The bride and bridegroom, probably because of the local custom of kissing
every minute, kissed with such gusto that their lips made a loud smack, and
it gave me a taste of sugary raisins in my mouth and a spasm in my left
calf. The inflammation of the vein in my left leg got worse through their
kisses.

... At Zvyerevo I shall have to wait from nine in the evening till five in
the morning. Last time I spent the night there in a second-class
railway-carriage on the siding. I went out of the carriage in the night and
outside I found veritable marvels: the moon, the limitless steppe, the
barrows, the wilderness; deathly stillness, and the carriages and the
railway lines sharply standing out from the dusk. It seemed as though the
world were dead.... It was a picture one would not forget for ages and
ages.




RAGOZINA BALKA,
April 30, 1887.


It is April 30. The evening is warm. There are storm-clouds about, and so
one cannot see a thing. The air is close and there is a smell of grass.

I am staying in the Ragozina Balka at K.'s. There is a small house with a
thatched roof, and barns made of flat stone. There are three rooms, with
earthen floors, crooked ceilings, and windows that lift up and down instead
of opening outwards.... The walls are covered with rifles, pistols, sabres