They lived with the rye, horses, cows, the sheep, the woods, and the
grass. They knew that as the rye dropped seeds to the ground and
reproduced in abundance so also bred beast and bird, counteracting
death with birth. They knew too that to breed was also man's lot.
Ulyanka reached her seventeenth year, Ivan his eighteenth: they bowed
to the winds and went to the altar.
Ivan Kononov did not think of death when he went to the war, for what
was death when through it came birth? Were there not heat-waves and
drought in summer? Did not the winter sweep the earth by blizzards?
Yet in spring all began to pulsate again with life.
The War came: Ivan Kononov went without understanding, without
reason--what concern was it of Pochinki? He was dragged through
towns, he pined in spittle-stained barracks; and then he was sent to
the Carpathians. He fired. He fought hand-to-hand: he fled; he
retreated forty versts a day, resting in the woods singing his
peasant-songs with the soldiers--and yearning for Pochinki. He found
all spoke like Grandfather Yonov the One-Eyed; he learnt of the land
in the olden time order, of the people's Rising. At its approach he
went on furlough to Pochinki, met it there, and there remained.
The Rising came like happy tidings, like the cool breath of dawn,
like a May-time shower:
Under a showery sky
Bloom wide the fields of rye,
Ever blue and chill
May will the granaries fill.
Pages:
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211