The next morning Lavretzky rose quite early, had a talk with the
overseer, visited the threshing-floor, ordered the chain to be removed
from the watch-dog, who only barked a little, but did not even move away
from his kennel;--and on his return home, sank into a sort of peaceful
torpor, from which he did not emerge all day. "I have sunk down to the
very bottom of the river now," he said to himself more than once. He sat
by the window, made no movement, and seemed to be listening to the current
of tranquil life which surrounded him, to the infrequent noises of the
country solitudes. Yonder, somewhere beyond the nettles, some one began to
sing, in the shrillest of voices; a gnat seemed to be chiming in with the
voice. Now it ceased, but the gnat still squeaked on; athwart the
energetic, insistently-plaintive buzzing of the flies resounded the
booming of a fat bumble-bee, which kept bumping its head against the
ceiling; a cock on the road began to crow, hoarsely prolonging the last
note; a peasant cart rumbled past; the gate toward the village creaked.
"Well?" suddenly quavered a woman's voice.--"Okh, thou my dear little
sweetheart," said Anton to a little girl of two years, whom he was
dandling in his arms. "Fetch some kvas," repeats the same female
voice,--and all at once a deathlike silence ensues; nothing makes any
noise, nothing stirs; the breeze does not flutter a leaf; the swallows
dart along near the ground, one after the other, without a cry, and
sadness descends upon the soul from their silent flight.--"Here I am, sunk
down to the bottom of the river," Lavretzky says to himself again.--"And
life is at all times tranquil, leisurely here," he thinks:--"whoever
enters its circle must become submissive: here there is nothing to agitate
one's self about, nothing to disturb; here success awaits only him who
lays out his path without haste, as the husbandman lays the furrow with
his plough." And what strength there is all around, what health there is
in this inactive calm! Yonder now, under the window, a sturdy burdock is
making its way out from among the thick grass; above it, the lovage is
stretching forth its succulent stalk, the Virgin's-tears[9] toss still
higher their rosy tendrils; and yonder, further away, in the fields, the
rye is gleaming, and the oats are beginning to shoot up their stalks, and
every leaf on every tree, every blade of grass on its stalk, spreads
itself out to its fullest extent. "My best years have been spent on the
love of a woman," Lavretzky pursued his meditations:--"may the
irksomeness here sober me, may it soothe me, prepare me so that I may
understand how to do my work without haste"; and again he began to lend an
ear to the silence, expecting nothing,--and, at the same time, as it were
incessantly expecting something: the silence enfolds him on all sides, the
sun glides quietly across the calm blue sky, a cloud floats gently in its
wake; it seems as though they know whither and why they are floating. At
that same moment, in other spots on earth, life was seething, bustling,
roaring; here the same life was flowing on inaudibly, like water amid
marsh-grass; and until the very evening, Lavretzky could not tear himself
from the contemplation of that life fleeting, flowing onward; grief for
the past melted in his soul like snows of springtime,--and, strange to
say!--never had the feeling of his native land been so deep and strong
within him.
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[9] This plant bears round seed-pods of mottled-grey, which are often
used to make very pretty rosaries.--Translator.