This happened in summer: the work was not hard, there was no snow to shovel, and, besides, the trains passed but rarely on that road. Semen would walk over his verst twice in twenty-four hours, would tighten a screw here and there, pick up a splinter, examine the water-pipes, and go home to take care of his little homestead. The only thing that bothered him and his wife was: no matter what they made up their minds to do, they had to ask the permission of the track-master, who again had to lay the matter before the division-master, and when permission was at last given the time had already passed, and it was then too late to be of any use to them. On account of this, Semen and his wife began, at times, to feel very lonely.
About two months passed in this way; Semen began to form acquaintance with his nearest neighbors—trackmen like himself. One was already a very old man, whom the railway authorities had long intended to replace; he could hardly move from his watch-house, and his wife attended to his duties. The other trackman, who lived nearer to the station, was still a young man, thin and sinewy. Semen met him for the first time on the railroad-bed half-way between their watch-houses, while they were making their rounds; Semen took off his cap and bowed. “Good health to you, neighbor,” he said.
The neighbor looked at him askance. “How are you?” he replied, turned, and went his way.
The women also met afterward. Arina, Semen’s wife, greeted her neighbor affably, but this neighbor, also not of the talkative kind, spoke a few words and walked away. On meeting her once, Semen asked:
“Why is your husband so uncommunicative, young woman?” After standing for some time in silence, she said: “But what should he talk to you about? Everybody has his troubles—God speed you.”
But after another month had passed, their intimacy grew. Now, when Semen and Vasili met on the road-bed, they sat down on the edge, smoked their pipes, and told each other of their past life and experiences. Vasili spoke but little, but Semen told of his campaign life and of his native village.
“I have seen plenty of sorrow in my time, and God knows I am not so very old either. God has not given us much luck. It just depends: the kind of a lot the dear Lord portions out to one—such he must have. This is the way I make it out, Vasili Stepanich, little brother.”
And Vasili struck the bowl of his pipe on the rail to empty it, and said:
“It isn’t luck nor fate which is eating your life and mine away, but people. There is not a beast more cruel and rapacious than man. A wolf does not devour a wolf—but man eats man alive.”
“Well, brother, wolf does eat wolf—that is where you are wrong.”