Excerpt from Chestnut Leaves by Uladzimir Karatkevich, translated from Belarusian

...Some may not believe me, but I don’t like one of the most gorgeous events in the world. I don’t like chestnut foliage. That yellow, autumn foliage, gold in sunlight, palmlike, with the pristine blue sky of the golden autumn beyond it.

There is nothing more beautiful on Earth. Alleyways, lined with golden chestnuts, dive downhill and up again. In the distance, gold church domes, blurry as if seen through water, melt in pale sunlight. The leaves tinkle when they are being swept into heaps, which are heaven for youth in love and kids to wallow in. It’s all so enchanting that one look at it may be the end of you, for the heart can’t bear this beauty of fading.

***

It was markedly turning towards autumn. Chestnuts were yellowing. The water in the Dnieper looked a cold blue. The first falling leaves were landing in deep-blue puddles on blacktop, from where pigeons and sparrows drank azure. At night, perhaps twice by then, flowerbeds full of fading nasturtiums had been seemingly sprinkled with weightless salt powder, but the sun had risen, the powder melted, the flowerbeds appeared just wet, and then dried. And all day long, splendid dahlias and lilac asters with yellow bald spots basked in hot daylight.