The estate of Yagodnoe lay in a spacious valley. The wind blew changeably from north or south, summer advanced on the valley, the autumn rustled with falling leaves, winter flung its forces of frost and snow against it, but Yagodnoe remained sunk in its wooden torpor. So the days passed crawling over the high wall that cut off the state from the rest of the world. The farmyard was always alive with black ducks wearing red spectacles; the guinea fowls scattered like a beady rain; gaily feathered peacocks called hoarsely from the roof of the stables. The old general was fond of all kind of birds, and even kept a maimed crane. In November it wrung the heart-strings with its copper tongue, yearning cry as it heard the call of the wild cranes flying to the south. But it could not fly, for one wing hung uselessly at its side. As the general stood at the window and watched the bird stretching out its neck and jumping, fluttering off the ground, he laughed; and the bass tone of his laughter rocked through the empty hall like clouds of tobacco smoke.
During all the time of Gregor’s stay at Yagodnoe only two events disturbed the sleepy, monotonous life,; the coming of Aksinia’s child and the loss of a prize gander. The inhabitants of Yagodnoe quickly grew accustomed to the baby girl, and they found some of the gander’s feathers in the meadow and concluded that a fox had carried it off.
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry
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