Explore "Pan Michael" by Henryk Sienkiewicz on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A detachment of Cheremis, some twenty in number, marched five miles in advance to examine the road and notify commandants of Pani Volodyovski's journey, so that quarters might be ready for her in each place. After this detachment came the main force of the Lithuanian Tartars, the sleigh with Basia and Eva, and another sleigh with servant-women; a small detachment closed the march. The road was heavy enough because of snowdrifts. Pine woods, which in winter do not lose their needle-like leaves, permit less snow to fall to the earth; but that forest along the bank of the Dniester, formed for the most part of oaks and other deciduous trees, stripped now of their natural covering, was packed halfway to the lower branches with snow. Snow had filled also the narrowest ravines; in places it had been lifted into waves whose curling summits seemed as if ready to tumble in an instant and be lost in the general white expanse. During the passage of difficult ravines and declivities the Tartars held the sleighs back with ropes; only on the lofty plains, where the wind had smoothed the snow surface, did they drive quickly in the track of the caravan, which with Naviragh and the two learned Anardrats had started earlier from Hreptyoff.
Travelling was difficult; not so difficult, however, as sometimes in those wild regions full of chasms, rivers, streams, and gullies. The ladies were rejoiced, therefore, that before deep night came they would be able to reach the precipitous ravine in the bottom of which stood Mohiloff; besides, there was promise of continued fair weather. After a ruddy dawn the sun rose, and all at once the plains, the ravines, and the forests were gleaming in its rays; the branches of the trees seemed coated with sparks; sparks glittered on the snow till the eyes ached from the brightness. From high points one could see out through open spaces, as through windows in that wilderness, the gaze reaching down to Moldavia was lost on a horizon white and blue, but flooded with sunlight.