But I had imagined then, nevertheless, that
I was truly "in the thick of things," as indeed, in comparison with my
Moscow or Petrograd life, I was. We had not now driven through the
quiet evening air for ten minutes before I knew, with assured
certainty, that a new phase of life was, on this day, opening before
me; the dark hedges, the thin fine dust on the roads, the deep purple
colour of the air, beat at my heart, as though they themselves were
helping with quiet insistency to draw me into the drama. And yet
nothing could have been more peaceful than was that lovely evening.
The dark plum-colour in the evening sky soaked like wine into the
hills, the fields, the thatched cottages, the streams and the little
woods.
The faint saffron that lingered below the crests and peaks of rosy
cloud showed between the stems of the silver birches like the friendly
smile of a happy day. The only human beings to be seen were the
peasants driving home their cows; far on the horizon the Carpathian
mountains were purple in the dusk, the snow on their highest ridges
faintly silver.
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