Some trees, still covered with leaves below, fling their lifeless, ruined branches upwards, as it were, in reproach and despair; in others, stout, dead, dry branches are thrust out of the midst of foliage still thick, though with none of the luxuriant abundance of old; others have fallen altogether, and lie rotting like corpses on the ground. And--who could have dreamed of this in former days?--there was no shade--no shade to be found anywhere in Tchapligino! 'Ah,' I thought, looking at the dying trees: 'isn't it shameful and bitter for you?'... Koltsov's lines recurred to me:
'What has become Of the mighty voices, The haughty strength, The royal pomp? Where now is the Wealth of green?...
'How is it, Ardalion Mihalitch,' I began, 'that they didn't fell these trees the very next year? You see they won't give for them now a tenth of what they would have done before.'
'You should have asked my aunt that; the timber merchants came, offered money down, pressed the matter, in fact.'
'_Mein Gott! mein Gott!_' Von der Kock cried at every step. 'Vat a bity, vat a bity!'
'What's a bity!' observed my neighbour with a smile.
What particularly aroused his regrets were the oaks lying on the ground--and, indeed, many a miller would have given a good sum for them. But the constable Arhip preserved an unruffled composure, and did not indulge in any lamentations; on the contrary, he seemed even to jump over them and crack his whip on them with a certain satisfaction.
We were getting near the place where they were cutting down the trees, when suddenly a shout and hurried talk was heard, following on the crash of a falling tree, and a few instants after a young peasant, pale and dishevelled, dashed out of the thicket towards us.
'What is it? where are you running?' Ardalion Mihalitch asked him.
'Ah, Ardalion Mihalitch, sir, an accident!'
'How did it happen?... Maksim the foreman?'
'The foreman, sir. We'd started cutting an ash-tree, and he was standing looking on.... He stood there a bit, and then off he went to the well for some water--wanted a drink, seemingly--when suddenly the ash-tree began creaking and coming straight towards him. We shout to him: 'Run, run, run!'.... He should have rushed to one side, but he up and ran straight before him.... He was scared, to be sure. The ash-tree covered him with its top branches. But why it fell so soon, the Lord only knows!... Perhaps it was rotten at the core.'