_ It was August. For days the sky had been cloudless, the sun
scorched unbearably and from early morning the warm wind raised a
whirl of hot sand from the sand-drifts and from the road, and bore
it in the air through the reeds, the trees, and the village. The
grass and the leaves on the trees were covered with dust, the
roads and dried-up salt marshes were baked so hard that they rang
when trodden on. The water had long since subsided in the Terek
and rapidly vanished and dried up in the ditches. The slimy banks
of the pond near the village were trodden bare by the cattle and
all day long you could hear the splashing of water and the
shouting of girls and boys bathing. The sand-drifts and the reeds
were already drying up in the steppes, and the cattle, lowing, ran
into the fields in the day-time. The boars migrated into the
distant reed-beds and to the hills beyond the Terek. Mosquitoes
and gnats swarmed in thick clouds over the low lands and villages.
The snow-peaks were hidden in grey mist. The air was rarefied and
smoky. It was said that abreks had crossed the now shallow river
and were prowling on this side of it. Every night the sun set in a
glowing red blaze. It was the busiest time of the year. The
villagers all swarmed in the melon-fields and the vineyards. The
vineyards thickly overgrown with twining verdure lay in cool, deep
shade. Everywhere between the broad translucent leaves, ripe,
heavy, black clusters peeped out. Along the dusty road from the
vineyards the creaking carts moved slowly, heaped up with black
grapes. Clusters of them, crushed by the wheels, lay in the dirt.
Boys and girls in smocks stained with grape-juice, with grapes in
their hands and mouths, ran after their mothers. On the road you
continually came across tattered labourers with baskets of grapes
on their powerful shoulders; Cossack maidens, veiled with
kerchiefs to their eyes, drove bullocks harnessed to carts laden
high with grapes. Soldiers who happened to meet these carts asked
for grapes, and the maidens, clambering up without stopping their
carts, would take an armful of grapes and drop them into the
skirts of the soldiers' coats. In some homesteads they had already
begun pressing the grapes; and the smell of the emptied skins
filled the air. One saw the blood-red troughs in the pent-houses
in the yards and Nogay labourers with their trousers rolled up and
their legs stained with the juice. Grunting pigs gorged themselves
with the empty skins and rolled about in them. The flat roofs of
the outhouses were all spread over with the dark amber clusters
drying in the sun. Daws and magpies crowded round the roofs,
picking the seeds and fluttering from one place to another.
The fruits of the year's labour were being merrily gathered in,
and this year the fruit was unusually fine and plentiful.
In the shady green vineyards amid a sea of vines, laughter, songs,
merriment, and the voices of women were to be heard on all sides,
and glimpses of their bright-coloured garments could be seen.
Just at noon Maryanka was sitting in their vineyard in the shade
of a peach-tree, getting out the family dinner from under an
unharnessed cart. Opposite her, on a spread-out horse-cloth, sat
the cornet (who had returned from the school) washing his hands by
pouring water on them from a little jug. Her little brother, who
had just come straight out of the pond, stood wiping his face with
his wide sleeves, and gazed anxiously at his sister and his mother
and breathed deeply, awaiting his dinner. The old mother, with her
sleeves rolled up over her strong sunburnt arms, was arranging
grapes, dried fish, and clotted cream on a little low, circular
Tartar table. The cornet wiped his hands, took off his cap,
crossed himself, and moved nearer to the table. The boy seized the
jug and eagerly began to drink. The mother and daughter crossed
their legs under them and sat down by the table. Even in the shade
it was intolerably hot. The air above the vineyard smelt
unpleasant: the strong warm wind passing amid the branches brought
no coolness, but only monotonously bent the tops of the pear,
peach, and mulberry trees with which the vineyard was sprinkled.
The comet, she felt unbearably hot. Her face was burning, and she
did not know where to put her feet, her eyes were moist with
sleepiness and weariness, her lips parted involuntarily, and her
chest heaved heavily and deeply.
The busy time of year had begun a fortnight ago and the continuous
heavy labour had filled the girl's life. At dawn she jumped up,
washed her face with cold water, wrapped herself in a shawl, and
ran out barefoot to see to the cattle. Then she hurriedly put on
her shoes and her beshmet and, taking a small bundle of bread, she
harnessed the bullocks and drove away to the vineyards for the
whole day. There she cut the grapes and carried the baskets with
only an hour's interval for rest, and in the evening she returned
to the village, bright and not tired, dragging the bullocks by a
rope or driving them with a long stick. After attending to the
cattle, she took some sunflower seeds in the wide sleeve of her
smock and went to the corner of the street to crack them and have
some fun with the other girls. But as soon as it was dusk she
returned home, and after having supper with her parents and her
brother in the dark outhouse, she went into the hut, healthy and
free from care, and climbed onto the oven, where half drowsing she
listened to their lodger's conversation. As soon as he went away
she would throw herself down on her bed and sleep soundly and
quietly till morning. And so it went on day after day. She had not
seen Lukashka since the day of their betrothal, but calmly awaited
the wedding. She had got used to their lodger and felt his intent
looks with pleasure. _