At that night once again I passed through the narrow twisted streets which were lost in dusk and deafness, barely lightened by several glimmering electrical bulbs. The houses were casting dark shadows, windows were shining here and there in the darkness, a cat would suddenly jump out of some cellar, from where a smell of vinegar, mould and antiquity would approach. I had sold the site, without seeing it, in order not to feel the sorrow stronger that I separate with something cherished. As a child I had spent there those hot, dry summers, when the fountains were drying up and some epidemic disease was bursting out in town. But on the next day I couldn't keep myself and went to take final leave of it, seized with curiosity to see how these one-time vineyards look now.
I went on the old, known way very early, on sunrise. The streets were almost deserted. The large quartz stones on the cobblestone pavement were shining nacreous, reflecting the dawn of the day. Half an hour later I was at the end of the town. And then surprised I noticed that the area had changed beyond recognition. A whole hood had grown on the place, where earlier there were only two or three cottages and one rocky road, chopped by the resilient roots of acacias from which we once gathered dark-brown follicles and ate the sweet cores of it.
The acacia wood was gone. Tidy new houses beamed its white walls on the morning sun. Coquette yards in which like pink clouds Japanese roses bloomed, were ranged one by the other. Unknown people were peeping from the opened windows, from which beddings were hung to ventilate. Somewhere a radio was playing and the sounds were coming from the cool interior of the house. And the more I walked ahead, the more unknown the whole area looked to me. Instead of the grey walls with lichens, which were surrounding the old vineyard, new houses were raising, I could see orchards.
