"We try to preserve ourselves together. But we are assigned to places! Assigned! One part of the flock to Riazan, another to Kazan, a third to Orenburg!"
Here in the wood are fugitives at the last limit of their strength, making a decision: To deprive themselves of the last thing—to sell their horses. They sell them in the market-place, in Muchin yard, to "Northern-Help," to the Government, fkaznu, as they say. Then they are already not muzhiks; they wander over from this camp to the camp near the railway station. And whilst they are encamped in the wood they go backwards and forwards between the relief points of "Northern-Help" and the "Municipal Alliance."
On the great highway—a promenade—as one of the numerous gendarmes keeping order put it. Not only is it difficult to drive through, but difficult to walk through. The people flock first one way, then the other, with downcast visage, to the forest, from the forest, from one side of the highway to the other side of the highway. At the bonfires they warm their red and chilblained hands. Horses pass through the crowd. With triangular brandings on their hind legs.
Many horses wander about lost. They come to the high-road, to the people, to the other horses. They wander about quietly, somehow helplessly, looking around them with their wise, sad eyes. As if they were seeking their own people. Horses at the last gasp of their strength. But no one pays any attention to them. Neither do the horses pay attention. They stumble upon people.
In the peasant huts occupied as relief points bread is taken in at the back door, cut up there, and handed out from a little window in the front. So from morning to night bread flows in an uninterrupted stream. Sentries keep the order of those who are waiting for bread. In front of the bread windows range endless ranks of fugitives. Thousands and thousands of people. One person moves an inch, another person moves an inch, and from the midst is heard wails.
"You're suffocating me! Oh, suffocating!"
People fall unconscious. Here indeed only the stronger can stand the strain. The hungry crush the hungry in order that they may squeeze into a better place in the line and receive their bit of bread sooner. The women, the children, with wide staring eyes, with deathly pale faces. Quietly and silently the fierce and cruel struggle goes on. All around the people swarm like flies.
A man in a uniform has only to appear, or even a gentleman in civil attire, and the fugitives swarm about him.
"Your high nobility! Show us your official mercy!"
Where have I heard this melancholy, hopeless tone, these very words of humiliation?