The moonlight flooded that land. The land was great, and silent. The reaped 

field lay in it. The field was yellow. The straw stacks and poplar windbreaks 

threw sharp black shadows. The roads were white rivers of dust. The sky was 

a deep, crystalline blue. And the stars were few. And they were faint. Everything 

seemed to have succumbed. It seemed to have sunk to sleep, under the 

midsummer moon. The moon was great, golden, and tender. The splendor of it 

seemed to transcend human life. And it seemed to transcend human fate. The 

senses were too feeble to take it in. And every time one looked up at the sky one 

felt unequal to it. It was as if one were deaf and sitting under the waves of a 

great river of melody.