But of terrible and destructive storms that country can shew no record. * Namely, that, should thunder occur on that day, the whole of the ensuing year will be prosperous, since the peals represent the saint’s passage to heaven. Nor has the country whereof I am speaking ever been visited with the Egyptian or other plagues. Never has any member of its population beheld a dire manifestation of Heaven, nor a thunderbolt, nor an unlooked-for darkness; nor do venomous vermin abide there, and the locust comes not thither, and lions, tigers, bears, and wolves are unknown ( owing to the fact that the country contains no fastnesses for them to dwell in). In short, over the fields and around the village wander only lowing cattle, bleating sheep, and cackling poultry. Yet none but God knows whether a poet or a visionary would find himself satisfied with the natural features of this peaceful spot. Such gentlemen, we know, love to gaze upon the moon, and to listen to the strains of nightingales; they love to see Luna clothe herself in coquettish, aureate cloud, and then glide mysteriously through the boughs of trees, and send forth clusters of silver beams to delight the eyes of her worshippers’! But in this country of Oblomov’s dream no one knows such a moon; there Luna’s features, as she looks down upon the villages and the fields, resembles, rather, a polished, cheery copper basin, and in vain would the poet fasten ravished eyes upon her, for she would return his gaze with the same indifference as that with which a round-faced rustic beauty meets the eloquent, passionate glances of a town gallant. Nor has a nightingale ever been heard in that country--perchance for the reason that the region contains no shaded arbours or gardens of roses. But what an abundance of quails it can show!--so much so that in summer, when the harvest is in course of being gathered, urchins can catch them even in their hands! Yet it must not be supposed that thereafter the quails furnish a gastronomic dainty. Such an outrage would be repugnant to the moral sense of the inhabitants, since the quail is a bird, and therefore legally prohibited from being used for food. Consequently it lives but to delight the popular ear with its song, and in almost every house there hangs beneath the eaves a wicker cage wherein a member of that feathered species sits penned.