...sometimes some one suddenly pronounced my name distinctly behind me. the day, on such occasions, was usually bright and sunny. not a leaf on a tree moved. the silence was deathlike: even the grasshoppers had ceased to whir. there was not a soul in the garden. but i must confess, that, if the wildest and most stormy night, with the utmost inclemency of the elements, had overtaken me alone in the midst of an impassable forest, i should not have been so much alarmed by it as by this fearful stillness amid a cloudless day. on such occasions, i usually ran in the greatest terror, catching my breath, from the garden, and only regained composure when i encountered some person, the sight of whom dispelled the terrible inward solitude... gogol, old fashioned farmers. cutting splotchy bloody beauty, an untitled piece completed in the winter of 08, o/c