When I came under the window and carried my hand to my hat, I saw that Feodosova was away. That gave me no longer any relief. I stumbled up to my prison and at every step heard the thumping of my wooden leg. “I have talked with Feodosova,” whispered the Zaporogean. I gave him no reply. My happiness, my flower, that had grown up over the heaps of ashes, lay consumed; and if it had again shone out, I myself, in alarm, would have trampled it to death with my wooden leg. What signified to me the Zaporogean’s whisperings? “Ah!” he went on, “when you were gone, I reproached Feodosova and said to her that you were fonder of her than she realized, and that, if you were not a stranger and a heathen, you would ask her to be your wife.” In silence I clenched my hands and bit my lips together to lock up my vexation and embarrassment, and I thanked God that he abased me every moment more deeply in shame and ridicule before men. I opened the door to the outer hall and began to talk to the other prisoners: “As wild asses in the desert we go painfully to seek our food. On a field that we do not own we must go as husbandmen, and harvest in the vineyard of the ungodly. We lie naked the whole night from lack of garments, and are without covering against the cold. We are overwhelmed by the deluge from the mountains, and from lack of shelter we embrace the cliffs. But we beg Thee not for mitigation Almighty God. We pray only: Lead us, be nigh unto us! Behold, Thou hast turned away Thy countenance from our people and stuck thorns in our shoes, that we may become Thy servants and Thy children. In the mould of the battle-field our brothers sleep, and a fairer song of victory than that of the conquerors by the sword Thou dost offer to Thy chosen ones.” “Yea, Lord lead us, be nigh unto us!” echoed all the prisoners murmuringly. Then out of the darkest corner rose a lonely, trembling voice, which cried: “Oh, that I were as in former months, as in the days when God protected me, when His lamp shone upon my head, when with His light I went into the darkness! As I was in my autumn days, when God’s friendship was over my tent, while yet the Almighty was with me, and my children were about me! Thus my heart cries out with Job, but I hear it no longer and I stammer forth no longer: Take away my trials! With the ear I have heard tell of Thee, O God, but now hath mine eye beheld Thee.” “Quiet, quiet!” whispered the Zaporogean, taking hold of me, and his hands were cold and trembling. “It can be no one else than the czar who is coming below in the lane.”