Page:Oblomov (1915 English translation).djvu/82

78 and back. Moreover, in that region thunder is never terrible, but, rather, benevolent, and always occurs at one particular season (generally on Saint Elias' Day, in order that the people's established tradition may be fulfilled ). Also it would appear that, every year, both the number and the intensity of the peals remain the same—as though for each year the heavenly treasury had allotted a given measure of electricity. But of terrible and destructive storms that country can show no record.

Nor has the country whereof I am speaking ever been visited with the Egyptian or other plagues. Never has any member of its population beheld a dire manifestation of Heaven, nor a thunderbolt, nor an unlooked-for darkness; nor do venomous vermin abide there, and the locust comes not thither, and lions, tigers, bears, and wolves are unknown (owing to the fact that the country contains no fastnesses for them to dwell in). In short, over the fields and around the village wander only lowing cattle, bleating sheep, and cackling poultry.

Yet none but God knows whether a poet