Philip Vasilyevich's Story

I WAS sitting in the town park on a bench under the trees, the wind shook angrily the black, wet branches over my head and, tearing off the last leaves, carried them away down the hill to the wide, turbid river, and the river exhaled damp, [illustration omitted] cold breaths toward the sky.

Beyond the river, in the yellow velvet of withered grass, a small lake was glimmering; the dull autumn sky reflected itself in it mournfully; the pale disk of the moon was wasting away in the sky. The sun had long set behind the dark wall of the distant forest and the purple strip of the setting sun, amidst the thick, dark-blue clouds, seemed like a stream of fire in the mountain straits.