Occasionally a workaday-looking soldier in an old overcoat passed across the square among the bright-clad girls.

Here and there the songs of tipsy Cossacks who were merry-making could already be heard.

All the huts were closed; the porches had been scrubbed clean the day before.

Even the old women were out in the street, which was everywhere sprinkled with pumpkin and melon seed-shells.

The air was warm and still, the sky deep and clear.
Beyond the roofs the dead-white mountain range, which seemed very near, was turning rosy in the glow of the evening sun.