'Well, then, just there, just five miles from Cracow. The bitter cold of a windy day penetrated to our bones. To think that the town was only five miles off!' I went away to return to the packing of my books. At the door I noticed a woman standing, a neighbour; she was frightened and timid. 'I suppose they have robbed you, lady?' 'They have.' 'And now they are at it in my place,' she said softly. 'Their cattle have eaten up my whole meadow, and they are tearing up everything in my kitchen-garden. I was looking this morning; not a cucumber left. To-morrow they will begin mowing the oats; the officer gave me an advance in money, and the rest he paid with note of hand. Is it true that they are going to burn everything?' 'I don't know.' The new watchman came up, young, black-eyed, a gloomy Siberian villager. When he laughed, his teeth shone like claws. 'We have stolen nothing, but we are ordered to do penance,' he said defiantly to Martin. 'Very well, we'll do it. It was worse in the trenches--a great deal worse! Often we were so close to the enemy that we could see them perfectly. We used to take off our caps, raise them in the air; they fired. If they hit, then we waved a white handkerchief: that meant they had made a hit. Later on they would show their caps and we fired.' 'Are you from a distance?' Martin asked. 'From Siberia,' he answered, and turned his head. 'We were four brothers all serving in the army; two still write to me, the fourth is gone. Our father is an old man, and neither ploughs nor sows. He sold a beautiful colt for 150 roubles, for what is the use of a horse when there is no more farming? God! what a country this is,' he continued with pity. 'With us in Siberia a farmer with no more than ten cows is called poor. We are rich! We have land where wheat grows like anything. Manure we cart away and burn; we've no use for it. Ah! Siberia!' The woman, my neighbour, sat in silence. It was strange to her to hear of this country as the Promised Land. When she had to go she said, thoughtfully and nervously: 'Of course if I hadn't sold him the oats they would have taken them. Even those two roubles on account were better than that.' I went upstairs again, and by evening the work of packing the books and things was completed. The soldier who loved books made elaborate remarks on them also to his simple comrades. He spoke about the psychical aspect of fighting, the physiology of heroic deeds, the resignation of those destined for death, &c. He was a thoughtful man and unquestionably sensitive; but all that he said had the stamp of oriental thought, systematically arranged in advance and quite perfectly expressed at the moment, free from the immediate naivete of elementary knowledge. 'Do you belong,' I said, 'to this detachment of machine gunners?' 'Unquestionably; I am, as you see, lady, a simple soldier.' 'I should like to see a machine gun at close quarters. Can I?'