Suddenly he began to swear grossly, turned about and faced me, and hissed through his teeth:
"I can understand everything. My brother died—that happens in the military. My sister's case is not a rare one. But why do they torture that man to death? That I cannot understand. I go like a dog wherever he sends me. He calls me Earth. 'Eh, you Earth,' he says and laughs. But the fact that they are always torturing him, that is like a knife in my heart!"
And again he began to swear like a drunken monk.
The ravine opened, broadened its walls down into the field, leveled them and vanished into the darkness.
"Well," said my guide, "good-by."
He pointed out to me the road to Omsk, turned back and disappeared. He was still without his cap.
When his heavy steps died in the stillness I sat down, not desiring to go farther. The night lay heavily on the earth and slept, fresh, and thick, like oil. There were no stars in the heavens, no moon, no light about. But there was warmth and light within me.
The heavy words of my guide burned within my memory. He was like a bell that had lain a long time on the earth, and had been covered by it and eaten out by rust, and though his tone was dull yet there was a new sound in it.
The village people stood before my eyes as they listened to my speech seriously and wonderingly. Their troubled faces passed before me as they dragged me away from the police.
"Is that the way it is?" I thought, marveling, and I could scarcely believe what had happened to me.