Page 335 - ANNA KARENINA

Anna Karenina

driving rain fell in streams. On Thursday the wind
dropped, and a thick gray fog brooded over the land as
though hiding the mysteries of the transformations that
were being wrought in nature. Behind the fog there was

the flowing of water, the cracking and floating of ice, the
swift rush of turbid, foaming torrents; and on the
following Monday, in the evening, the fog parted, the
storm clouds split up into little curling crests of cloud, the
sky cleared, and the real spring had come. In the morning
the sun rose brilliant and quickly wore away the thin layer
of ice that covered the water, and all the warm air was
quivering with the steam that rose up from the quickened
earth. The old grass looked greener, and the young grass
thrust up its tiny blades; the buds of the guelder-rose and
of the currant and the sticky birch-buds were swollen with
sap, and an exploring bee was humming about the golden
blossoms that studded the willow. Larks trilled unseen
above the velvety green fields and the ice-covered stubble-
land; peewits wailed over the low lands and marshes
flooded by the pools; cranes and wild geese flew high
across the sky uttering their spring calls. The cattle, bald in
patches where the new hair had not grown yet, lowed in
the pastures; the bowlegged lambs frisked round their
bleating mothers. Nimble children ran about the drying

334 of 1759