e brown, some
red, lay piled up in heaps, and below there stretched a broad, level,
bright green meadow, from which the hay had been already carried, and in
which the peasants' cattle were wandering. The river, three-quarters of
a mile from the village, ran twisting and turning, with beautiful
leafy banks; beyond it was again a broad meadow, a herd of cattle, long
strings of white geese; then, just as on the near side, a steep ascent
uphill, and on the top of the hill a hamlet, and a church with five
domes, and at a little distance the manor-house.

"It's lovely here in your parts!" said Olga, crossing herself at the
sight of the church. "What space, oh Lord!"

Just at that moment the bell began ringing for service (it was Saturday
evening). Two little girls, down below, who were dragging up a pail of
water, looked round at the church to listen to the bell.

"At this time they are serving the dinners at the Slavyansky Bazaar,"
said Nikolay dreamily.

Sitting on the edge of the slope, Nikolay and Olga watched the sun
setting, watched the gold and crimson sky reflected in the river, in
the church windows, and in the whole air--which was soft and still and
unutterably pure as it never was in Moscow. And when the sun had set the
flocks and herds passed, bleating and lowing; geese flew across from
the further side of the river, and all sank into silence; the soft light
died away in the air, and the dusk of evening began quickly moving down
upon them.

Meanwhile Nikolay's father and mother, two gaunt, bent, toothless
old people, just of the same height, came back. The women--the
sisters-in-law Marya and Fyokla--who had been working on the landowner's
estate beyond the river, arrived home, too. Marya, the wife of Nikolay's
brother Kiryak, had six children, and Fyokla, the wife of Nikolay's
brother Denis--who had gone for a soldier--had two; and when Nikolay,
going into the hut, saw all the family, all those bodies big and little
moving about on the lockers, in the hanging cradles and in all the
corners, and when he saw the greed with which the old father and the
women ate the black bread, dipping it in water, he realized he had made
a mistake in coming here, sick, penniless, and with a family, too--a
great mistake!

"And where is Kiryak?" he asked after they had exchanged greetings.

"He is in service at the merchant's," answered his father; "a keeper in
the woods. He is not a bad peasant, but too fond of his glass."