Within a few steps a compass of peasant life and death.

 From Wolves Eat Dogs by Martin Cruz Smith.  Page 169.

Maybe, Arkady thought. Roman and Maria's house was a weathered blue, windows trimmed with carving, one corner resting country-style on a tree stump. It shone amid abandoned houses that were as black as if they'd been burned, with tumbledown barns and fruit trees wrapped in brambles. One dirt path led from the house to the village center; another climbed toward the wrought-iron fence and crosses of the cemetery, within a few steps a compass of peasant life and death.

The interior was a single room: a combination kitchen, bedroom and parlor centered around a whitewashed brick stove that heated the house, cooked the food, baked the bread and—peasant genius!—on especially cold nights provided a second sleeping bench directly over the oven. Lamps and candles lit walls covered with embroidered cloths, tapestries with forest scenes, family photos and picture calendars collected from various years. Photos framed a younger Roman and Maria, he in a rubber apron, she holding an enormous braid of garlic, together with an urbanized group that must have been their son and his family, a timorous wife and a skinny girl about four years of age. A separate picture of the girl showed her maybe a year older, in a sun hat by a rust- pocked sign that said Havana club.

Maria glowed so, she could have been polished for the occasion. She wore an embroidered shirt and apron, a tasseled shawl and, of course, her brilliant blue eyes and steel smile. Despite the crowded quarters, she was everywhere at once, setting out bowls of cucumbers, pickled mushrooms, pickles in honey, thin and fat sausages, apple salad, cabbage in sour cream, dark bread and home-churned butter and a center plate of salted fat with an alabaster glow.