Now it was the Ukrainian steppe, an immense undulating prairie, intensively cultivated. In the fields of grain the poppies had just died, but the rye and barley were ripening, and for kilometers on end, the sunflowers, raised toward the sky, tracked the wave of the sun. Here and there, as if thrown haphazardly, a line of isbas in the shade of acacia trees or little groves of oak, maple, and ash broke the dazzling perspectives. The country paths were bordered with lindens, the rivers with aspen and willow; in the towns they had planted chestnut trees along the boulevards.
