Chapter 29 - Page 2

being merrily gathered in,
and this year the fruit was unusually fine and plentiful.

In the shady green vineyards amid a sea of vines, laughter, songs,
merriment, and the voices of women were to be heard on all sides,
and glimpses of their bright-coloured garments could be seen.

Just at noon Maryanka was sitting in their vineyard in the shade
of a peach-tree, getting out the family dinner from under an
unharnessed cart. Opposite her, on a spread-out horse-cloth, sat
the cornet (who had returned from the school) washing his hands by
pouring water on them from a little jug. Her little brother, who
had just come straight out of the pond, stood wiping his face with
his wide sleeves, and gazed anxiously at his sister and his mother
and breathed deeply, awaiting his dinner. The old mother, with her
sleeves rolled up over her strong sunburnt arms, was arranging
grapes, dried fish, and clotted cream on a little low, circular
Tartar table. The cornet wiped his hands, took off his cap,
crossed himself, and moved nearer to the table. The boy seized the
jug and eagerly began to drink. The mother and daughter crossed
their legs under them and sat down by the table. Even in the shade
it was intolerably hot. The air above the vineyard smelt
unpleasant: the strong warm wind passing amid the branches brought
no coolness, but only monotonously bent the tops of the pear,
peach, and mulberry trees with which the vineyard was sprinkled.
The comet, she felt unbearably hot. Her face was burning, and she
did not know where to put her feet, her eyes were moist with
sleepiness and weariness, her lips parted involuntarily, and her
chest heaved heavily and deeply.

The busy time of year had begun a fortnight ago and the continuous
heavy labour had filled the girl's life. At dawn she jumped up,
washed her face with cold water, wrapped herself in a shawl, and
ran out barefoot to see to the cattle. Then she hurriedly put on
her shoes and her beshmet and, taking a small bundle of bread, she
harnessed the bullocks and drove away to the vineyards for the
whole day. There she cut the grapes and carried the baskets with
only an hour's interval for rest, and in the evening she returned
to the village, bright and not tired, dragging the bullocks by a
rope or driving them with a long stick. After attending to the
cattle, she took some sunflower seeds in the wide sleeve of her
smock and went to the corner of the street to crack them and have
some fun with the other girls. But as soon as it was dusk she
returned home, and after having supper with her parents and her
brother in the dark outhouse, she went into the hut, healthy and
free from care, and climbed onto the oven, where half drowsing she
listened to their lodger's