The Works of Nikolai Gogol, Vol. 1

Everything seems dead; only above, in the depths of the sky, a lark trembles, and silver songs fly along the airy steps to the enamored earth, and now and then the cry of a gull or the resonant voice of a quail echoes in the steppe. Lazily and madly, as if walking without purpose, the cloud-high oaks stand, and the blinding strikes of the sun’s rays ignite entire picturesque masses of leaves, casting a shadow as dark as night on others, upon which gold sprinkles only during a strong wind. Emeralds, topazes, and rubies of ethereal insects tumble over the colorful vegetable gardens, sheltered by stately sunflowers. Gray haystacks and golden sheaves of grain arrange themselves in the field like a camp and wander through its immensity. The wide branches of cherry, plum, apple, and pear trees bend under the weight of their fruits; the sky, its pure mirror—the river in green, proudly raised frames... how full of voluptuousness and pleasure is the Malorossiyan Little Russian/Ukrainian summer!

Such luxury shone on one of the days of hot August in eighteen hundred... eight-hundred... yes, it will be thirty years ago now, when the road, ten versts a Russian unit of distance, approximately 0.66 miles before the small town of Sorochyn-