“What?”

“It’s pleasant, your excellency!”

“What is he talking about?” thought Prince Andréy. “Oh, the spring, I suppose,” he thought as he turned round. “Yes, really everything is green already.⁠ ⁠… How early! The birches and cherry and alders too are coming out.⁠ ⁠… But the oaks show no sign yet. Ah, here is one oak!”

At the edge of the road stood an oak. Probably ten times the age of the birches that formed the forest, it was ten times as thick and twice as tall as they. It was an enormous tree, its girth twice as great as a man could embrace, and evidently long ago some of its branches had been broken off and its bark scarred. With its huge ungainly limbs sprawling unsymmetrically, and its gnarled hands and fingers, it stood an aged, stern, and scornful monster among the smiling birch trees. Only the dead-looking evergreen firs dotted about in the forest, and this oak, refused to yield to the charm of spring or notice either the spring or the sunshine.