The regiment was continually changing its pace

The regiment was continually changing its pace, and the horses began to sweat. In the distance appeared the huts of a little village lying under a steep slope. On the other side of the village was a wood, its green the tops piercing the azure dome of the sky. From beyond the wood came the sound of gunfire, mingled with the frequent rattle of rifle shots. The horses pricked up their ears. The smoke of bursting shrapnel hovered in the sky a long way off; the rifle-fire came from the right of the company.
Gregor listened tensely to every sound his nerves tautened into little bundles of sensation. Zikov fidgeted in his saddle talking incessantly:
‘Gregor, those shots sound just like boys rattling sticks along railings, don’t they? ‘he remarked.
‘Shut up, magpie!’
The company entered the village. Russians soldiers were overrunning the yards. The inhabitants of the huts were packing their belongings to flee, their faces impressed with alarm and confusion. As Gregor passed he noticed that soldiers were firing the roof of a shed but its owner, a tall grey haired White Russian crashed by his sudden misfortune, went past them without paying the slightest attention. Gregor saw the man’s family loading a cart with red covered pillows and ramshackle furniture, and the man himself was carefully carrying a broken wheel rim which it was of not value to anybody, and had probably lain in the yard for years. Gregor was amazed at the stupidity of the women, who were pilling the carts with painted pots and ikons and were leaving necessary and valuable articles behind in the huts. Down the street the feathers from an feather bed blew like a miniature snowstorm
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry

‘Gunfire!’Zikov almost shouted

‘Gunfire!’Zikov almost shouted and tears filled his clafish eyes. Gregor lifted his head. In front of him the troop sergeant’s grey greatcoat rose and fell in unison with the horse’s back; on each side stretched fields of uncut corn; a skylark danced in the sky at the height of a telegraph pole. The entire company was aroused. The sound of the firing ran through it like an electric current. Lashed into activity, lieutinant Polkovnikov put the company into a fast trot. Beyond a crossroad, where a deserted tavern stood, they began to fall in with the carts of refugees. A squadron of smart looking dragoons went by. Their captain , riding a sorrel thoroughbred, stared at the Cossacks ironically and spurred up his horse. They passed a great, pockmarked artilleryman carrying an armful of boards probably torn from the fence of the tavern, and came upon a howitzer battery stranded in a muddy and swampy hollow. The riders were lashing at their horses, whilst the gunners struggled with the carriage wheels.
A little farther on they overtook an infantry regiment. The soldiers were marching swiftly, their overcoats flung back. The sun glittered on their polished helmets and streamed from their bayonets. A corporal in the last company threw a lump of mud at Gregor:
‘Here, catch! Chuck it at the Austrians!’
‘Don’t play about grasshopper!’ Gregor replied, and cut the lump pf mud in its flight with his whip.
From now on they were continually passing foot regiments crawling like caterpillars, batteries, baggage wagons, red cross wagons. The deathly breath of imminent battle was in the air.
A little later, as it was entering a village, the fourth company was overtaken by the commander of the regiment, colonel Kaledin, accompanied by his second in command. As they passed Gregor heard the latter say agitatedly to Kaledin:
‘This village isn’t marked on the ordnance map, Vasily ! We may find ourselves in an awkward situation.’
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry

During the second week of July

During the second week of July, 1914, the divisional staff transferred Gregor Melekhov’s regiment to the town of Rovno in Volhynia, to take part in manoeuvres. A fortnight later, tired out with continual manoeuvring. Gregor and the other Cossacks of the fourth company were lying in their tents, when the company commander, lieutenant Poljovnikov, galloped furiously back from the regimental staff.
‘Another attack I suppose,’ Prokhor Zikov suggested tentatively, and waited for someone to agree.
The troop sergeant thrust the needle with which he had been mending his trousers into the lining of his cap, and remarked:
‘I expect so; they won’t let us rest for a moment.’
A minute or two later the bugler sounded the alarm. The Cossacks jumped to their feet. They had their horses saddled well within the regulation time. As Gregor was tearing the tent-pegs the sergeant managed to mutter him:
‘It’s war time, my lad!’
‘You’re lying!’ Gregor expressed his disbelief.
‘God’s truth! The sergeant major told me.’
The company formed up in the street, the commander at its head. ‘In troop columns!’ his command flew over the ranks.
The horses’ hoofs clattered as they went at a trot out of the village on to the highway. From a neighbouring village the first and fifth companies could be seen riding towards the station.
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry

During the second week of July

During the second week of July, 1914, the divisional staff transferred Gregor Melekhov’s regiment to the town of Rovno in Volhynia, to take part in manoeuvres. A fortnight later, tired out with continual manoeuvring. Gregor and the other Cossacks of the fourth company were lying in their tents, when the company commander, lieutenant Poljovnikov, galloped furiously back from the regimental staff.
‘Another attack I suppose,’ Prokhor Zikov suggested tentatively, and waited for someone to agree.
The troop sergeant thrust the needle with which he had been mending his trousers into the lining of his cap, and remarked:
‘I expect so; they won’t let us rest for a moment.’
A minute or two later the bugler sounded the alarm. The Cossacks jumped to their feet. They had their horses saddled well within the regulation time. As Gregor was tearing the tent-pegs the sergeant managed to mutter him:
‘It’s war time, my lad!’
‘You’re lying!’ Gregor expressed his disbelief.
‘God’s truth! The sergeant major told me.’
The company formed up in the street, the commander at its head. ‘In troop columns!’ his command flew over the ranks.
The horses’ hoofs clattered as they went at a trot out of the village on to the highway. From a neighbouring village the first and fifth companies could be seen riding towards the station.
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry

A sultry, sunny July haze lay over the steppe

A sultry, sunny July haze lay over the steppe. The ripe floods of wheats smoked with yellow dust. The metal parts of the reapers were too hot not to be touched with the hand. It was painful to look up at the bluish-yellow, flaming sky. Where the wheat ended a saffron sweep of clover began.
The entire village of Tatarsk had moved into the steppe. The horses choked in the heat and the pungent dust, and were restive as they flagged the reapers. The wind blowing from the river raise clouds of dust from the steppe, and the sun was enveloped in a tingling haze.
Since early morning Piotra, who was forking the wheat off the reaper platform, had drunk half a bucketful of water. Within a minute of his drinking the warm, unpleasant liquid his throat was dry again. His shirt was wet through, the sweat streamed from his face, there was a continual trilling ring in his ears. Her face covered with her kerchief, her shirt unbuttoned, Daria was gathering the corn into stooks. A greyish, granular sweat ran down between her urgent breasts. Natalia was leading the horses. Her cheeks were burnt the colour of beetroot, her eyes were filled with tears because of the glaring sun. Pantaleimon was walking up and down the swathes of corn, his wet shirt scalding his body. His beard felt as though it were a stream of melting black cart grease flowing from his chest.
At last Daria could stand no more. ‘Piotra!’ she called. ‘Let’s stop.’
‘Wait a bit: we’ll finish this row,’ he answered.
‘Let’s put it off till it’s cooler. I’ve had enough.’
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry

The estate of Yagodnoe lay in a spacious valley

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

The night before Earter Sunday

The night before Earter Sunday the sky was overcast with masses of black cloud and rain began to fall. A raw darkness enveloped Tatarsk. At dusk the ice of the Don began to crack with a protracted rolling groan, and crushed by a mass of broken ice the first floe emerged from the water. The ice broke suddenly over a length of three miles, and drifted downstream. The floes crashed against one another and against the banks, to the sound of the church bell ringing measuredly for the service. At the first bend where the Don sweeps to the left, the ice was dammed up. The roar and scraping of the moving floes reached the village. The lads had gathered in the church enclosure. Through the open doors came the muffled tones of the service, light streamed gaily through the windows, whilst outside in the darkness the lads surreptiously tickled and kissed the girls, and whispered dirty stories to one another.
From the Don came a flowing whisper, rustle and crunch, as though a strongly built, gaily woman as tall as a poplar were passing by, her great, invisible skirts rustling.
At midnight, Mitka Korshunov, riding a horse bareback, clattering through the Egyptian darkness up to the church. He tied the reins to the horse’s mane, and with a smack of the hand on her flanks sent her back home. He listened to the sound of the hoofs for a moment, then, adjusting his belt, he went into the church. At the porch he removed his cap , bent his head devoutly. And thrusting aside the women, pressed to the altar. The Cossacks were crowed in a black mass on the left; on the right was an azure throng of women. Mitka found his father in the front row, and seizing him by the elbow, whispered into his ear:
‘Father, come outside for a moment.’
As he pressed out of the church through the dense curtain of mingled odours, Mitka nostrils quivered. He was overwhelmed by the vapour of burning wax, the stench of women’s sweaty bodies, the deathly odour of long-lying clothes brought out only at Christmas and Easter time, the smell of damp leather, naphthaline , and other, indistinguishable scents.
In the porch Mitka put his mouth close to his father’s ear and said:
‘Natalia is dying.’
From the book ‘And quiet Flows the Don’ by Mikhail Sholokhov, translated by Stephen Garry