with roots overgrown by moss and dry yellow needles. Here there was
a fragile wooden bridge over the stream, and just opposite on the
other bank there was a little barn for drying maize, standing on
four low piles, and looking like the hut on hen's legs in the fairy
tale; a little ladder sloped from its door.

The first impression in all was a feeling that they would never get
out of that place again. On all sides wherever they looked, the
mountains rose up and towered above them, and the shadows of evening
were stealing rapidly, rapidly from the _duhan_ and dark cypress,
making the narrow winding valley of the Black River narrower and
the mountains higher. They could hear the river murmuring and the
unceasing chirrup of the grasshoppers.

"Enchanting!" said Marya Konstantinovna, heaving deep sighs of
ecstasy. "Children, look how fine! What peace!"

"Yes, it really is fine," assented Laevsky, who liked the view, and
for some reason felt sad as he looked at the sky and then at the
blue smoke rising from the chimney of the _duhan_. "Yes, it is
fine," he repeated.

"Ivan Andreitch, describe this view," Marya Konstantinovna said
tearfully.

"Why?" asked Laevsky. "The impression is better than any description.
The wealth of sights and sounds which every one receives from nature
by direct impression is ranted about by authors in a hideous and
unrecognisable way."