Turgenev on his birthday

The dark unclouded sky stood, inconceivably immense, triumphant, above us in all its mysterious majesty. One felt a sweet oppression at one’s heart, breathing in that peculiar, overpowering, yet fresh fragrance - the fragrance of a summer night in Russia. Scarcely a sound was to be heard around.... Only at times, in the river near, the sudden splash of a big fish leaping, and the faint rustle of a reed on the bank, swaying lightly as the ripples reached it ...

Ivan Turgenev
from Byezhin Meadow
A Sportsman's Sketches(1852)