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How stifling and dismal! The britzka runs on, but Egorushka sees one and the same thing—the sky, the plain, the hills ... The music in the grass has grown still. The martins have flown away, there are no partridges to be seen. Rooks flit over the faded grass, having nothing else to do; they all look the same and make the steppe still more monotonous.

A kite flies just above the ground, smoothly flapping its wings, and suddenly stops in the air, as if pondering life’s boredom, then shakes its wings and sweeps away across the steppe like an arrow, and there is no telling why it flies and what it wants. And in the distance the windmill beats its wings ...

For the sake of diversity, a white skull or a boulder flashes among the weeds; a gray stone idol or a parched willow with a blue roller on its topmost branch rises up for a moment, a gopher scampers across the road, and—again weeds, hills, rooks run past your eyes ...

Then, thank God, a cart laden with sheaves comes the opposite way. On the very top lies a peasant girl. Sleepy, exhausted by the heat, she raises her head and looks at the passersby. Deniska gapes at her, the bays stretch their muzzles out to the sheaves, the britzka, shrieking, kisses the cart, and prickly ears of wheat brush like a besom over Father Khristofor’s top hat.

‘‘Running people down, eh, pudgy!’’ shouts Deniska. ‘‘See, her mug’s all swollen like a bee stung it!’’

The girl smiles sleepily, moves her lips, and lies down again ... But now a solitary poplar appears on a hill; who planted it and why it is here—God only knows. It is hard to tear your eyes from its slender figure and green garments. Is the handsome fellow happy? Heat in summer, frost and blizzards in winter, terrible autumn nights when you see only darkness and hear nothing but the wayward, furiously howling wind, and above all—you are alone, alone your whole life ... Beyond the poplar, fields of wheat stretch in a bright yellow carpet from the top of the hill right down to the road. On the hill the grain has already been cut and gathered into stacks, but below they are still mowing ... Six mowers stand in a row and swing their scythes, and the scythes flash merrily and in rhythm, all together making a sound like ‘‘vzzhi, vzzhi!’’ By the movements of the women binding the sheaves, by the faces of the mowers, by the gleaming of the scythes, you can see that the heat is burning and stifling. A black dog, its tongue hanging out, comes running from the mowers to meet the britzka, probably intending to bark, but stops halfway and gazes indifferently at Deniska, who threatens it with his whip: it is too hot to bark! One woman straightens up and, pressing both hands to her weary back, follows Egorushka’s red shirt with her eyes. The red color may have pleased her, or she may have been remembering her own children, but she stands for a long time motionless and looks after him ...

But now the wheat, too, has flashed by. Again the scorched plain, the sunburnt hills, the torrid sky stretch out, again a kite skims over the ground. The windmill beats its wings in the distance, as before, and still looks like a little man waving his arms. You get sick of looking at it, and it seems you will never reach it, that it is running away from the britzka.

Father Khristofor and Kuzmichov were silent. Deniska kept whipping up the bays and making little cries, and Egorushka no longer wept but gazed indifferently on all sides. The heat and the boredom of the steppe wearied him. It seemed to him that he had already been riding and bobbing about for a long time, that the sun had already been baking his back for a long time. They had not yet gone ten miles, but he was already thinking: ‘‘Time for a rest!’’ The good cheer gradually left his uncle’s face, and only the businesslike dryness remained, and to a gaunt, clean-shaven face, especially when it is in spectacles, when its nose and temples are covered with dust, this dryness lends an implacable, inquisitorial expression. Father Khristofor, however, went on gazing in astonishment at God’s world and smiled. He was silently thinking of something good and cheerful, and a kindly, good-natured smile congealed on his face. It seemed that the good, cheerful thought also congealed in his brain from the heat ...

‘‘What do you say, Deniska, will we catch up with the wagon train today?’’ asked Kuzmichov.

Deniska glanced at the sky, rose a little, whipped up the horses, and only then replied:

‘‘By nightfall, God willing.’’

The barking of dogs was heard. Some six huge steppe sheepdogs suddenly rushed at the britzka, as if leaping from ambush, with a fierce, howling barking. Extraordinarily vicious, with shaggy, spiderlike muzzles, their eyes red with malice, they all surrounded the britzka and, shoving each other jealously, set up a hoarse growling. Their hatred was passionate, and they seemed ready to tear to pieces the horses, and the britzka, and the people ... Deniska, who liked teasing and whipping, was glad of the opportunity and, giving his face an expression of malicious glee, bent over and lashed one of the sheepdogs with his whip. The dogs growled still more, the horses bolted; and Egorushka, barely clinging to the box, looked at the dogs’ eyes and teeth and understood that if he were to fall off, he would instantly be torn to pieces, but he felt no fear and looked on with the same malicious glee as Deniska, regretting that he had no whip in his hands.

The britzka overtook a flock of sheep.

‘‘Stop!’’ cried Kuzmichov. ‘‘Hold up! Whoa ...’’

Deniska threw his whole body back and reined in the bays. The britzka stopped.

‘‘Come here!’’ Kuzmichov shouted to the shepherd. ‘‘Calm those dogs down, curse them!’’

The old shepherd, ragged and barefoot, in a warm hat, with a dirty bag on his hip and a long staff with a crook— a perfect Old Testament figure—calmed the dogs down and, removing his hat, came up to the britzka. Exactly the same Old Testament figure stood motionless at the other end of the flock and gazed indifferently at the passersby.

‘‘Whose flock is this?’’ asked Kuzmichov.

‘‘Varlamov’s!’’ the old man replied loudly.

‘‘Varlamov’s!’’ repeated the shepherd standing at the other end of the flock.

‘‘Say, did Varlamov pass by here yesterday or not?’’

‘‘No, sir...His agent passed by, that’s a fact ...’’

‘‘Gee-up!’’

The britzka drove on, and the shepherds with their vicious dogs were left behind. Egorushka reluctantly looked ahead into the purple distance, and it was beginning to seem to him that the windmill beating its wings was coming nearer. It was getting bigger and bigger, it really grew, and you could now distinctly make out its two wings. One wing was old, patched up; the other had just recently been made of new wood and gleamed in the sun.

The britzka drove straight on, but the mill for some reason began moving to the left. They drove and drove, but it kept moving to the left and would not disappear from sight.

‘‘A fine windmill Boltva built for his son!’’ observed Deniska.

‘‘But his farmstead’s nowhere to be seen.’’

‘‘It’s over there, beyond that little gully.’’

Soon Boltva’s farmstead appeared as well, but the windmill still would not drop back, would not fall behind, looking at Egorushka with its gleaming wing and beating away. What a sorcerer!

II

AROUND MIDDAY THE britzka turned off the road to the right, drove slowly for a while, and stopped. Egorushka heard a soft, very gentle burbling and felt on his face the cool velvet touch of some different air. Out of a hill that nature had glued together from huge ugly stones, through a little hemlock pipe put in by some unknown benefactor, ran a thin stream of water. It fell to the ground, gay, transparent, sparkling in the sun, and, murmuring quietly, as if imagining itself a strong and swift torrent, quickly flowed off somewhere to the left. Not far from the hill, the little rivulet broadened into a pool; the hot rays and scorching soil drank it up greedily, diminishing its strength; but a bit further on, it probably merged with another such little rivulet, because some hundred paces from the hill, along its course, dense, lush green sedge was growing, from which, as the britzka approached, three snipe flew up with a cry.