At the same time that the wanderer on the rough path of Bjelostok forest was gathering up its snow roses, another man on the far-off shores of the Black Sea was preparing for a long, distant, and hurried journey. The two men hasten to the same goal. They had never seen one another, had never heard the other's name, had never corresponded. Yet each is aware of the other's existence; aware that they are to meet, and that this meeting must take place on a given day. The first has, perhaps, the shorter road to take, but he can only ride slowly; he has to avoid inhabited towns, to utilize night for his progress, to pass the days in isolated csards. The second has the longer and more difficult way; but the only battle he has to fight is with the elements of earth, water, fire, and wind, and these he can conquer. The fifth obstacle--man--places himself obsequiously at his service. This traveller wears the uniform of a colonel. Short of stature, he gains in height by the singular erectness of his head and the elasticity of his walk. By that walk he can be detected under any disguise. His closely cropped hair displays a broad, high brow; his eager eyes dance in his head as he speaks. He has an expressive face--one from which it is easy to read his thoughts, even when his lips are silent--a face in which every muscle moves with his words; one in strongest contrast to that of the other man. He can hide his every feeling under an immovable countenance; this one betrays beforehand his every thought. During his five minutes' colloquy with the jemsik, he has exhausted a whole gamut of expressions, from flattery to rage, as if playing upon the strings of a violin. He gesticulates violently with his hands; now his five fingers are under the peasant's nose; then they strike him on the shoulder, punch him in the ribs, seize him by the lappet of his coat; now shake, then embrace him. He kisses him, strokes his beard with coaxing action, then tugs at it, pushes him roughly away, finally reaching him his flask for a drink; and perhaps his only object has been to find out whether the road to Jekaseviroslaw is passable or not. For while the snow still lies deep in the forest of Bjelostok, and gun-carriages may yet drive across the ice-covered Niemen, thaw has already set in along the valleys of the Dnieper and the Don, and the whole plain is a sea, from out which the rush huts, with their surrounding plantations of reeds, stand out like solitary islands. To every hut a boat made of willow is secured; this boat is the one and only mode of locomotion, albeit a dangerous one, whereby in the spring season the inhabitants can convey themselves to the pasture-land to look after their cattle and horses.