I
In the middle of August, just before the birth of the new moon, the weather suddenly took a turn for the worse and assumed that disagreeable character which is sometimes characteristic of the northern coast of the Black Sea. Sometimes a heavy fog would hang drearily over land and sea, and then the immense siren of the lighthouse would howl day and night like a mad bull. Sometimes it would rain from morning to morning, and the thickly falling raindrops, as fine as dust, would transform the clayey roads and paths into one continuous sheet of mud, in which the passing wagons and carriages stuck for a long time. Sometimes a hurricane-like wind would begin to blow from the steppes lying toward the northwest, and then the tops of the trees would bend down to the ground, and again sweep up, like waves during a storm; the iron roofs of the country houses would rattle at night, as though someone were walking over them in iron-shod boots, the windowpanes would jingle, the doors snap, and the flues howl dismally. Several fishing barks lost their way in the sea, and two of them never returned to shore; it was only a week later that the bodies of the fishermen were washed ashore in different places.
The inhabitants of the shore resort—which lay on the outskirts of a large city—mostly Greeks and Jews, who, like all people of the south, are fond of comforts, hastened to move to the city. And endless lines of wagons, loaded with mattresses, furniture, trunks, washstands, samovars, and all kinds of household goods, stretched down the muddy road. Sad and pitiable, and even disgusting, was the sight of this procession, as one caught glimpses of it through the thick net of rain, for everything seemed so old and worn out and sordid. Maids and cooks were sitting on top of the tarpaulins that covered the vans, holding flatirons, tin boxes, or baskets in their hands; the sweating, almost exhausted horses stopped every little while, their knees shaking, and a cloud of steam rising from their heaving flanks, while the drivers, all covered with rags for protection against the rain, cursed them hoarsely. But even sadder was the sight of the deserted houses, with their suddenly acquired bareness and emptiness, with their mutilated flowerbeds, broken windowpanes, straying dogs, and piles of refuse consisting of cigarette stumps, pieces of paper, boxes, and medicine-bottles.
But toward the middle of September the weather again changed unexpectedly. The days suddenly became calm and cloudless, bright, warm, and sunny, as they had not been even in July. The fields became dry, and on their yellow bristle glistened the autumn spiderweb, like netted mica. The trees were now dropping their yellow leaves, obediently and silently.
Princess Vera Nikolayevna Sheyin, the wife of the president of the local Assembly of the Nobles, could not leave her country house, because the alterations in their city home had not as yet been completed. And now she was happy over the splendid weather that had set in, over the quiet, the fresh air, the chirping of the swallows that were gathering on the telegraph-wires and forming into flocks for their far journey—happy over the gentle, salty breeze slowly coming from the sea.