Page:The Novels of Ivan Turgenev (volume X).djvu/310

Rh heads, their slender hands hold aloft wreaths and cymbals, and laughter, sparkling, Olympian laughter, comes leaping, dancing with them. . .. Before them moves a goddess. She is taller and fairer than the rest; a quiver on her shoulder, a bow in her hands, a silvery crescent moon on her floating tresses. . .. 'Diana, is it thou?' But suddenly the goddess stopped. .. and at once all the nymphs following her stopped. The ringing laughter died away. I see the face of the hushed goddess overspread with a deadly pallor; I saw her feet grew rooted to the ground, her lips parted in unutterable horror; her eyes grew wide, fixed on the distance. .. What had she seen? What was she gazing upon? I turned where she was gazing. .. And on the distant sky-line, above the low strip of fields, gleamed, like a point of fire the golden cross on the white bell-tower of a Christian church. . .. That cross the goddess had caught sight of. I heard behind me a long, broken sigh, like the quiver of a broken string, and when I turned again, no trace was left of the nymphs. . .. The broad forest was green as before, and only here and there among the thick network