From Tarnoga to Paris

It is winter in Zagorsk now. The trees bent howling in cold wind at my window. It is white all round. And on a day like I happen to recall the sandy land of Tarnoga burning under the hot summer sun. Through the bus window I saw gently sloping hills running ridge after ridge. Here and there were golden fields of cereals or blue flax, or colored meadow carpets. At a distance there was a virgin forest with no end in sight. The sun was scorching unmercifully. The intense heat covered the whole land. Roaring streams and small rivers attracted us. But we were going on along a dry dusty road passing by all big and small bridges. The engine of our old bus was extremely hot. The open windows were broken and could not be shut. Through the holy floor there penetrated so much hot dust that we could see neither the scenery, nor our neighbors any longer. We all coughed trying to tie kerchiefs and even handkerchiefs around our mouths and noses. Sand was crunching not only on our teeth but in our eyes. My black coat became light sandy, so I could write something with my finger on it. It seemed to me as if I were not in the Tarnoga district of the Vologda region but in some hot desert.

At last the bus stopped in the centre of the big village, and not at the bridge over the river of course, but near the shop at the sandy square which was hot as a brazier. I decided to get out. It was Ilezsky grave-yard, upper reaches of the Kokshenga. That was the beginning of my expedition to the land of Tarnoga on the banks of the river, which once was big and deep. The village, where I was to work that day, was, like the road in quicksand. I walked, as usual, from house to house. My feet sank into sand up to my ankle. My boots and socks were covered with hot sand. It was hard to find coolness in houses in such weather as well. I could not possibly ask the hostess to invite me to the cellar! The talk usually started on the porch and lasted for a very long time. And porches there, like anywhere at the North, were built right in the sun. It was bad luck, indeed. I hardly stood such “African” heat with my weak heart. I felt as if I had faded, like a picked blade of grass. I lacked energy, initiative, my head worked slowly. I was frightened at the thought that the weather was not for me and I could ruin the expedition, if it did not rain the following day. But nobody expected rain. They said: “It is always like that at this season”. The time was hot in a literal and in a figurative sense.