Behind them was the forest; in front,
pasture, thickets, forest again, and sky. The neighbouring crossways
coiled round them in a ring, then narrowed away into the forest.
In all three cottages dwelt Kononovs: they were not kinsfolk, though
they bore that name, closer linked through their common life than
kinsmen ever were. Kononov-Yonov, the One-Eyed, was the village
elder: he no longer remembered his grandfather's name, but knew the
olden times well, and remembered how his great-grandfathers and his
great-great-grandfathers had lived and how it was good for men to
live.
From the oldest to the youngest they toiled with all their strength
from spring to autumn, from autumn to spring, and from sunrise to
sundown, growing grey like their hen-coops from smoke, scorching in
the heat and steaming sweat like boiling tar.
The kinsfolk of Yonov the One-eyed made tar besides tilling the land,
while Yonov himself kept bee-hives in the forest. The sisters Yonov
barked lime-trees and made bast shoes. It was a hard, stern life,
with its smoke, heat, frosts, and languour; but they loved it
profoundly.
The Kononovs lived alone in friendship with the woods, the fields,
and the sky; yet ever engaged in stubborn struggle against them. They
had to remember the rise and set of the sun, the nights and the dung-
mounds. They had to look into putrid corners, watch for cold blasts
from the north, and give ear to the rumbling and gabbling of the
forest.
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