Over and above all this, the village was afflicted with many sicknesses, as is often the case just before spring; for at that time noxious vapours rise up from the thawing ground. Smallpox swooped down first, like a hawk on a brood of goslings, slaying the little ones. Both the youngest children of the Voyt were taken, in spite of the doctors whom he called in. Then the grown-ups were assailed by many diseases, and to such an extent that in every other cabin someone lay moaning, in expectation of the grave and trusting to the mercy of God. Dominikova was overcharged with patients.—And, just then, the cows’ time for calving came round, and many a woman was brought to bed: so that the distress and confusion in the village became very great. People were accordingly looking forward to spring with ever more and more impatience. All were sure that, as soon as the snows had melted, and the lands were thawed and dry, and the sun shone bright so that they could go out to plough, all their trouble and distress would be over at last. But that year they remarked that the spring was slower to come than usual. The rain never ceased, the ground thawed very slowly; and besides—a bad sign, foreboding a long winter!—even now, the kine had not begun to shed their hair. Therefore, whenever there came a single hour of dry weather and radiant sun, the villagers came swarming out of their huts and gazed up into the sky and wondered whether this change would last at all. The old folk basked in the bright beams to warm their tottering limbs, and all the little ones ran out along the roads in noisy crowds, like colts let into the meadows for the first time in spring. How merry and jocund and full of glee they all were then! The whole land lay in the genial warmth, and all the waters were bathed in light; the ditches seemed brimful of molten sun; the ice on the pond, washed by the rains, looked like a huge dish of blackened tinware; the trees sparkled with yet undried dew; the furrow-streaked fields spread out, quiet and dark of hue, but already inhaling the warmth, and swollen with the springtide and the sparkling murmurous waters. The snows, too, still unmelted here and there, shone with crude whiteness, like linen laid out to bleach: the azure sky revealed its depths, hitherto veiled in mists, and hidden under a web of gossamer, as it were; now the eyes could sound its infinite blue fields, or glance over to the dark horizon and the wavy outline of the woods. And the world around was panting with joy; for such sweet spring odours were wafted all about them that a cry of happiness gushed from the hearts of men, and their souls aspired to soar upwards in the sunlight, like those birds they saw coming from somewhere in the far-away east and floating in the crystal air. Every man came out of doors with delight, and took pleasure in talking, even with one who was no friend to him.