The shadows flew wild and free far into the wide evening - light with snow, soft with sunset and twilight. The bleeding heart of the sun was burning back amidst the pansy smoke. High the eagle crows.
All the trees of the field fled in pursuit - the curve of the distant hills behind them.
The field was flying.
The evening was suede.
The snow was unintentional love.
Over the silver desolation of the field broke the merry laughter of the bells, drowned by the laughter of the ladies and the thunderous cheers of the hussars.
The blue smoky air blew in sharp jets right into faces - ruddy: and blood - flying - rustled temptations in the ears.
The intoxicating loveliness of winter.
Feminine boldness and tough love.
Thirsty women. Boiling hussars.
The three sleighs flew forward, side by side; bells, women's laughter, songs and shouts. Guitars struck serious chords - when suddenly the horses snorted in fright and jumped back.
From under the white snow - in the middle of the road - in front of the horses' hooves, a wide stain of blood was seen. Warm human blood. A big pool of blood in the middle of the snow - it grew and grew redder; as if not from one heart, as if from some big heart, from thousands of human hearts.

The eerie silence of the moment.

The blood began to smoke, a warm steam of blood, and cut across the far curve of the road. The night dimmed low, illuminated by the glow of the bright red bloody steam: a crimson glare on the darkened faces of the drunken ladies and the hussars in the sleighs.
Amid the bloody smoke, condensed into a martyr's glow, the image of a man appeared - naked, gaunt, yellow, hunched in pain and death. Straight and motionless. Arms splayed out to the sides and palms cradled as if on two black crossed beams. Two cranial eyes fixed deeply forward with a look of reproach and love.
The crucifix grew, blocking the view, looming forward over the frozen, crimson-lit faces in the sleds.
- Drive!" shouted one of the hussars.
The crack of the whips shrieked far across the snowy desolation of the field; the horses rushed wildly forward; the bells rang wildly, the crucifix swung and fell trampled under the fierce hoofs.
The silver laughter of the bells drifted away on the snowy road.
And from behind, out of the darkness of the invisible field, there was a terrific noise, carried along by the raging sledges: the crackling of burning villages, the crying of children and the howling of hungry wolves.