Identifier: russia00dobsrich (find matches)
Title: Russia;
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Dobson, George Grove, Henry M Stewart, Hugh, 1884-1934 Haenen, F. de
Subjects: Soviet Union -- Description and travel
Publisher: London, A. and C. Black
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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on and feelyourself falling asleep, but then from somewhereor other is borne to you the broken, alarmed cryof a wakeful bird, or a vague sound like a humanvoice: a kind of wondering ah-ah! is waftedabroad, and your doziness flies away for ever.And sometimes you drive past a dell with shrubs,and you hear the bird that the steppe people callthe sleeper crying out to somebody or other, Sleep, sleep, sleep; and another one laughs orbursts into hysterical wailing—that is the owl.God knows for whom they cry and who hearsthem on that plain, but their cry is full of melan-choly and complaint. There is the smell of hayand scorched grass and faded flowers, and thesmell is heavy, luscious, and sweet. Through the mist you discern everything, butit is difficult to define colour and outline. Every-thing seems different from what it really is. Asyou drive on, you spy all at once standing in frontby the side of the road a silhouette like a monk ; hedoes not stir, he waits and holds something in his
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1^ INTERIOR OF A SIBERIAN PRISONERS WAGGON THE STEPPE 443 hands. Is that a robber? The figure nears andgrows; there, it is even with the carriage, andyou see that it is not a man at all, but a solitarybush or great stone. Such motionless expectantfigures stand erect on the ridges, or cower behindthe Jxurgans, or peep out of the steppe grass, andthey are all like people, and inspire suspicion. But when the moon rises, the night becomespale and dark. As for mist, it is as though it hadnever been. The air freshens, and is transparentand warm. You can see clearly in every direction.You can even distinguish the separate stems ofgrass by the road. For a long distance you canmark Avhite skulls and stones. Suspicious figureslike monks seem darker and look more threateningin the light background of the night. Oftener andoftener amid the monotonous rustling of the grass,somethings astonished Ah-ah ! startles the still air,and you hear the cry of a wakeful or dreamingbird. Broad shadows sweep ov

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