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In the fields the evening concert had hardly begun; the musicians

were just finishing the tuning of their instruments: already the

land rail, the first violin of the meadow, had shrieked thrice;

already from afar the bitterns seconded it with a bass boom below

in the marshes; already the woodcocks were rising up with

whirling flight, uttering repeated cries, as though they were

beating on drums.

As a finale to the humming of the insects and the din of the

birds there resounded in a double chorus two ponds, like

enchanted lakes in the Caucasus mountains, silent through all the

day and playing at evening. One pond, which had clear depths and

a sandy shore, gave forth from its blue chest a gentle, solemn

call; the other pond, with a muddy bottom and a turbid throat,

answered it with a mournfully passionate cry. In both ponds sang

countless hordes of frogs; the two choruses were attuned into two

great accords: one thundered fortissimo, the other gently

warbled; one seemed to complain, the other only sighed; thus the

two ponds conversed together across the fields, like two Aeolian

harps that play alternately.