He lives well in the village in August and September. The fields on the hills have already lightened, a tired haze is blowing over them; [1] when a wave of rotten, lazy wind blows over your face, lips and eyes, you suddenly catch the smell of grain, moist and warm, roasted with hot air - [2] not today, then tomorrow it grows stronger, dries up, weighs down in a spikelet. The harvest always begins somehow, albeit hopefully, but suddenly, festively, under the loud trumpets of the sun's hell, in the whirlpool of the blue sky that hangs over you all day long.
Harvest rumbles at dusk, at night and at dawn, harvesters roar, choke with the merry wrath of a thresher, at midnight yellow lanterns burn on a covered stream, illuminating piles of wheat poured here, snatching from the tired darkness wavy figures of men, someone's openness. lively, with a sharp sly [3] look. Cars are buzzing on the roads, and bags of grain lie in the bodies of the sieve, lulled; until one morning the hour seems fresh, with sharply transparent air, with a pale mist in the lowlands near the pond, - [4] and with involuntary sadness you suddenly notice that autumn has already breathed, that the fields are already empty, somewhere on the white stubble there are high piles of straw, that all the bread has been gathered, and therefore far as if deepened, the world around the village has expanded, but become poorer, not richer, that the sky is already gray, and the cry of geese from the water sounds desperate and clear; you also note that the night stars raised, indifferent and contemptuous at the same time, looking into wells, chimneys, eyes not only from above, but also from above, as if they did not hope to see anything worthwhile there, nothing that could interest them, surprise them.
(After Yevhen Gutsal)
242 words