It was a delightful day, warm, yet bracing: a day on which the peasant, after a hearty sleep, jumps up as he wakes, and—his prayers first said—sets to work with scarce the shadow of a yawn. A huge red globe was slowly ascending the sky, on whose immeasurable expanse, amongst a few thin filaments of haze, there floated cluster on cluster of woolly clouds. The breeze bustled about, with the air of a farmer calling his household up at dawn; rousing the limp corn, blowing away and dispersing the mists, tossing about the overhanging branches, rushing round the orchards and dashing in and scattering the last cherry-blossoms like snow upon the ground. Lipka too was waking and getting up swiftly. Many a dishevelled head peeped out upon the world with drowsy eyes: some were washing; not a few half-dressed women carried water to their houses. Here a man was splitting logs; there carts were being wheeled out into the roadway. Smoke rose in festoons from the chimneys, and lie-abeds were rated by shrill tongues. Early it was. The eastern sun was not more than a man’s height in the sky, and shooting its ruddy rays aslant through the orchard-trees; yet everybody was already in lively motion. The wind had fled away somewhere; they enjoyed a pleasant calm, a fresh balmy morning: the sun played upon the waters, from every roof the dew dripped in pearly drops, swallows swept through the clear air, storks seeking a regale flapped away from their nests. Chanticleer beat his wings and crowed lustily on the hedges, and cackling geese led their fledgelings down to the rose-red pond. In the cow-sheds the cattle lowed: around them and about the yards, cows were being hurriedly milked. From every enclosure they were driving oxen into the roads, and they lumbered along, bellowing lazily, and rubbing themselves against trees and fences; while sheep that went by, lifting their heads and bleating, flocked to the middle of the ways amid clouds of dust. All these were hurried to the open space in front of the church, where elderly peasants on horseback, cracking whips and swearing to the top of their bent, assembled the scattering droves and flocks, and urged the laggards forward. Somewhat after these came the gooseherds, driving their snowy gaggling bands, or one leading a cow, or taking out a hobbled horse to feed in the fallows. All these, however, had soon passed out, and the rest of the villagers were making ready to go to the fair; this was about a week after the men’s return from prison. Everything in Lipka had little by little returned more or less to its usual state.