II. Розділ 2
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An impressionist summer in the fields, B2
Intermezzo Intermezzo
Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, 1955
Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky’s complete novella in the original Ukrainian, not an adaptation. It suits B2 learners who want a short classic they can finish in one sitting: about 4,000 words in 11 short sections, 10 words per sentence on average, with almost no dialogue.
- B2
- 3 992 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the first two sections stop you on almost every line: abstract words such as невблаганно and розмаїтість, and old spellings like се and радости.
B1B2
This text
At B2 it is a good one-evening read: sentences are short, and the nature words and older forms can be handled by tapping single words.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 it reads freely; only crop and bird names (гречка, перепел, куколь) and the 1955 spelling still need a tap.
Start readingThe numbers look light: 10 words per sentence and 6.3% long words (9 letters or more), about one word in sixteen. That is lighter than Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (12 words per sentence, 7.4%) or Zakhar Berkut (15 words, 10.4%). But the short sentences here are not dialogue lines: they are lyrical fragments full of literary nature vocabulary (ячмінь “barley”, гречка “buckwheat”, перепел “quail”, серпанок “haze”) and long chains of metaphors. The 1955 edition also keeps older forms: се for це (10 times), genitives like радости, смерти, вічности (about 8 times), лямпа for лампа, згук for звук, город for “city”. A complete Ukrainian original is never below B2 here, and nothing pushes this one to C1, hence B2. This is the catalogue’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 3 992
- words
- 10
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
- 1955
- Книгоспілка
Книгоспілка, 1955. Wikisource
What it is about, without the ending
A writer worn out by the city, by other people’s pain and by the endless “треба” (“I must”), takes the train to a quiet country estate surrounded by fields. In the empty house, ten dark rooms around his own, he cannot rest: at night the faces of people shot and hanged in the years of repression come to him. In the morning a cuckoo calls, three huge white sheepdogs, Overko, Trepov and Pava, run with him into the wheat, and he spends his days among rye, barley, oats and buckwheat, talking to the sun and trying to catch the song of the larks. Kotsiubynsky wrote it after a summer of 1908 in the village of Kononivka, when the 1905 revolution had just been crushed; the dog Trepov is named after the tsarist official remembered for ordering troops to spare no bullets. Can a man who fled from people stay alone for long? What happens next is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Intermezzo
IV. Розділ 4
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Choose an underlined word.
Older short forms
Kotsiubynsky writes вертають for повертають (“give back”) and круг мене for навколо мене (“around me”), and the 1955 edition keeps ввесь for весь (“the whole”). Read them as the modern forms.
Crops in the plural
The author puts crop names in the plural to mean whole fields of them: ячменів, вівса, later гречок (“fields of barley, oats, buckwheat”). Also note набива, a short form of набиває (“stuffs, fills”).
Chapters
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
€1 a month
Whole-sentence translation helps with lines like «Мені докучило бути заїздом, де вічно товчуться оті створіння» (“I am sick of being an inn where those creatures are forever milling about”), where three rarer words meet in one sentence.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
Ukrainian books B1 Earlier Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors Тіні забутих предків Another book by the same author C1
All books at this levelBefore you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: Kotsiubynsky’s complete novella, all 11 sections, with the dedication to the fields of Kononivka and the list of “characters” (Дійові особи: my weariness, the fields in June, the sun, three white sheepdogs, a cuckoo, larks) that the author put before the text. It was first published in 1909 in the journal «Літературно-науковий вісник». The text comes from Wikisource, from Kotsiubynsky’s Works, vol. II (New York: «Книгоспілка», 1955), and keeps that edition’s spelling: се for це, радости for радості, лямпа for лампа.
Is there an audiobook?
Intermezzo has no audiobook on MovaReader: the novella is read on screen. Tap a word to see its translation; you will need it most for literary words such as серпанок (a gauze-like haze) or куколь (corncockle, a red field weed).
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. It helps with the dense lyrical lines, for example «Спід старої сторінки життя визирала нова і чиста» (“From under the old page of life a new, clean one peeked out”), where спід is an old form of з-під. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
About 1 hour, at the pace of someone reading with translation of new words, slower than a native speaker. The 11 sections run from about 90 to 880 words, so the whole text fits into one evening.
Where does the text get easier?
Yes, after the opening. Sections I-II, the narrator’s tirade against the city and his train journey, are the densest: 8-9% long words and abstract vocabulary. From section III on, where the country days begin, most sections have 4-6% long words and 8-10 words per sentence. Sections V and IX are short but compact (11.8% and 7.3% long words).
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened. Any of the 11 sections also opens from the contents on this page, for example VIII. Розділ 8, where the narrator lies in the field listening to the larks.