'Then that was what you wished to talk to me about? Then you are not thinking of the people, of your heavy lot, of the poverty which is pinching you; but you are longing for the sun, for the air of your native country!... You are thinking of the fields and meadows and woods; of the little songsters, for whom you could not spare a moment's attention there when you were busy, and now that these beautiful pictures are fading from your recollection, you fear the solitude surrounding you, the vast emptiness which meets you and effaces the memories you value? You wish me to recall them to you, to revive them; you wish me to tell you what our country is like?...' 'Oh yes, Sir, yes, Sir! That was why I came here,' and he clasped my hands, and laughed joyfully, like a child. 'Listen, brother....' And my friend, Srul, listened, all transformed by listening, his lips parted, his look rivetted to mine; he kindled, he inspired me by that look; he wrested the words from me, drank them in thirstily, and laid them in the very depth of his burning heart.... I do not doubt that he laid them there, for when I had finished my tale he began to moan bitterly, 'O weh mir! weh mir!' He struck his red beard, and in his misery tears like a child's rolled fast down his face.... And the old fanatic sat there a long time sobbing, and I cried with him.... Much water has flowed down the cold Lena since that day, and not a few human tears have rolled down suffering cheeks. All this happened long ago. Yet in the silence of the night, at times of sleeplessness, the statuesque face of Bałdyga, bearing the stigma of great sorrow, often rises before me, and invariably beside it Srul's yellow, drawn face, wet with tears. And when I gaze longer at that night-vision, many a time I seem to see the Jew's trembling, pale lips move, and I hear his low voice whisper: 'Oh Jehovah, why art thou so unmerciful to one of Thy most faithful sons?...' FOOTNOTES: [10] Bałdyga means 'lump' or 'clumsy lout.' [11] The river near his home. [12] 'Docha.' [13] _i.e._ Polish. IN AUTUMN WACŁAW SIEROSZEWSKI The rain and bad weather, which had continued without interruption for several days, had kept the inhabitants of the hut, 'Talaki,'[14] prisoners indoors, and condemned them to idleness. They constantly went out of the room to gaze long and sadly at the weeping sky, for the hay was rotting in the fields;--but alas! a grey film of rain hung over all the surrounding country, and in vain their eyes sought longingly for the smallest chink of blue in the heavy, dark clouds.