The train had halted.
Then a dream set in. It was not terrible, rather fantastic, unfamiliar to the memory, strange. The dreamer himself seemed to remain aside, only his bodiless apparition moved about, spoke soundlessly, walked noiselessly, suffered without suffering. As in a dream, they walked out of the car, formed into parties of two, inhaled the peculiarly fresh spring air of the forest. As in a dream, Yanson resisted bluntly, powerlessly, and was dragged out of the car silently.
They descended the steps of the station.
“Are we to walk?” asked some one almost cheerily.
“It isn’t far now,” answered another, also cheerily.
Then they walked in a large, black, silent crowd amid the forest, along a rough, wet and soft spring road. From the forest, from the snow, a fresh, strong breath of air was wafted. The feet slipped, sometimes sinking into the snow, and involuntarily the hands of the comrades clung to each other. And the convoys, breathing with difficulty, walked over the untouched snow on each side of the road. Some one said in an angry voice:
“Why didn’t they clear the road? Did they want us to turn somersaults in the snow?”
Some one else apologized guiltily.
“We cleaned it, your Honor. But it is thawing and it can’t be helped.”
Consciousness of what they were doing returned to the prisoners, but not completely,—in fragments, in strange parts. Now, suddenly, their minds practically admitted: