Prishvin's Stories: Beginning of Autumn

Short stories about the nature of the autumn season by Mikhail  Prishvin , a Russian novelist (1873 -1954),  in the form of notes convey that touching mood of romance and pleasant sadness.

"Today at dawn one lush birch stepped out of the forest into the clearing, and another, timid, thin, dropped leaf after leaf onto the dark fir tree. Following this, as the dawn grew brighter and brighter, different trees began to appear to me differently. This always happens at the beginning of autumn, when after a lush and common summer a great change begins and all the trees begin to experience leaf fall differently.

I looked around. Here is a hummock, combined by the paws of black grouse. Previously, you would certainly find a feather of a black grouse or a wood grouse in the hole of such a hummock, and if it was speckled, you knew that a female had dug, if black - a rooster. Now in the holes of the combined hummocks lie not the feathers of birds, but fallen yellow leaves. And here is an old, old russula, huge, like a plate, all red, and the edges curled up from old age, and in the dish floats a yellow birch leaf.

Autumn dew has fallen. Flies are knocking on the ceiling. Sparrows are flocked. Rooks are in the harvested fields. Magpies graze in families on the roads. The dews are cold, gray. Another dewdrop in the axil of a leaf sparkles all day long".

As a child, I read many of Prishvin's stories about nature. Do you think his descriptions match the beginning of autumn in your area? 

 

 

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