three miles... the rim of the sky
flushes crimson; the jackdaws are heard, fluttering clumsily in the
birch-trees; sparrows are twittering about the dark hayricks. The air is
clearer, the road more distinct, the sky brightens, the clouds look
whiter, and the fields look greener. In the huts there is the red light
of flaming chips; from behind gates comes the sound of sleepy voices.
And meanwhile the glow of dawn is beginning; already streaks of gold are
stretching across the sky; mists are gathering in clouds over the
ravines; the larks are singing musically; the breeze that ushers in the
dawn is blowing; and slowly the purple sun floats upward. There is a
perfect flood of light; your heart is fluttering like a bird. Everything
is fresh, gay, delightful! One can see a long way all round. That way,
beyond the copse, a village; there, further, another, with a white
church, and there a birch-wood on the hill; behind it the marsh, for
which you are bound.... Quicker, horses, quicker! Forward at a good
trot!... There are three miles to go--not more. The sun mounts swiftly
higher; the sky is clear.... It will be a glorious day. A herd of cattle
comes straggling from the village to meet us. You go up the hill....
What a view! The river winds for ten miles, dimly blue through the mist;
beyond it meadows of watery green; beyond the meadows sloping hills; in
the distance the plovers are wheeling with loud cries above the marsh;
through the moist brilliance suffused in the air the distance stands out
clearly... not as in the summer. How freely one drinks in the air, how
quickly the limbs move, how strong is the whole man, clasped in the
fresh breath of spring!...
And a summer morning--a morning in July! Who but the sportsman knows how
soothing it is to wander at daybreak among the underwoods? The print of
your feet lies in a green line on the grass, white with dew. You part
the drenched bushes; you are met by a rush of the warm fragrance stored
up in the night; the air is saturated with the fresh bitterness of
wormwood, the honey sweetness of buckwheat and clover; in the distance
an oak wood stands like a wall, and glows and glistens in the sun; it is
still fresh, but already the approach of heat is felt. The head is faint
and dizzy from the excess of sweet scents. The copse stretches on
endlessly.... Only in places there are yellow glimpses in the distance
of ripening rye, and narrow streaks of red buckwheat. Then there is the
creak of cart-wheels; a peasant makes his way among the bushes at a
walking-pace, and sets his horse in the shade before the heat of the
day.... You greet him, and turn away; the musical swish of the scythe is
heard behind you. The sun rises higher and higher. The grass is speedily
dry. And now it is quite sultry. One hour passes another.... The sky
grows dark over the horizon; the still air is baked with piercing
heat.... 'Where can one get a drink here, brother?' you inquire of the
mower. 'Yonder, in the ravine's a well.' Through the thick hazel-bushes,
tangled by the clinging grass, you drop down to the bottom of the
ravine. Right under the cliff a little spring is hidden; an oak bush
greedily spreads out its twigs like great fingers over the water; great
silvery bubbles rise trembling from the bottom, covered with fine
velvety moss. You fling yourself on the ground, you drink, but you are
too lazy to stir. You are in the shade, you drink in the damp fragrance,
you take your ease, while the bushes face you, glowing, and, as it were,
turning yellow in the sun. But what is that? There is a sudden flying
gust of wind; the air is astir all about you: was not that thunder? Is
it the heat thickening? Is a storm coming on?... And now there is a
faint flash of lightning.... Ah, this is a storm! The sun is still
blazing; you can still go on hunting. But the storm-cloud grows; its
front edge, drawn out like a long sleeve, bends over into an arch. The
grass, the bushes, everything around grows dark.... Make haste! over
there you think you catch sight of a hay barn... make haste!... You run
there, go in.... What rain! What flashes of lightning! The water drips
in through some hole in the thatch-roof on to the sweet-smelling hay....
But now the sun is shining bright again. The storm is over; you come
out. My God, the joyous sparkle of everything! the fresh, limpid air,
the scent of raspberries and mushrooms! And then the evening comes on.
There is the blaze of fire glowing and covering half the sky. The sun
sets: the air near has a peculiar transparency as of crystal; over the
distance lies a soft, warm-looking haze; with the dew a crimson light is
shed on the fields, lately plunged in floods of limpid gold; from trees
and bushes and high stacks of hay run long shadows.... The sun has set:
a star gleams and quivers in the fiery sea of the sunset... and now it
pales; the sky grows blue; the separate shadows vanish; the air is
plunged in darkness. It is time to turn homewards to the village, to the
hut, where you will stay the night. Shouldering your gun, you move
briskly, in spite of fatigue.... Meanwhile, the night comes on: now you
cannot see twenty paces from you; the dogs show faintly white in the
dark. Over there, above the black bushes, there is a vague brightness on
the horizon.... What is it?--a fire?... No, it is the moon rising. And
away below, to the right, the village lights are twinkling already....
And here at last is your hut. Through the tiny window you see a table,
with a white cloth, a candle burning, supper....
Another time you order the racing droshky to be got out, and set off to
the forest to shoot woodcock. It is pleasant making your way along the
narrow path between two high walls of rye. The ears softly strike you in
the face; the cornflowers cling round your legs; the quails call around;
the horse moves along at a lazy trot. And here is the forest, all shade
and silence. Graceful aspens rustle high above you; the long-hanging
branches of the birches scarcely stir; a mighty oak stands like a
champion beside a lovely lime-tree. You go along the green path,
streaked with shade; great yellow flies stay suspended, motionless, in
the sunny air, and suddenly dart away; midges hover in a cloud, bright
in the shade, dark in the sun; the birds are singing peacefully; the
golden little voice of the warbler sings of innocent, babbling
joyousness, in sweet accord with the scent of the lilies of the valley.
Further, further, deeper into the forest... the forest grows more
dense.... An unutterable stillness falls upon the soul within; without,
too, all is still and dreamy. But now a wind has sprung up, and the
tree-tops are booming like falling waves. Here and there, through last
year's brown leaves, grow tall grasses; funguses stand apart under their
wide-brimmed hats. All at once a hare skips out; the dog scurries after
it with a resounding bark....
And how fair is this same forest in late autumn, when the snipe are on
the wing! They do not keep in the heart of the forest; one must look for
them along the outskirts. There is no wind, and no sun; no light, no
shade, no movement, no sound: the autumn perfume, like the perfume of
wine, is diffused in the soft air; a delicate haze hangs over the yellow
fields in the distance. The still sky is a peacefully untroubled white
through the bare brown branches; in parts, on the limes, hang the last
golden leaves. The damp earth is elastic under your feet; the high dry
blades of grass do not stir; long threads lie shining on the blanched
turf, white with dew. You breathe tranquilly; but there is a strange
tremor in the soul. You walk along the forest's edge, look after your
dog, and meanwhile loved forms, loved faces dead and living, come to
your mind; long, long slumbering impressions unexpectedly awaken; the
fancy darts off and soars like a bird; and all moves so clearly and
stands out before your eyes. The heart at one time throbs and beats,
plunging passionately forward; at another it is drowned beyond recall in
memories. Your whole life, as it were, unrolls lightly and rapidly
before you: a man at such times possesses all his past, all his feelings
and his powers--all his soul; and there is nothing around to hinder
him--no sun, no wind, no sound....
And a clear, rather cold autumn day, with a frost in the morning, when
the birch, all golden like some tree in a fairy tale, stands out
picturesquely against the pale blue sky; when the sun, standing low in
the sky, does not warm, but shines more brightly than in summer; the
small aspen copse is all a-sparkle through and through, as though it
were glad and at ease in its nakedness; the hoar-frost is still white at
the bottom of the hollows; while a fresh wind softly stirs up and drives
before it the falling, crumpled leaves; when blue ripples whisk gladly
along the river, lifting rhythmically the heedless geese and ducks; in
the distance the mill creaks, half-hidden by the willows; and with
changing colours in the clear air the pigeons wheel in swift circles
above it....
Sweet, too, are dull days in summer, though the sportsmen do not like
them. On such days one can't shoot the bird that flutters up from under
your very feet, and vanishes at once in the whitish dark of the hanging
fog. But how peaceful, how unutterably peaceful it is everywhere!
Everything is awake, and everything is hushed. You pass by a tree: it
does not stir a leaf; it is musing in repose. Through the thin steamy
mist, evenly diffused in the air, there is a long streak of black before
you. You take it for a neighbouring copse close at hand; you go up--the
copse is transformed into a high row of wormwood in the boundary-ditch.
Above you, around you, on all sides--mist.... But now a breeze is
faintly astir; a patch of pale-blue sky peeps dimly out; through the
thinning, as it were, smoky mist, a ray of golden yellow sunshine breaks
out suddenly, flows in a long stream, strikes on the fields and in the
copse--and now everything is overcast again. For long this struggle is
drawn out, but how unutterably brilliant and magnificent the day becomes
when at last light triumphs and the last waves of the warmed mist here
unroll and are drawn out over the plains, there wind away and vanish
into the deep, tenderly shining heights....
Again you set off into outlying country, to the steppe. For some ten
miles you make your way over cross-roads, and here at last is the
high-road. Past endless trains of waggons, past wayside taverns, with
the hissing samovar under a shed, wide-open gates and a well, from one
hamlet to another; across endless fields, alongside green hempfields, a
long, long time you drive. The magpies flutter from willow to willow;
peasant women with long rakes in their hands wander in the fields; a man
in a threadbare nankin overcoat, with a wicker pannier over his
shoulder, trudges along with weary step; a heavy country coach,
harnessed with six tall, broken-winded horses, rolls to meet you. The
corner of a cushion is sticking out of a window, and on a sack up
behind, hanging on to a string, perches a groom in a fur-cloak, splashed
with mud to his very eyebrows. And here is the little district town with
its crooked little wooden houses, its endless fences, its empty stone
shops, its old-fashioned bridge over a deep ravine.... On, on!... The
steppe country is reached at last. You look from a hill-top: what a
view! Round low hills, tilled and sown to their very tops, are seen in
broad undulations; ravines, overgrown with bushes, wind coiling among
them; small copses are scattered like oblong islands; from village to
village run narrow paths; churches stand out white; between
willow-bushes glimmers a little river, in four places dammed up by
dykes; far off, in a field, in a line, an old manor-house, with its
outhouses, fruit-garden, and threshing-floor, huddles close up to a
small lake. But on, on you go. The hills are smaller and ever smaller;
there is scarcely a tree to be seen. Here it is at last--the boundless,
untrodden steppe!
And on a winter day to walk over the high snowdrifts after hares; to
breathe the keen frosty air, while half-closing the eyes involuntarily
at the fine blinding sparkle of the soft snow; to admire the emerald sky
above the reddish forest!... And the first spring day when everything is
shining, and breaking up, when across the heavy streams, from the
melting snow, there is already the scent of the thawing earth; when on
the bare thawed places, under the slanting sunshine, the larks are
singing confidingly, and, with glad splash and roar, the torrents roll
from ravine to ravine....
But it is time to end. By the way, I have spoken of spring: in spring it
is easy to part; in spring even the happy are drawn away to the
distance.... Farewell, reader! I wish you unbroken prosperity.