"Well, at least we have a horse! So we can still count ourselves human beings! Still peasants!"
And if the money be all spent, and the peasant cease to be a peasant. What then? The last thing that connects him with the past, the last thing that binds him to life.
Along the main street of Roslavl from earliest morning till the darkness of night without interruption, without ceasing, go two processions, one one way, the other the other. On one side of the road come an endless series of grey carts, one after another endlessly—and pass away towards that stretch of the road where yesterday we saw innumerable camp bonfires. On the other side coming from that place come refugees on horseback, some astride, some sitting sideways, on little worn-out horses. They go to the bazaar. Betwixt the two processions is the long empty alley of the middle of the street.
On both sides there is silence as if funeral processions going in opposite directions were meeting one another. Not even looking at one another, in fact, as if they did not remark one another.
To the town:
—To seek salt?
To know:
—What further orders have been given? Whither should they go now?
No, no, they are carrying coffins through—mostly children's. A peasant is carrying a coffin on his shoulder. Silently after him and without weeping strides his peasant wife. Clinging to her skirts also silently and without weeping come frozen barefooted children.
Look, here comes a large coffin. From the hardly shut lid hang new and bright coloured cottons. It is a girl that has died. Four girls are carrying the coffin. They will bury her in the right way, with the ritual. The little procession went past, simple, beautiful, melancholy. No one stopped to look round, to turn the head. No one meeting the procession crossed himself, nor drew off his hat, nor gave any attention. As if the people had ceased to see with their eyes.