"But I'd rather have been blinded than see such a sight. A second ruin. All my property perishing in the quagmire, and I stand on the road and become a beggar. Three horses died on the way. One remained. A little shaggy horse, ten years old, but active."
In Roslavl he found a kind man who permitted him to live in his banya, bath-house. A black banya. But that was a palace!
"Day and night I never cease to pray to God for the kind man who saved my children," says he.
He has found a footing at Roslavl and will remain there—drives a cab.
"Two rubles a day shall I earn, think I. One and a half will feed the horse, and the fifty kopecks which remain must suffice for us four."
"Not a large budget. And what if you were to sell the horse and go farther?"
He looked at me straight in the eyes with terror.
"Master!" said he, "I have a horse, and so all the same I remain a man! A human being! But without a horse, what sort of a being should I be? What should I be?"
III—STORY OF THE PROCESSION—AND THE COFFINS
On all sides you hear: