which 'took their place, but could never replace them.' [Footnote: In
1840 there were severe frosts, and no snow fell up to the very end of
December; all the wintercorn was frozen, and many splendid oak-forests
were destroyed by that merciless winter. It will be hard to replace
them; the productive force of the land is apparently diminishing; in the
'interdicted' wastelands (visited by processions with holy images, and
so not to be touched), instead of the noble trees of former days,
birches and aspens grow of themselves; and, indeed, they have no idea
among us of planting woods at all.--_Author's Note_.]

Some trees, still covered with leaves below, fling their lifeless,
ruined branches upwards, as it were, in reproach and despair; in others,
stout, dead, dry branches are thrust out of the midst of foliage still
thick, though with none of the luxuriant abundance of old; others have
fallen altogether, and lie rotting like corpses on the ground. And--who
could have dreamed of this in former days?--there was no shade--no shade
to be found anywhere in Tchapligino! 'Ah,' I thought, looking at the
dying trees: 'isn't it shameful and bitter for you?'... Koltsov's lines
recurred to me:

'What has become
Of the mighty voices,
The haughty strength,
The royal pomp?
Where now is the
Wealth of green?...


'How is it, Ardalion Mihalitch,' I began, 'that they didn't fell these
trees the very next year? You see they won't give for them now a tenth