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The boys sat around them; sitting there too were those two dogs that had wanted so badly to eat me. For a long time yet they could not reconcile themselves to my presence and, squinting sleepily and glancing sidelong at the fire, occasionally growled with extraordinary dignity; first they would growl, and then whimper slightly, as if regretting the impossibility of fulfilling their desire. There were five boys in all: Fedya, Pavlusha, Ilyusha, Kostya, and Vanya. (From their conversations I learned their names and intend now to introduce them to the reader.)

The eldest of them all, Fedya, you would have given fourteen years. He was a slender boy, with handsome and delicate, somewhat small features, curly blond hair, bright eyes, and a constant half-cheerful, half-distracted smile. He belonged, by all signs, to a wealthy family and had ridden out into the field not from necessity, but for amusement. He wore a colorful calico shirt with a yellow border; a small new peasant coat, thrown loosely over his shoulders, barely held on his narrow little shoulders; on his light-blue belt hung a comb. His boots with low tops were certainly his own boots—not his father's. The second boy, Pavlusha, had disheveled black hair, gray eyes, broad cheekbones, a pale, pockmarked face, a large but well-formed mouth, an enormous head—the size of a beer cauldron, as they say—and a squat, awkward body. The lad was homely—no denying it!—but I liked him all the same: he looked very intelligent and direct, and there was strength in his voice. He could not boast of his clothing: it consisted entirely of a simple hempen shirt and patched trousers. The face of the third, Ilyusha, was rather insignificant: hook-nosed, elongated, dim-sighted, it expressed a kind of dull, sickly anxiety; his compressed lips did not move, his knitted brows did not part—he seemed to squint constantly at the fire. His yellow, almost white hair stuck out in sharp tufts from under a low felt cap, which he kept pulling down over his ears with both hands. He wore new bast shoes and foot-cloths; a thick rope, wound three times around his waist, carefully cinched his neat black smock. Both he and Pavlusha appeared to be no more than twelve years old. The fourth, Kostya, a boy of about ten, aroused my curiosity with his thoughtful and melancholy gaze. His entire face was small, thin, freckled, pointed at the bottom like a squirrel's; his lips could barely be distinguished; but his large, black eyes, gleaming with a liquid shine, made a strange impression: they seemed to want to say something for which there were no words in language—in his language at least. He was short, of puny build, and rather poorly dressed. The last one, Vanya, I had not noticed at first: he lay on the ground, quietly nestled under a rough mat, and only occasionally poked his fair curly head out from under it. This boy was only about seven years old.

So I lay under a bush to one side and glanced at the boys. A small pot hung over one of the fires; potatoes were cooking in it. Pavlusha watched over it and, kneeling, poked a stick into the boiling water. Fedya lay propped on his elbow with the flaps of his peasant coat spread out. Ilyusha sat next to Kostya, still squinting tensely. Kostya lowered his head slightly and looked off into the distance. Vanya did not stir under his mat. I pretended to be sleeping. Gradually the boys began talking again.

At first they chatted about this and that, about tomorrow's work, about the horses; but suddenly Fedya turned to Ilyusha and, as if resuming an interrupted conversation, asked him:

"Well, and so did you actually see the house-spirit?"

"No, I didn't see him, and you can't see him," answered Ilyusha in a hoarse, weak voice, the sound of which corresponded perfectly to the expression on his face, "but I heard him... And I wasn't the only one."

"Where does he live at your place?" asked Pavlusha.

"In the old rolling-room."

"Do you go to the factory?"

"Of course we do. My brother and I, Avdyushka, we work as smoothers."

"Well, fancy that—factory workers!..."

"Well, so how did you hear him?" asked Fedya.

"This is how. My brother Avdyushka and I had to stay, along with Fyodor Mikheyevsky, and Ivashka the Cross-eyed, and the other Ivashka, from Red Hills, and also Ivashka Sukhorukov, and there were other boys there too; there were about ten of us boys altogether—the whole shift; and we had to spend the night in the rolling-room, that is, not that we had to exactly, but Nazarov, the overseer, forbade us; he said: 'What's the use of you boys trudging home; there's a lot of work tomorrow, so you boys don't go home.' So we stayed and lay there all together, and Avdyushka started saying: 'Well, boys, what if the house-spirit comes?'... And no sooner had he, Avdey, spoken these words than suddenly someone started walking above our heads; but we were lying below, and he was walking above, by the wheel. We heard him: he's walking, and the boards under him bend and creak; then he passed over our heads; the water suddenly began rushing, rushing over the wheel; the wheel started knocking, knocking, turning; but the sluice gates at the race were lowered. We marveled: who raised them so the water came through; however, the wheel turned, turned, and stopped. Then that one went to the door above and started coming down the stairs, and we could hear him, as if he wasn't hurrying; the steps under him just groaned... Well, he came to our door, waited, waited—then the door suddenly flew wide open. We were frightened, we looked—nothing... Suddenly, look, at one vat a form started moving, lifted up, dipped, walked, walked through the air, as if someone were rinsing it, and then back in place. Then at another vat a hook came off a nail and back onto the nail; then it was as if someone went to the door and suddenly started coughing, choking, like a sheep or something, and so loudly... Well, how frightened we were at that time!"

"Well, I never!" said Pavel. "Why did he cough?"

"I don't know; maybe from the dampness."

They all fell silent.

"What, are the potatoes cooked?" asked Fedya.

Pavlusha felt them.

"No, still raw... Listen, it splashed," he added, turning his face toward the river, "must be a pike... And there, a little star fell."

"No, I'll tell you something, brothers," Kostya began in a thin voice, "listen to what my father told me the other day when I was there."

"Well, we're listening," said Fedya with a patronizing air.

"You know Gavrila, the village carpenter?"

"Yes, we know him."

"And do you know why he's always so gloomy, always silent, you know? This is why he's so gloomy. He went once, my father was saying—he went, my brothers, into the forest for nuts. So he went into the forest for nuts and got lost; he went—God knows where he went. Well, he walked and walked, brothers—no! he can't find the road; and night had already fallen. So he sat down under a tree; 'I'll wait,' he thought, 'till morning,'—he sat down and dozed off. So he dozed off and suddenly heard someone calling him. He looked—no one. He dozed off again—they call again. He looked, looked again: and before him on a branch sat a rusalka, swaying and calling him to her, and she was dying of laughter, laughing... And the moon was shining strongly, so strongly, clearly the moon was shining—everything, my brothers, was visible. So she's calling him, and she herself is all bright, white sitting on the branch, like a roach or a minnow—or there's also a kind of carp that's whitish like that, silvery... Gavrila the carpenter just froze, brothers, and she kept on laughing and beckoning him to her with her hand. Well, Gavrila was about to get up, about to obey the rusalka, brothers, but it seems the Lord put it in his mind: he made the sign of the cross over himself... And how hard it was for him to make that sign, brothers; he says his hand was just like stone, wouldn't move... Ah, you devil, eh!.. Well, as soon as he made the cross, brothers, the rusalka stopped laughing and suddenly started crying... She's crying, brothers, wiping her eyes with her hair, and her hair is green, like hemp. Well, Gavrila looked, looked at her and started asking her: 'Why are you crying, you forest creature?' And the rusalka spoke to him: 'If you hadn't crossed yourself,' she said, 'you mortal, you would have lived with me in merriment till the end of your days; but I'm crying, I'm grieving because you crossed yourself; but it's not only I who will grieve: grieve too until the end of your days.' Then she, brothers, vanished, and it immediately became clear to Gavrila how to get out of the forest, that is. But since then he always goes about gloomy."

"Well!" said Fedya after a brief silence, "but how can such an unclean forest creature harm a Christian soul—he didn't obey her, did he?"

"Well, there you have it!" said Kostya. "And Gavrila said that her voice, he said, was so thin, pitiful, like a toad's."

"Did your father tell this himself?" continued Fedya.

"Himself. I was lying on the sleeping bench, heard everything."

"A strange thing! Why should he be gloomy?... Well, I suppose he pleased her, since she called him."

"Yes, pleased her!" picked up Ilyusha. "I should say! She wanted to tickle him to death, that's what she wanted. That's their business, those rusalkas."

"But there must be rusalkas here too," remarked Fedya.

"No," answered Kostya, "this is a clean place, open. Only—the river's near."

Everyone fell silent. Suddenly, somewhere in the distance, a prolonged, ringing, almost moaning sound was heard, one of those incomprehensible night sounds that sometimes arise in the midst of deep silence, rise up, hang in the air, and slowly spread at last, as if dying away. You listen—and it's as if there's nothing, yet it rings. It seemed as if someone had cried out for a long, long time under the very horizon, as if someone else had responded to him in the forest with thin, sharp laughter, and a faint, hissing whistle had rushed along the river. The boys exchanged glances, shuddered...

"May the sign of the cross be with us!" whispered Ilya.

"Eh, you crows!" cried Pavel. "What are you frightened of? Look, the potatoes are cooked." (Everyone moved closer to the pot and began eating the steaming potatoes; only Vanya did not stir.) "Well, what about you?" said Pavel.

But he did not come out from under his mat. The pot was soon completely emptied.

"Have you heard, boys," Ilyusha began, "what happened the other day at our Varnavitsy?"

"At the dam?" asked Fedya.

"Yes, yes, at the dam, at the broken one. That's an unclean place, so unclean, and such a desolate spot. All around are ravines, gullies, and in the gullies there are snakes."

"Well, what happened? Tell us..."

"This is what happened. Maybe you don't know, Fedya, but there's a drowned man buried there; and he drowned a long, long time ago, when the pond was still deep; but his grave can still be seen, though barely: just a little mound... Well, the other day the steward called the dog-keeper Ermil; he said: 'Go,' he said, 'Ermil, to the post office.' Ermil always goes to the post office for us; he's killed all his dogs: they don't live with him for some reason, never have lived, but he's a good dog-keeper, took to it well. So Ermil went for the post, and he lingered in town, and when he came back he was already drunk. And it was night, and a bright night: the moon was shining... So Ermil was riding across the dam: that was his way. So he's riding along, this dog-keeper Ermil, and he sees: at the drowned man's grave a little lamb, white, curly, pretty, walking about. So Ermil thought: 'I'll take him, why should he go to waste,' and he got down and took him in his arms... But the lamb—nothing. So Ermil goes to his horse, but the horse shies away from him, snorts, tosses its head; however, he calmed it, got on it with the lamb and rode on again: he held the lamb in front of him. He looks at it, and the lamb looks him straight in the eyes. Ermil the dog-keeper felt uneasy: 'I don't remember,' he thought, 'that rams look anyone in the eyes like that'; however, never mind; he started stroking its wool, saying: 'Baa, baa!' And the ram suddenly bared its teeth and said to him likewise: 'Baa, baa!..'"

No sooner had the storyteller uttered these last words than suddenly both dogs rose at once, rushed away from the fire with convulsive barking, and disappeared into the darkness. All the boys were frightened. Vanya jumped out from under his mat. Pavlusha rushed after the dogs with a shout. Their barking quickly receded... The anxious running of the startled herd could be heard. Pavlusha shouted loudly: "Gray! Beetle!..." In a few moments the barking stopped; Pavel's voice came from far away already... A little more time passed; the boys exchanged puzzled glances, as if waiting to see what would happen... Suddenly the trampling of a galloping horse was heard; it stopped short right at the fire, and, clutching its mane, Pavlusha nimbly jumped off. Both dogs also leaped into the circle of light and immediately sat down, their red tongues hanging out.

"What was it? What happened?" asked the boys.

"Nothing," answered Pavel, waving his hand at the horse, "just something the dogs scented. I thought it was a wolf," he added in an indifferent voice, breathing rapidly with his whole chest.

I involuntarily admired Pavlusha. He was very fine at that moment. His homely face, animated by the quick ride, glowed with bold daring and firm resolution. Without even a switch in his hand, at night, he had galloped alone after a wolf without the slightest hesitation... "What a splendid boy!" I thought, looking at him.

"Did you see them, the wolves?" asked the cowardly Kostya.

"There's always a lot of them here," answered Pavel, "but they're only troublesome in winter."

He settled down again before the fire. Sitting on the ground, he happened to put his hand on the shaggy scruff of one of the dogs, and for a long time the pleased animal did not turn its head, gazing sideways at Pavlusha with grateful pride.

Vanya hid again under his mat.

"What terrible stories you were telling us, Ilyushka," began Fedya, who, as the son of a wealthy peasant, had to be the leader (though he spoke little himself, as if afraid of lowering his dignity). "And it was the devil that made the dogs bark... But it's true, I've heard that your place is unclean."

"Varnavitsy?... I should say so! and how unclean! They say the old master has been seen there more than once—the late master. He walks, they say, in a long-skirted coat and keeps groaning, looking for something on the ground. Once my grandfather Trofimych met him: 'What,' he said, 'father, Ivan Ivanovich, are you pleased to be looking for on the ground?'"

"He asked him that?" interrupted the astonished Fedya.

"Yes, he asked."

"Well, Trofimych is a brave one after that... Well, and what did he say?"

"'I'm looking for rupture-grass,' he says. And he spoke so hollowly, hollowly: 'Rupture-grass.' 'And what do you want rupture-grass for, father Ivan Ivanovich?' 'The grave presses,' he says, 'Trofimych: I want out, out...'"

"Well, fancy that!" remarked Fedya, "he must not have lived enough."

"What a wonder!" said Kostya. "I thought you could only see the dead on Parents' Saturday."

"You can see the dead at any hour," Ilyusha picked up with assurance, who, as far as I could tell, knew all the village superstitions better than the others... "But on Parents' Saturday you can see the living too, those whose turn it is to die that year. You just have to sit at night on the church porch and keep looking at the road. Those who are to die that year will walk past you on the road. Last year old woman Ulyana went to the porch."

"Well, and did she see anyone?" Kostya asked with curiosity.

"I should say so. First she sat for a long, long time, saw and heard no one... only it was as if a little dog kept barking, barking somewhere... Suddenly she looked: a boy was walking along the path in just a shirt. She looked closer—it was Ivashka Fedoseyev walking..."

"The one who died in the spring?" interrupted Fedya.

"The very same. Walking and not lifting his little head... And Ulyana recognized him... But then she looked: a woman was walking. She stared and stared—oh Lord!—she herself was walking on the road, Ulyana herself."

"Really herself?" asked Fedya.

"By God, herself."

"Well what of it, she hasn't died yet, has she?"

"But the year hasn't passed yet. And you just look at her: she's barely alive."

Everyone fell silent again. Pavel threw a handful of dry twigs on the fire. They turned sharply black against the suddenly flaring flame, crackled, began smoking and curling, lifting their scorched ends. The reflection of the light struck out, trembling jerkily, in all directions, especially upward. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a white dove—flew straight into this reflection, fluttered fearfully in one spot, bathed all over in the hot glow, and disappeared, its wings ringing.

"Must have strayed from home," remarked Pavel. "Now it will fly until it bumps into something, and where it bumps, there it will spend the night till dawn."

"Well, Pavlusha," said Kostya, "wasn't that a righteous soul flying to heaven, eh?"

Pavel threw another handful of twigs on the fire.

"Maybe," he said at last.

"But tell me, please, Pavlusha," Fedya began, "did you also see the heavenly portent in Shalamovo?"

"When the sun disappeared? I should say so."

"I suppose you were frightened too?"

"We weren't the only ones. Our master, though he explained to us beforehand that there would be a portent, when it got dark, they say he got so frightened himself, there you have it. And in the house servants' cottage the cook, as soon as it got dark, hear, took and broke all the pots in the stove with the oven fork: 'Who's going to eat now,' she says, 'the end of the world has come.' So the cabbage soup just flowed. And in our village such rumors were going around, brother, that white wolves would run over the earth, would eat people, a bird of prey would fly, or they'd even see Trishka himself."

"What's this Trishka?" asked Kostya.

"Don't you know?" Ilyusha eagerly picked up. "Well, brother, where are you from that you don't know Trishka? You must be stay-at-homes in your village, real stay-at-homes! Trishka—this will be such a marvelous man who will come; and he will come when the last times arrive. And he will be such a marvelous man that they won't be able to catch him, and they won't be able to do anything to him: he'll be such a marvelous man. For instance, the peasants will want to catch him; they'll come out at him with cudgels, surround him, but he'll deceive their eyes—deceive their eyes so that they'll beat each other instead. They'll put him in prison, for instance—he'll ask for water to drink in a dipper: they'll bring him a dipper, and he'll dive into it and vanish without a trace. They'll put chains on him, but he'll just clap his hands—and they'll just fall off him. Well, and this Trishka will wander through villages and towns; and this Trishka, a cunning man, will lead the Christian people astray... well, but they won't be able to do anything to him... He'll be such a marvelous, cunning man."

"Well yes," Pavel continued in his unhurried voice, "that's him. So they were expecting him at our place. The old people said that as soon as the heavenly portent begins, Trishka will come. So the portent began. All the people poured out into the street, into the field, waiting for what would happen. And our place, you know, is open, you can see far. They look—suddenly from the settlement, from the hill, some kind of man is coming, such a strange one, such a marvelous head... Everyone started shouting: 'Oh, Trishka's coming! Oh, Trishka's coming!'—and everyone scattered! Our elder crawled into a ditch; the elder's wife got stuck in the gateway, screaming bloody murder, frightened her own yard dog so much that it broke off the chain and over the fence and into the forest; and Kuzka's father, Dorofeich, jumped into the oats, squatted down, and started calling like a quail: 'Maybe,' he said, 'the enemy, the soul-destroyer, will at least spare a bird.' That's how frightened everyone was!.. But the man walking there was our cooper, Vavila: he'd bought himself a new tub and put the empty tub on his head."

All the boys laughed and again fell quiet for a moment, as often happens with people talking in the open air. I looked around: night stood solemn and majestic; the damp freshness of late evening had been replaced by midnight's dry warmth, and it would lie like a soft blanket over the sleeping fields for a long time yet; much time remained before the first babbling, before the first rustlings and whispers of morning, before the first dewdrops of dawn. There was no moon in the sky: it rose late at that time. Countless golden stars seemed to flow quietly, all twinkling in rivalry, in the direction of the Milky Way, and truly, looking at them, you seemed dimly to feel yourself the headlong, ceaseless running of the earth...

A strange, harsh, sickly cry rang out suddenly twice in succession over the river and, after a few moments, was repeated farther off...

Kostya shuddered. "What was that?"

"That's a heron crying," Pavel calmly replied.

"A heron," Kostya repeated... "But Pavlusha, what was it I heard yesterday evening," he added after a brief pause, "maybe you know..."

"What did you hear?"

"This is what I heard. I was walking from Stone Ridge to Shashkino; and I walked first through our hazel grove, then I went through a meadow—you know, where it comes out at the steep bend—well, there's a spring-hole there; you know, it's all overgrown with reeds; well, I walked past this spring-hole, brothers, and suddenly from that spring-hole someone started moaning, and so pitifully, pitifully: ooh... ooh... ooh! Such fear came over me, brothers: it was late, and the voice was so sickly. It seemed I'd start crying myself... What could that have been? Eh?"

"In that spring-hole the year before last thieves drowned Akim the forester," Pavel remarked, "so maybe it was his soul complaining."

"Well, perhaps so, brothers," Kostya replied, widening his already enormous eyes... "I didn't know that Akim had been drowned in that spring-hole: I would have been even more frightened."

"And they say there are such tiny little frogs," Pavel continued, "that cry so pitifully."

"Frogs? Well, no, that wasn't frogs... what frogs..." (The heron cried out again over the river.) "Damn it!" Kostya involuntarily exclaimed, "just like a wood-demon crying."

"The wood-demon doesn't cry, he's mute," Ilyusha picked up, "he only claps his hands and rattles..."

"Have you seen him, the wood-demon?" Fedya interrupted mockingly.

"No, I haven't seen him, and God preserve me from seeing him; but others have seen him. The other day he led one of our peasants astray: led him, led him through the forest, and all around one clearing... He barely made it home by daylight."

"Well, and did he see him?"

"He saw him. He says he stood there big, big, dark, muffled, sort of like behind a tree, you can't make him out well, as if hiding from the moon, and he looks, looks with his great eyes, blinks them, blinks..."

"Oh!" exclaimed Fedya, shuddering slightly and twitching his shoulders, "pfoo!..."

"And why does this filth breed in the world?" remarked Pavel. "I really don't understand!"

"Don't curse, watch out, he'll hear," remarked Ilya.

Silence fell again.

"Look, look, boys," Vanya's childish voice suddenly rang out, "look at God's little stars—like bees swarming!"

He stuck his fresh little face out from under the mat, propped himself on his little fist, and slowly raised his large, quiet eyes upward. The eyes of all the boys rose to the sky and did not lower for some time.

"Well, Vanya," Fedya began affectionately, "is your sister Anyutka well?"

"She's well," Vanya answered with a slight lisp.

"Tell her—why doesn't she come to us?..."

"I don't know."

"Tell her to come."

"I'll tell her."

"Tell her I'll give her a present."

"And will you give me one?"

"I'll give you one too."

Vanya sighed.

"Well, no, I don't need one. Better give it to her: she's such a kind one, our Anyutka."

And Vanya laid his head on the ground again. Pavel stood up and picked up the empty pot.

"Where are you going?" Fedya asked him.

"To the river, to get some water: I want a drink."

The dogs got up and followed him.

"Watch you don't fall in the river!" Ilyusha called after him.

"Why should he fall?" said Fedya, "he'll be careful."

"Yes, he'll be careful. But anything can happen: he'll lean over, start scooping water, and the water-spirit will grab him by the hand and drag him in. Then they'll say: the boy fell, they'll say, into the water... What kind of fell is that?.. Look, he's climbed into the reeds," he added, listening.

The reeds were indeed "shurshing," as we say, parting.

"But is it true," asked Kostya, "that Akulina the fool has been out of her mind since she was in the water?"

"Since then... What she's like now! But they say she used to be a beauty. The water-spirit ruined her. I suppose he didn't expect them to pull her out so soon. So there at the bottom he ruined her."

(I myself had met this Akulina more than once. Covered in rags, terribly thin, with a face black as coal, a clouded gaze, and eternally bared teeth, she would tramp for hours in one spot, somewhere on the road, pressing her bony hands tightly to her chest and slowly shifting from foot to foot, like a wild animal in a cage. She understood nothing, no matter what anyone said to her, and only laughed convulsively from time to time.)

"But they say," Kostya continued, "that Akulina threw herself in the river because her lover deceived her."

"That's exactly why."

"And do you remember Vasya?" Kostya added sadly.

"What Vasya?" asked Fedya.

"The one who drowned," answered Kostya, "in this very river. Oh, what a boy he was! what a boy! His mother, Feklista, how she loved him, Vasya! And it was as if she had a premonition, Feklista did, that he would perish from water. Sometimes when Vasya would go with us, with the boys, in summer to swim in the river—she'd be all in a flutter. The other women wouldn't care, they'd walk past with their washtubs, waddling along, but Feklista would set her tub on the ground and start calling him: 'Come back,' she'd say, 'come back, my bright one! oh come back, my falcon!' And how he drowned, the Lord knows. He was playing on the bank, and his mother was right there, raking hay; suddenly she heard something like someone blowing bubbles in the water—she looked, and only Vasya's little cap was floating on the water. Well, since then Feklista hasn't been in her right mind: she'll come and lie down on the spot where he drowned; she'll lie down, brothers, and sing a song—remember, Vasya always sang such a song—well, she'll sing it, and she cries, cries, bitterly complains to God..."

"Here comes Pavlusha," said Fedya.

Pavel came up to the fire with the full pot in his hand.

"Well, boys," he began after a pause, "something's wrong."

"What?" Kostya asked hastily.

"I heard Vasya's voice."

Everyone shuddered.

"What are you saying, what?" Kostya stammered.

"By God. I'd just bent down to the water when I suddenly heard someone calling me in Vasya's voice and as if from under the water: 'Pavlusha, oh Pavlusha!' I listened; and he called again: 'Pavlusha, come here.' I moved away. But I scooped up the water."

"Oh Lord! Oh Lord!" the boys said, crossing themselves.

"It was the water-spirit calling you, Pavel," Fedya added... "And we were just talking about him, about Vasya."

"Oh, that's a bad omen," Ilyusha said deliberately.

"Well, never mind, let it be!" Pavel said resolutely and sat down again, "you can't escape your fate."

The boys quieted down. It was evident that Pavel's words had made a deep impression on them. They began settling down before the fire, as if preparing to sleep.

"What's that?" Kostya suddenly asked, raising his head.

Pavel listened.

"Those are curlews flying, whistling."

"Where are they flying?"

"To where, they say, there's no winter."

"Is there really such a land?"

"There is."

"Far away?"

"Far, far away, beyond the warm seas."

Kostya sighed and closed his eyes.

More than three hours had passed since I had joined the boys. The moon finally rose; I didn't notice it right away: it was so small and narrow. This moonless night seemed still as magnificent as before... But already many stars, still recently standing high in the sky, were inclining toward the dark edge of the earth; everything had completely quieted all around, as everything usually quiets only toward morning: everything slept a deep, motionless, pre-dawn sleep. The air no longer smelled so strongly—dampness seemed to spread through it again... Brief are the summer nights!.. The boys' conversation was dying out along with the fires... Even the dogs were dozing; the horses, as far as I could make out in the faintly glimmering, weakly flowing starlight, also lay with lowered heads... Sweet oblivion fell upon me; it passed into drowsiness.

A fresh stream ran across my face. I opened my eyes: morning was beginning. The dawn was not yet glowing anywhere, but it had already turned white in the east. Everything became visible, though dimly visible, all around. The pale gray sky was lightening, growing cold, turning blue; the stars now twinkled with faint light, now disappeared; the earth grew damp, leaves became covered with dew, here and there living sounds, voices began to be heard, and a thin, early breeze was already wandering and fluttering over the earth. My body responded to it with a light, cheerful shiver. I quickly got up and went over to the boys. They were all sleeping like the dead around the smoldering fire; only Pavel raised himself halfway and looked intently at me.

I nodded to him and walked away along the smoking river. I hadn't gone two versts when all around me, over the wide wet meadow, and ahead, over the greening hills, from forest to forest, and behind, over the long dusty road, over the sparkling, crimsoned bushes, and over the river, shyly turning blue from under the thinning mist—there poured first crimson, then red, golden streams of young, hot light... Everything began to stir, to wake, to sing, to rustle, to speak. Everywhere large drops of dew blazed like radiant diamonds; toward me, pure and clear, as if also washed by the morning coolness, came the sounds of a bell, and suddenly past me, driven by the familiar boys, rushed the rested herd...

I must add, to my regret, that Pavel was no more that same year. He did not drown: he was killed, falling from a horse. A pity, he was a splendid lad!

Biryuk

(From the cycle "A Sportsman's Sketches")