Russian life in the interior Author:Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. RASPBERRY WATER, OR THE RUSSIAN VELMOJ. Up to the middle of August the heat is so insupportable, particularly from mid-day till three o'clock,... more » that the keenest sportsman cannot go out to shoot; and even the dogs begin to hang at their master's heels, winking their eyes convulsively, and lolling out their tongues to a great length. Wfyen he turns and chides them, they humbly express their sorrow by a languid eye, and a gentle wag of the tail, but they still keep behind. I went out, however, on a day of this description to shoot. When out, I resisted for a long time the temptation to throw myself down somewhere under a tree, were it only for a quarter of an hour; and for a long time my indefatigable dog continued to poke among the bushes, although he evidently was prompted by nothing but his own feverish activity ; the heat became at last so stifling that I was forced to betake myself somewhere for the preservation of the strength and energy that still remained. I struck at once for the side of the Ista, scrambled down the bank, and having come to a belt of yellow sand at once firm and moist, I walked along this sheltered strip, which varied in breadth from about one to four yards, till I arrived at a spring-well, known throughout the district by the name of the Kaspberry Water.This spring bubbles forth from a fissure in the bank, and the constant flow of water has worn a deep straight channel, which extends to the river for about twenty paces, into which it falls, after forming a pretty brawling cascade. Some beautiful clumps of young oaks heighten the picturesque ness of the ravine, and round the spring itself grows a short velvet grass, intermixed with tufts of a coarser kind. The sun's rays struck fitfully on the cold crystal water. I climbed the slope, and...« less