Page:Anthology of Modern Slavonic Literature in Prose and Verse by Paul Selver.djvu/96

72 widely spilt and somewhat crinkled waves, stretched in a grey, boundless mass of clods to the remotest line of the horizon. A narrow, garnet-coloured strip of distant woods divided it from the horizon which was also grey and only at one spot, close above the wood, slightly tinged with yellow. The yellow tinge was a sign that somewhere yonder behind the ashy curtain of clouds, the sun was dying away. The colouring of the picture was so thin that it would have been possible to paint the whole of it, including the old man ploughing and his pair of lean horses, with Indian ink or sepia,—in the style of those old aquatints, upon which nature is represented without colour, as if it were seen through a piece of blackened glass. The soil, as far as the eye could reach, was cut up into plots, and these girdles, here and there zig-zag, ran lengthwise in various directions, even as the fields differed one from another. Some were completely black, others a brownish red, others again were brightening into a pale ashen colour, which suggested the notion that into his Indian ink the painter had been pouring more and more water. Here and there stood, as if upon guard, a wild pear-tree, isolated, mournful, silent. Here and there the ground was a little hollowed out, and in the cavity, which was clearly damp, grew alders with glistening leaves. The largest patches of green were formed by a few limes and