"Clover has trampled"

Mikhail Prishvin about summer rain

June 20, 1915. The sun alternates with warm rain. In the forest it’s like in a greenhouse. It’s raining, you stand under a spruce tree, you stand for a while - and again the sun and this: these washed trees are then greeted under the rainbow as new, extraordinary, drawn out like minarets, palaces - this is how you see trees after an illness or after prison, this is how you long to see them in city ​​in anticipation of spring. Now is the highest point of northern nature’s heyday (rye pouring time), then everything will decline.

June 11, 1917. Light summer rain fell in large drops on the pond all day, but the water of the pond did not brighten, on the contrary, it became even more cloudy...

July 3, 1917. The economic knot: dry soil delayed processing - it rained, we need to speed up, we need to plow. The rain caught the clover hay in the field - how to dry it, how to take it out?

July 11, 1917. It's been almost continuous rain for two weeks now. Clover trampled. The overripe rye has bent over and cannot be mowed; the steam is smeared and overgrown. To live at such a time without work and without newspapers means not to live.

July 23, 1917. News: Kerensky has escaped and that Russia is finally dying. They drove the calf from the oats. Search for a paramedic. Tisha the veterinarian arrived and worked on the horse. Pavel and the blacksmith came for the drivers, asking them not to drive the horses to felling and clover. They promise. Artem came for the calf. We chose a place for the current. In the evening it began to rain heavily. Tomorrow you can’t carry and probably mow too.

August 9, 1917. After sowing, a light rain began, for three days I didn’t show up anywhere from the house, and today I went out into the field after the rain in the sun and gasped, surprised and joyful: everything I sown came up, and so wonderfully, together and already green, pink below, already green above and so beautiful, so sweet and harmonious, and I, the owner of all this, I gave this life, I know all my sins and where I have been sowed and fanned. And at this moment, from my labor, which created rye - its legitimate child, a prodigal child is born - the Dream. This is how two prodigal daughters were born - Earth and Volya.

August 25, 1918. It’s the rain that says, let’s wait what the sun says, and another question: is there suspicion... and what is its price. And a grave... what is a grave? They say that “marriage is the grave of love.” Why is it raining? I really want to go to Semiverkhi. The sun is against us, doesn’t want to look at us.

July 3, 1921. The first morning after a period of rain and cold is completely clear, quiet, but a slight tiredness in nature, thoughtfulness, is already noticeable. Oh, the days are getting shorter!

July 14, 1921. Almost every day the clouds gather, the clouds come in, cover the sky and the rain pours down. The last night was very cold. The birches are turning gray and more and more yellow leaves are growing. More and more often, I hear people calling me simply “old man.”

August 3, 1921. So, a whole month of wandering because there was nothing to eat at home. A whole month - all rain and cold, now, it seems, the weather has settled, but cold nights, heavy dew.

June 16, 1926. After lunch, it finally started to rain. It is curious that during a strike on the peat, non-party students and engineers sympathize with the workers, while party members are against the workers. The reasons for the strike (“shovels stuck”) are objective...

June 17, 1926. It's been raining all day. I am writing about peat.

June 24, 1926. A warm cloud rolled in, thunder roared, and large drops of rain began to fall. Our people ran away, but I didn’t believe in the rain and decided to finish the plate with cottage cheese and milk. The rain poured down, I ate everything, the cottage cheese decreased, but the milk in the plate kept increasing...

June 23, 1927. It's been raining all day. It rains every day, and it’s not even very warm. Life is bad this summer for horse flies, mosquitoes and summer residents.

July 7, 1927. These days I am sitting, preparing Volumes III and IV. essays. I hope to get out tomorrow. Weather: the day will stand without rain, and you consider it lucky.

June 17, 1928. It rains every day. It happens that the sun will come out, it will become swelteringly hot and within a few hours it will rain. Gray, unpleasant, brainy.

June 26, 1928. Despite the observatory's predictions, cold and rain continue. The grass doesn't grow well.

June 29, 1928. Finally, two days, Wednesday and Thursday, turned out well in nature and without rain. This morning the whole sky is closed, will it really rain again?

August 7, 1928. And it rained all night! It has been pouring for three days now with short breaks. I remember good and bad people, I admire the good, I am surprised at the bad, but I find extremely few of both, especially the bad ones.

August 3, 1929. There was rain and a thunderstorm at night, which is why last night (at 6 o’clock already) it seemed that an eclipse of the sun was coming: it shone so dimly even in a cloudless sky.

August 12, 1929. Something incomprehensible is happening in nature, a strong storm is suddenly replaced by complete silence and vice versa. So last night there was extraordinary silence, it was hot, a little stuffy. And suddenly there was a hurricane before sunrise. I'm almost sure from yesterday that the wind will subside by lunchtime. It was like this in winter and summer, it continues in stripes: spring dryness, then summer continuous rains, now winds...

July 18, 1930. We arrived in Vladivostok at 11 pm. Rain, smells like fish. Nobody pays attention to the rain. The deputy chairman, fur farmer of the plant, Anatoly Dmitrievich Baturin, said: “Firsov is not there, not at all.” We decided that he had been shot and did not ask.

July 28, 1930. We listened for a long time. It was drizzling - something between rain and fog. The bus was very warm, did not get wet, and we were like in a greenhouse, night flying insects sparkled everywhere, it was fun to mentally draw a line from one flash to another and thus follow the flight of a firefly in complete darkness.

July 30, 1930. Spiders. Decay. Jerzy. Wind from the south - rain, but today the N is blowing slightly, however, it is blowing too weakly, and there is no change in the weather: foggy rain. The entire mountain is covered in spider webs. This means that the night flying lights should gradually end their flight. Despite the fog and rain, I photographed spiders.

August 20, 1930. After yesterday's rain, a luxuriously bright morning and there are not even any traces of a forest fire. From the tall fir trees in the rays of the sun, drops of yesterday fell golden from above, preserved on the quiet moonlit night in the branches of the rain. And this made me so happy that, for the umpteenth time I don’t remember, I decided to think about a way to always look for this joy and live in the hope of finding it. My literature is the trace of my effort to seek and retain this joy. The idea now occurs to me to re-read myself critically from this point of view.