When the plantation began to thin out and the firs mingled with young birch-trees, Meliton saw a herd. Cows, sheep and hobbled horses were wandering among the bushes and snuffing the grass in the wood, crackling branches underfoot. At the wood's edge, leaning against a dripping birch-tree, stood an old shepherd, gaunt, bare- headed and wearing a coarse, tattered smock. He was staring at the ground, thinking about something, and evidently playing the pipe quite mechanically.
'Morning, gaffer! God save you!' Meliton greeted him in a thin, husky little voice that wascompletelyout ofkeepingwith his enorm- ous stature and fat, fleshy face. 'You've got the knack of that whistle! Whose herd is that you're minding?'
'The Artamonovs',' replied the old man grudgingly, and put the pipe away inside the front of his smock.
'So this must be their wood, too?' asked Meliton, looking around him. 'Weil l never, so it is ... I was nearly lost, I reckon. Scratched my face to pieces on those firs.'
He sat down on the damp earth and began to roll a cigarette from a scrap of newspaper.
Like his thin little voice, everything about this man was on a small scale - his smile, his beady eyes, his buttons and the little cap perched precariously on his greasy, shaven head — and seemed at variance with his height, his broadness, and his fleshy face. When he spoke and smiled, his smooth, pudgy face, and his whole appearance, seemed somehow womanish, timid and submissive.
'God help us, what weather!' he said with a roll of the head. 'They haven't got the oats in yet and this wretched rain looks as i fit's hired itself out for the season.'
The shepherd glanced at the drizzling sky, the wood, and the bailiff's sodden clothes, pondered, and said nothing.
'It's been like this all summer . ..' sighed Meliton. 'Bad for the peasants, and no joy for the masters either.'
The shepherd glanced at the sky again, pondered, and said delib- erately, as though chewing over every word:
'It's all heading one way . .. No good'll come of it.'
'What are things like here?' asked Meliton, lighting his cigarette. 'Seen any grouse coveys in the Artamonovs' scrub?'
The shepherd did not answer at once. Again he glanced at the sky and to left and right, pondered, and blinked . .. Evidently he attached no small importance to his words, and to lend them more weight endeavoured to deliver them slowly and with a certain sol- emnity. His face bore all the angularity and gravity of age, and because his nose had a deep, saddle-shaped bridge to it and his nostrils curled slightly upwards, its expression seemed sly and quiz- zical.
'No, I can't say as I have,' he answered. 'Our huntsman Yeryomka said he put up a covey on Elijah's Day, by Pustoshye, but I dare say he was lying. There aren't the birds about.'
'No, brother, there aren't . . . It's the same everywhere! When you come down to it, the hunting's paltry these days, a waste of time. There's no game at all, and what there is, isn't worth soiling your hands for - it's not even full-grown! Such tiny stuff, you feel quite sorry for it.'
Meliton gave a contemptuous laugh.
'Yes, the way the world's going these days is downright daft! The birds don't know what they're doing, they sit on their eggs late and some of them, I swear, aren't off the nest by St Peter's Day!'
'It's all headingone way,' said the shepherd, raisinghis head. 'Past year there weren't much game about, this year there's even less, and mark my words, in another fivethere'll be none at all. As I see it, soon there won't be birds of any kind about, let alone game-birds.'
'Yes,' agreed Meliton after a moment's thought. 'You're right.'
The shepherd chuckled bitterly and shook his head.
'It beats me!' he said. 'Where've they all gone to? Twenty odd years back, I remember, there were geese here, cranes, duck and black grouse - it was teeming with them! The gents would go out hunting and all you'd hear was "Bang-bang! Bang-bang!" There was no end to the woodcock, snipe and curlew, and as for teal and the little pipers, they were as common as starlings, or sparrows say - any number there were! And where've they all gone to? You don't even see a bird of prey these days. Eagles, falcons, the big eagle owls — they've all gone . .. There's less of every beast about. Nowadays, brother, you're lucky if you see a wolf or a fox, let alone a bear or a mink. And in the old days there were even elk! Forty years I've been giving an eye to the ways of God's world, year in, year out, and as I look at it, everything's heading one way.'
'One way?'
'To the bad, my boy. To ruination, I reckon . . . The days of God's world are numbered.'
The old man put on his cap and began to stare at the sky.
'It's a sad thing!' he sighed after a short silence. 'Dear God but it's sad! Of course, it's the will ofGod, it wasn't us made the world, but even so, brother, it's sad. Ifa single tree withers or, say, one of your cowsdies, you feel sorry, don't you, so what will it be like, friend, to see the whole world go to wrack and ruin? There's such goodness in it all, Lord Jesus Christ! The sun, the sky, the forests, the rivers, the animals - they've all been created, fashioned, fitted to each other, haven't they? Each has been allotted its task and knows its rightful place. And all this must come to naught!'
A melancholy smile flickered across the shepherd's face and his eyelids trembled.
'You say the earth is heading for ruin . . .' said Meliton, thinking. 'Perhaps you're right, the end of the world is nigh, but you can't judge just from the birds. You can hardly take the birds as an indication.'
'It's not just the birds,' said the shepherd. 'It's the beasts too, the cattle, the bees, the fish . .. If you don't believe me, ask the old men. They'll aU tell you the fish aren't a bit like they used to be. Every year there are less and less of them — in the seas, in the lakes, in the rivers. Here in the Peschanka, I remember, you used to catch pike a good two foot long, and there were burbot, ide and bream, all decent-size fish too, but now you're grateful if you catch a jack-pike or a perch six inches long. You don't see a proper ruffe even. It's worse and worse with every year that passes, and in a little while there won't be any fish at all. Then take the rivers . .. They're all drying up!'
'That's true, they are.'
'To be sure they are. Each year they get shallower and shallower, and there are none ofthe good deep pools there used to be, brother. You see those bushes yonder?' asked the old man, pointing to one side. 'There's an old stream-bed behind them, called "the backwa- ter". In my father's time, that's where the Peschanka flowed, but now look where the devil's led it! She keeps changing course and you see - she'll change it so much, in the end she'll dry up. Back of Kurgasovo there used to be ponds and marshes, but where are they now? And what's become of all the streams, eh? Here in this wood there used to be a running stream, and it was so full that the peasants would set their creels in it and catch pike, and the wild duck used to winter by it; but now there's no water in n worthy thc name even at the spring flood. Yes, my boy, everywhere you look things are bad. Everywhere!'
There was silence. Meliton stared before him in a reverie. He was trying to think of a single area of nature that had not yet been touched by the all-consuming disaster. Flecks of light glided over the mist and the slanting bands of rain, as though over opalescent glass, but immediately melted away: the rising sun was trving to break through the clouds and catch a glimpse of the earth.
'h's the same with the forests . . .' muttered Meliton.
'Same with them . . .' echoed the shepherd. 'They're all being felled, they keep catching fire, they dry up, and there's no new growth in their place. What does grow is straighrway cut down again, it comes up one day and the next day people have cut it down — and so it'll go on, until nothing's left. I've been minding the village's herd, friend, since we got our freedom, before then I was a shepherd of the master's, and always in this same spot, and I can't remember a single summer day when I haven't been here. And all the time I give an eye to God's works. I've had time to watch them well, brother, in my life, and the way I look at it now, all things that grow are on the wane. Be it rye, or vegetables, or flowers of any sort, it's all heading one way.'