ng his elbows on the dusty
leaves of a plantain; the other, a young fellow with thick black
eyebrows and no moustache, dressed in the coarse canvas of which cheap
sacks are made, was lying on his back, with his arms under his head,
looking upwards at the sky, where the stars were slumbering and the
Milky Way lay stretched exactly above his face.

The shepherds were not alone. A couple of yards from them in the dusk
that shrouded the road a horse made a patch of darkness, and, beside
it, leaning against the saddle, stood a man in high boots and a short
full-skirted jacket who looked like an overseer on some big estate.
Judging from his upright and motionless figure, from his manners, and
his behaviour to the shepherds and to his horse, he was a serious,
reasonable man who knew his own value; even in the darkness signs
could be detected in him of military carriage and of the majestically
condescending expression gained by frequent intercourse with the gentry
and their stewards.

The sheep were asleep. Against the grey background of the dawn, already
beginning to cover the eastern part of the sky, the silhouettes of
sheep that were not asleep could be seen here and there; they stood with
drooping heads, thinking. Their thoughts, tedious and oppressive, called
forth by images of nothing but the broad steppe and the sky, the days
and the nights, probably weighed upon them themselves, crushing them
into apathy; and, standing there as though rooted to the earth, they
noticed neither the presence of a stranger nor the uneasiness of the
dogs.

The drowsy, stagnant air was full of the monotonous noise inseparable
from a summer night on the steppes; the grasshoppers chirruped
incessantly; the quails called, and the young nightingales trilled
languidly half a mile away in a ravine where a stream flowed and willows
grew.

The overseer had halted to ask the shepherds for a light for his pipe.
He lighted it in silence and smoked the whole pipe; then, still without
uttering a word, stood with his elbow on the saddle, plunged in thought.
The young shepherd took no notice of him, he still lay gazing at the sky
while the old man slowly looked the overseer up and down and then asked:

"Why, aren't you Panteley from Makarov's estate?"

"That's myself," answered the overseer.

"To be sure, I see it is. I didn't know you--that is a sign you will be
rich. Where has God brought you from?"

"From the Kovylyevsky fields."

"That's a g