"But in the meantime the world has been turned upside down, their homes are unrecognizable; nothing, absolutely nothing, is as it used to be. Wherever there is the smallest nook that has remained inhabitable, some stranger has built a nest. The new authorities speak German, rule German, and run things in a German way. The need to protect themselves against epidemics, and political prudence, demand that these homeless wanderers should not be permitted to wander around any longer at will. Into cities they are not allowed to enter, or even to pass through them. Out in the country, the field police watch them carefully, for more and more frequently adventurous groups are formed--states in a very small way and without any regard for anybody else. Strong fellows with plenty of nerve use this rare opportunity, make themselves leaders and dictators of these groups, organize new communities, which they rule with a strong hand, make laws, inflict punishments, and impose their will just as they please. That makes it necessary for the German authorities to interfere promptly and to bring order and authority to bear on these insecure conditions. The population is registered and no one is allowed to immigrate or to emigrate without the proper papers. "Of course, there are also good, carefully tended main roads besides the bad country paths, and some of them are even paved for miles. One of these runs right straight from the south toward the Polish city of Cholm. For miles one can see this road, which looks like a ribbon that grows narrower and narrower all the time; in the background is a forest, through and beyond which the road runs. At the farther end of the forest, on the shoulders of a hill, are the white buildings of the monastery of the Russian bishopric of Cholm. Only when one comes within a few hundred steps of these buildings does one see the low, long, stretched-out little town in line with the ridge of the hills that drop away to the north....