Her husband straightened himself, grunting. He had finished tying the broken wheel together with rope.
"Come, we must be moving. Hurry, or we'll be left behind," he said, going to the little horse's head.
The woman climbed back into the cart and took the youngest child in her arms. A feeble wail came from the dull-colored bundle. Her husband turned the horse into the procession again.
Still the carts were coming over the hill, gray and dusty, with the peasants and their wives walking beside the horses' heads. What a river of suffering! What a smell came from it! And automobiles and tramways rushed by.
Is this the twentieth century?
October.
I delayed mailing my last letter, so I shall tell you about another glimpse I've had of the refugees. Yesterday, as we sat drinking tea, we heard the rumble and creak of heavy wagons outside the pension. The noise reached us distinctly in spite of the windows being hermetically sealed with putty for the winter. At first we thought it was the regular train of carts that climb Institutska Oulitza every evening at six o'clock carrying provisions to the barracks. But the rumble and creak persisted so long that I went to the window at last to see why there were so many more carts than usual.
There was a procession of carts, but instead of going up the hill in the direction of the barracks, it was descending the hill, and instead of soldiers in clumsy uniforms, peasants in bell-shaped sheepskin coats walked by their horses' heads, snapping the long lash whips they carried in their hands. I recognized the covered gypsy wagons and the open carts with their bulky loads. It was too dark to see distinctly, but I knew they were refugees by the strings of kettles along the sides of the carts, which caught the electric light in coppery flashes. And in the open wagons I could see the pale disks of faces. As I watched, the procession came to a stand-still and the drivers collected in little groups under the white globes of the street lamps. I went outdoors and crossed the street to them.