“Thy evening brightness illumines the heavens, O Lord! and in Thy splendors our small leaves golden are and burning. Now with our golden leaves we sing to Thee, O Lord, and our delicate twigs play as the strings of the harp, O good Father of ours!”
Again the sorrowing cypress said:
“Upon our sad foreheads, exhausted with the heat, softly falls the evening dew. Praise be to Thee, O Lord; brothers and sisters rejoice, because there falls the cooling dew.”
Amid this chorus of trees the aspen alone trembles and is afraid; for it gave the wood for the Cross of the Saviour of the world; at times it faintly groans:
“O Lord, have mercy upon me. Have mercy upon me, O Lord.”
Again, sometimes, when the oaks and pines cease for a moment, there rises from under their feet a faint, modest voice, low as the murmur of insects, silent as silence itself, which says:
“A small berry am I, O Lord, and hidden in the moss. But Thou wilt hear, discern and love me; though small, devout am I, and sing Thy glory.”
Thus every evening prays the forest, and these orchestral sounds rise at every sunset from earth to heaven—and float high, high, reaching where there is no creature, where there is nothing only the silvery dust and the milky way of the stars, and above the stars—God.
At this moment the sun hides his radiant head in the far-distant seas; the farmer turns upward his plowshares and hastens to his cottage. From the pastures return the bellowing herds; the sheep raise clouds of the golden dust. The twilight falls; in the village creek the well sweeps; later the windows shine, and from the distance comes the barking of the dogs.
The sun had not gone beyond the woods when Kasya had seated herself under the mossy stone to weave her garlands. Its rays were thrown upon her face, broken by the shadows of the leaves and twigs. The work did not proceed rapidly, for Kasya was tired from heat and running in the woods. Her sunburnt hands moved slowly at her work. The warm breeze kissed her temples and face, and the voices of the forest lulled her to sleep. Her large eyes became heavy and drowsy; her eyelashes began to close slowly; she leaned her head against the stone, opened her eyes once more as a child looking upon the divine beauty of the world; then the noise of the trees, the rows of the stumps, the ground full of pine needles, and the skies that could be seen between the branches all became indistinct, darkened, dissolved, disappeared—and she smiled and slept. Her head was hidden in a soft shade, but the covering of her breast shone all rosy and purple. Her soft breathing lifted her bosom gently; so wonderful and beautiful she looked in this quiet sleep in the evening rays that John looked upon her as if upon the image of a saint, glorious with gold, and colored as the rainbow.