ring sunshine he sat in the caleche looking at the new
grass, the first leaves on the birches, and the first puffs of white
spring clouds floating across the clear blue sky. He was not thinking of
anything, but looked absent-mindedly and cheerfully from side to side.

They crossed the ferry where he had talked with Pierre the year before.
They went through the muddy village, past threshing floors and green
fields of winter rye, downhill where snow still lodged near the bridge,
uphill where the clay had been liquefied by the rain, past strips of
stubble land and bushes touched with green here and there, and into a
birch forest growing on both sides of the road. In the forest it was
almost hot, no wind could be felt. The birches with their sticky green
leaves were motionless, and lilac-colored flowers and the first blades
of green grass were pushing up and lifting last year's leaves. The
coarse evergreen color of the small fir trees scattered here and there
among the birches was an unpleasant reminder of winter. On entering the
forest the horses began to snort and sweated visibly.

Peter the footman made some remark to the coachman; the latter assented.
But apparently the coachman's sympathy was not enough for Peter, and he
turned on the box toward his master.

"How pleasant it is, your excellency!" he said with a respectful smile.

"What?"

"It's pleasant, your excellency!"

"What is he talking about?" thought Prince Andrew. "Oh, the spring,
I suppose," he thought as he turned round. "Yes, really everything is
green already.... How early! The birches and cherry and alders too are
coming out.... But the oaks show no sign yet. Ah, here is one oak!"

At the edge of the road stood an oak. Probably ten times the age of
the birches that formed the forest, it was ten times as thick and twice
as tall as they. It was an enormous tree, its girth twice as great as a
man could embrace, and evidently long ago some of its branches had been
broken off and its bark scarred. With its huge ungainly limbs sprawling
unsymmetrically, and its gnarled hands and fingers, it stood an aged,
stern, and scornful monster among the smiling birch trees. Only the
dead-looking evergreen firs dotted about in the forest, and this oak,
refused to yield to the charm of spring or notice either the spring or
the sunshine.

"Spring, love, happiness!" this oak seemed to say. "Are you not weary of
that stupid, meaningless, constantly repeated fraud? Alw