For two days a warm wind

For two days a warm wind had been blowing from the south.
The last snow had melted off the fields. The foaming spring runnels had ceased their roaring, the gullies and rivulets of the steppe had finished gurgling. At dawn of the third day the wind died away and heavy mists descended over the steppe; the clumps of last year feather grass were silvered with moisture; the mounds, ravines and villages, the spires of the belfries, the arrowing crowns of the pyramidal poplars, were all drowned in an impenetrable milky haze.
That misty morning, for the first time after her recovery Aksinia went out on to the porch and stood long, intoxicated with the heady sweetness of the fresh spring air. Mastering her nausea and dizziness she walked as far as the well in the orchard, put down the bucket, and seated herself on the parapet.
Altogether different, marvellously fresh and enchanting seemed the world to Aksinia. With glittering eyes she agitatedly gazed about her, fingering the folds of her dress as would a child. The enmisted distance, the apple-trees in the orchard swimming with thaw-water, the wet palings and the road beyond them with its deep, water-filled ruts – all seemed incredibly beautiful to her; everything was blossoming with heavy yet delicate tints as though irradiated with sunlight.
A scrap of clean sky peering through the haze dazzled her with its chilly azure; the scent of rotting straw and thawed black earth was so familiar and pleasant that she sighed deeply and smiled at the corners of her lips; the artless snatch of song of a skylark reaching her ears from somewhere in the misty steppe awakened an unconscious sadness within her. And it was that snatch of skylark’s song heard in a strange land which sent Aksinia’s heart beating more quickly, and wrung two meagre little tears from her eyes.
Unthinkingly rejoicing in the life which had returned to her she experienced a tremendous desire to touch everything with her hands, to look at everything. She wanted to touch the currant bush which stood blackened with moisture, to press her cheek against the branch of an apple-tree covered with a velvety pale pink bloom, she desired to stride across the falling fencing and to walk trough the mire, away from all the tracks. To where beyond a broad hollow the fields of winter corn were showing wondrously green, merging with the misty distance.
For several days Aksinia lived in the expectation that at any moment Gregor would turn up. But at last she learned from neighbours who called on her host that the war was still going on, and that many Cossacks had sailed from Novorossisk to the Crimea, while those who had stayed behind had joined the Red Army or had been sent to the mines.
From the book ‘ The Don Flows Home to the Sea’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry

After his first battle

After his first battle Gregor Melekhov was tormented by a dreary inward pain. He grew noticeably thin, lost weight, and frequently, whether attacking or resting, sleeping or waking, he saw the features and form of the Austrian whom he had killed by the railings, In his sleep he lived again and again through that first battle, and even felt the shuddering convulsion of his right hand clutching the lance. He would awake and drive the dream off violently, shading his painfully screwed up eyes with his hands.
The cavalry trampled down the ripened corn and left their hoof prints on the fields as though hail had rattled over all Galicia. The heavy soldiers’ boot tramped the roads, scratched the macadam, churned up the August mud. The gloomy face of the earth was pock-marked with shells; fragments of iron and steel tore into it, yearning for human blood. At night ruddy flickerings lit up the horizon: trees, villages, towns were flaming. In August –when fruits ripen and corn is ready for harvest – the wind swept sky was unsmilingly grey, the rare fine days were oppressive and sultrily steaming.
August declined to its close. The leaves turned an oily yellow in the orchard , and a mournful purple flooded the stalks. From a distance it seemed as though the trees were rent with wounds and streaming with blood.
Gregor studied with interest the changes that occurred in his comrades. Prokhor Zilov returned from hospital with the marks of a horse shoe on his cheek, and pain and bewilderment lurking in the corners of his lips. His calfish eyes blinked more than ever. Yegor Aharkov lost no opportunity of cursing and swearing, was more bawdy than ever and imprecated everything under the sun. Yemelian Groshev, a serious and efficient Cossack from Gregor’s own village, seemed to char; his faces turned dark, an he laughed awkwardly and morosely. Changes were to be observed in every face; each was inwardly nursing and rearing the iron seeds implanted by the war, and the young Cossacks were wilting and drooping like the stalks of mown grass.
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry

He third Don Cossack regiment

He third Don Cossack regiment was stationed at Vilno together with certain sections of the third cavalry division. One day in June the various companies rode out from the city to take up country quarters. The day was dull but warm. The flowing clouds coursed in droves across the sky and concealed the sun. The regimental band blared at the head of the column, and the officers in their light summer caps and drill uniforms rode in a bunch at the back of a cloud of cigarette smoke rising above them.
On each side of the road the peasants and their womenfolk were cutting the hay, stopping to gaze at the columns of Cossacks as they passed. The horses sweated with the heat, a yellowish foam appeared between their legs and the light breeze blowing from the south east did not cool, but rather intensified the steaming swelter
Arrived at his destination, the regiment was broken up by companies among the states in the district. During the day the Cossacks cut the clover and meadow grass for the landowners, at night they grazed their hobbled horses in the fields assigned to them, and played cards or told stories by the smoke of the camp fires. The sixth company was billeted on the large estate of a Polish landowner. The officers lived in the house, played cards, got drunk, and paid attentions to the steward’s daughter; the Cossacks pitched their tents a couple of miles away from the house. Each morning the steward drove out in a drozhi to their camp. The corpulent, estimable gentleman would get out of the drozhi and invariably welcome the Cossacks with a wave of his white, glossy peaked cap.
‘Come and cut hay with us, sir; it’ll shake your fat down a bit,’ the Cossacks called to him. The steward smiled phlegmatically , wiped his bald head with his handkerchief, and went with the sergeant major to point out the next section of hay to be cut.
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry