How stifling and oppressive it was! The chaise raced along, while Yegorushka saw always the same⁠—the sky, the plain, the low hills.⁠ ⁠… The music in the grass was hushed, the petrels had flown away, the partridges were out of sight, rooks hovered idly over the withered grass; they were all alike and made the steppe even more monotonous.

A hawk flew just above the ground, with an even sweep of its wings, suddenly halted in the air as though pondering on the dreariness of life, then fluttered its wings and flew like an arrow over the steppe, and there was no telling why it flew off and what it wanted. In the distance a windmill waved its sails.⁠ ⁠…

Now and then a glimpse of a white potsherd or a heap of stones broke the monotony; a grey stone stood out for an instant or a parched willow with a blue crow on its top branch; a marmot would run across the road and⁠—again there flitted before the eyes only the high grass, the low hills, the rooks.⁠ ⁠…

But at last, thank God, a wagon loaded with sheaves came to meet them; a peasant wench was lying on the very top. Sleepy, exhausted by the heat, she lifted her head and looked at the travellers. Deniska gaped, looking at her; the horses stretched out their noses towards the sheaves; the chaise, squeaking, kissed the wagon, and the pointed ears passed over Father Christopher’s hat like a brush.

“You are driving over folks, fatty!” cried Deniska. “What a swollen lump of a face, as though a bumblebee had stung it!”