folk! As by miracle thou didst restore me to health in my
childhood--when, offered by my weeping mother to thy protection, I raised
my dead eyelids, and could straightway walk to the threshold of thy shrine
to thank God for the life returned me--so by miracle thou wilt return us to
the bosom of our country. Meanwhile bear my grief-stricken soul to those
wooded hills, to those green meadows stretched far and wide along the blue
Niemen; to those fields painted with various grain, gilded with wheat,
silvered with rye; where grows the amber mustard, the buckwheat white as
snow, where the clover glows with a maiden's blush, where all is girdled
as with a ribbon by a strip of green turf on which here and there rest
quiet pear-trees.

Amid such fields years ago, by the border of a brook, on a low hill, in a
grove of birches, stood a gentleman's3 mansion, of wood, but with a stone
foundation; the white walls shone from afar, the whiter since they were
relieved against the dark green of the poplars that sheltered it against
the winds of autumn. The dwelling-house was not large, but it was
spotlessly neat, and it had a mighty barn, and near it were three stacks
of hay that could not be contained beneath the roof; one could see that
the neighbourhood was rich and fertile. And one could see from the number
of sheaves that up and down the meadows shone thick as stars--one could see
from the number of ploughs turning up early the immense tracts of black
fallow land that evidently belonged to the mansion, and were tilled well
like garden beds, that in that house dwelt plenty and order. The gate
wide-open proclaimed to passers-by that it was hospitable, and invited all
to enter as guests.

A young gentleman had just entered in a two-horse carriage, and, after
making a turn about the yard, he stopped before the porch and descended;
his horses, left to themselves, slowly moved towards the gate, nibbling
the grass. The mansion was deserted, for the porch doors were barred and
the bar fastened with a pin. The traveller did not run to make inquiries
at the farmhouse but opened the door and ran into the mansion, for he was
eager to greet it. It was long since he had seen the house, for he had
been studying in a distant city and had at last finished his course. He
ran in and gazed with eager emotion upon the ancient walls, his old
friends. He sees the same furniture, the same hangings with which he had
loved to amuse himself from babyhood, b