If the earth is a table on which Providence has spread a banquet for
creation, then the valley of the Bialka is a gigantic, long-shaped dish
with upturned rim. In the winter this dish is white, but at other
seasons it is like majolica, with forms severe and irregular, but
beautiful. The Divine Potter has placed a field at the bottom of the
dish and cut it through from north to south with the ribbon of the
Bialka sparkling with waves of sapphire blue in the morning, crimson in
the evening, golden at midday, and silver in moonlit nights.

When He had formed the bottom, the Great Potter shaped the rim, taking
care that each side should possess an individual physiognomy.

The west bank is wild; the field touches the steep gravel hills, where
a few scattered hawthorn bushes and dwarf birches grow. Patches of
earth show here and there, as though the turf had been peeled. Even the
hardiest plants eschew these patches, where instead of vegetation the
surface presents clay and strata of sand, or else rock showing its
teeth to the green field.

The east bank has a totally different character; it forms an
amphitheatre with three tiers. The first tier above the field is of
mould and contains a row of cottages surrounded by trees: this is the
village. On the second tier, where the ground is clay, stands the
manor-house, almost on top of the village, with which an avenue of old
lime-trees connects it. To the right and left extend the manor-fields,
large and rectangular, sown with wheat, rye, and peas, or else lying
fallow. The sandy soil of the third tier is sown with rye or oats and
fringed by the pine-forest, its contours showing black against the sky.

The northern ridge contains little hills standing singly. One of them