"It was shepherds that fired the place. See where they dragged in hay and dead leaves! A shepherd's fife hereabouts must be a truly glorious one!"
Lastly, clasping his head as though he were about to fall asleep, he sank his chin between his knees, and relapsed into silence.
Presently a brilliant, sinuous little rivulet which had long been laving the bare roots of our tree brought floating past us a red and fawn leaf.
"How pretty," I thought, "that leaf will look from a distance when reposing on the surface of the sea! For, like the sun when he is in solitary possession of the heavens, that leaf will stand out against the blue, silky expanse like a lonely red star."
After awhile my companion began, catlike, to purr to himself a song. Its melody, the melody of "the moon withdrew behind a cloud," was familiar enough, but not so the words, which ran:
Oh Valentina, wondrous maid,
More comely thou than e'er a flow'r!
The nurse's son doth pine for thee,
And yearn to serve thee every hour!
"What does that ditty mean?" I inquired.
Kalinin straightened himself, gave a wriggle to a form that was as lithe as a lizard's, and passed one hand over his face.
"It is a certain composition," he replied presently. "It is a composition that was composed by a military clerk who afterwards died of consumption. He was my friend his life long, and my only friend, and a true one, besides being a man out of the common."
"And who was Valentina?"