And, from that vast plain of fertility, man's hand it is that reaps the ripe ears, that binds the sheaves, that gathers in the grain. Ever again and again must I marvel at the patience of man's labour, marvel at his extraordinary conquest over the earth.
In groups the peasants work from early dawn to sunset, unaffected by the pulsing heat beating down upon their heads. The men's snowy shirts contrast with the women's coloured aprons that stain the tawny plain with vivid spots of blue, red, or orange, for at the season of harvest no one remains idle—the very old and the disabled alone are left behind to guard the house.
From hour to hour ceaselessly they toil, till midday gathers them round their carts for frugal repast of polenta and onions. Pictures of labour, of healthy effort, of simple content! How often have I contemplated them with emotion, realising how dear this country had grown to my heart.
Watchful dogs guard the carts and those of the children too small to work; beneath the shade of these vehicles the labourers take a short hour's rest, alongside of their grey bullocks that in placid content lie chewing the cud, their enormous horns sending back the rays of the sun. Lazily they swish their tails from side to side, keeping off the too busy flies that gather on their lean flanks and round their large, dreamy eyes. With slow turns of their heads they follow their masters' movements, well aware that their own effort must be taken up again at the hour of sunset when the labourers go home.
Only on rich estates is machinery used, and then mostly for threshing the corn; nearly all the cutting is done by hand. Small gatherings of busy labourers crowd around the iron monster, whose humming voice can be heard from afar, and always rises the heap of grain till it stands, a burnished pyramid of gold, beneath the great blue sky.
At sunset the peasants return home, their scythes over their shoulders, walking beside their carts heaped up with bright yellow straw. Along the road they crawl, those carts, in a haze of dust. On wind-still evenings the dust remains suspended in the air, covering the world with a silvery gauze, enveloping the dying day in a haze of mystery that floats over man and beast, wiping out the horizon, toning down all colours, softening every outline.
Often the sinking sun sets this haze aflame; then the atmosphere becomes strangely luminous, as though a tremendous fire were burning somewhere behind fumes of smoke. Indescribable is that hour; full of beauty, full of peace, full of the infinite satisfaction of work faithfully accomplished, the hour when all feet are turned homewards, turned towards rest.
In never-ending file the carts follow each other, drawn by those grey-white oxen with the wondrous horns—along the road they come as though moving in a dream, that slowly passes in a cloud of dust and is gone; ... but the dust remains suspended like a veil drawn over a vision that is no more....
The maize-harvest comes later in the year, much later; sometimes in October the peasants are still gathering the ripe fruit. The days are short, and in the evening dampness rises out of the vast plain, and hovers like smoke beneath the glowing sky. An indescribable melancholy floats over the world, the melancholy of things come to an end. A great effort seems completed, and now the year has no more to do but to fall slowly to sleep.... Yet nothing is more glorious than the Rumanian autumn; Nature desires to deck herself in a last mantle of beauty before confessing herself vanquished by the advancing of the winter season.
The sky becomes intensely blue; all that stands up against it appears to acquire a new value. The trees dress themselves in wondrous colours, sometimes golden, sometimes russet, sometimes flaming red. Amongst the man-high maize-plants, giant sunflowers stand bending their heads, heavy with the weight of the seeded centres; like prodigious stars their saffron petals shine against the azure vault.