ery top. Sleepy, exhausted
by the heat, she lifted her head and looked at the travellers.
Deniska gaped, looking at her; the horses stretched out their noses
towards the sheaves; the chaise, squeaking, kissed the waggon, and
the pointed ears passed over Father Christopher's hat like a brush.

"You are driving over folks, fatty!" cried Deniska. "What a swollen
lump of a face, as though a bumble-bee had stung it!"

The girl smiled drowsily, and moving her lips lay down again; then
a solitary poplar came into sight on the low hill. Someone had
planted it, and God only knows why it was there. It was hard to
tear the eyes away from its graceful figure and green drapery. Was
that lovely creature happy? Sultry heat in summer, in winter frost
and snowstorms, terrible nights in autumn when nothing is to be
seen but darkness and nothing is to be heard but the senseless angry
howling wind, and, worst of all, alone, alone for the whole of life
. . . . Beyond the poplar stretches of wheat extended like a bright
yellow carpet from the road to the top of the hills. On the hills
the corn was already cut and laid up in sheaves, while at the bottom
they were still cutting. . . . Six mowers were standing in a row
swinging their scythes, and the scythes gleamed gaily and uttered
in unison together "Vzhee, vzhee!" From the movements of the peasant
women binding the sheaves, from the faces of the mowers, from the
glitter of the scythes, it could be seen that the sultry heat was
baking and stifling. A black dog with its tongue hanging out ran
from the mowers to meet the chaise, probably with the intention of
barking, but stopped halfway and stared indifferently at Deniska,
who shook his whip at him; it was too hot to bark! One peasant woman
got up and, putting both hands to her aching back, followed
Yegorushka's red shirt with her eyes. Whether it was that the colour
pleased her or that he reminded her of her children, she stood a
long time motionless staring after him.

But now the wheat, too, had flashed by; again the parched plain,
the sunburnt hills, the sultry sky stretched before them; again a
hawk hovered over the earth. In the distance, as before, a windmill
whirled its sails, and still it looked like a little man waving his
arms. It was wearisome to watch, and it seemed as though one would
never reach it, as though it were running away from the chaise.

Father Christopher and Kuzmitchov were silent. Deniska lashed the
horses and