"Dr. Zhivago"
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During the turmoil of the 1917 Russian Revolution, it was common for the families, with their chattels, of the partisans to follow the army as it moved to various locations. Often times the families would be required to spend the entire winter in a new and safe area. The following passage from the acclaimed novel, “Doctor Zhivago”, describes a spot where the army bivouacked and the families spent the winter:
“…the way out of the camp and the forest, which was now autumnally bare and could be seen through, as if gates had been thrown open into its emptiness, there grew a solitary, beautiful, rusty-red-leafed rowan tree, the only one of all the trees to keep its foliage. It grew on a mound above a low, hummocky bog, and reached right up to the sky, into the dark lead of the pre-winter inclemency, the flatly widening corymbs of its hard, brightly glowing berries. Small winter birds, bullfinches and tomtits, with plumage bright as frosty dawns, settled on the rowan tree, slowly and selectively pecked the larger berries, and, thrusting up their little heads and stretching their necks, swallowed them with effort. Some living intimacy was established between the birds and trees. As if the rowan saw it all, resisted for a long time, then surrendered, taking pity on the little birds, yielded, unbuttoned herself, and gave them the breast,…,”