In front of me stands an aged housewife in a new-checked petticoat of homespun and new peasant-shoes.
Large inflated beads in three rows encircle her thin, swarthy neck; her grey hair is bound about with a yellow kerchief with red dots; it droops low over her dimmed eyes.
But her aged eyes smile in cordial wise; her whole wrinkled face smiles. The old woman must be in her seventh decade … and even now it can be seen that she was a beauty in her day!
With the sunburned fingers of her right hand widely spread apart, she holds a pot of cool, unskimmed milk, straight from the cellar; the sides of the pot are covered with dewdrops, like small pearl beads. On the palm of her left hand the old woman offers me a big slice of bread still warm from the oven. As much as to say: "Eat, and may health be thine, thou passing guest!"
A cock suddenly crows and busily flaps his wings; an imprisoned calf lows without haste, in reply.
"Hey, what fine oats!" the voice of my coachman makes itself heard….
O Russian contentment, repose, plenty! O free village! O tranquillity and abundance!
And I thought to myself: "What care we for the cross on the dome of Saint Sophia in Constantinople, and all the other things for which we strive, we people of the town?"
February, 1878.