In 1812 Moscow made a funeral pyre for herself, and burned--for Russia's sake. A hundred years have passed. And the red glare of Moscow's fire has paled. The Moscow of those days! A wooden city. The burning of it was appalling. The ground burned under the feet of the Napoleonic soldiers: even the roadways of Moscow were made of wood at that time. But now! More than ten provinces have been laid waste by the enemy. Millions of people have become beggars. And have fled. From the places of their birth to the far centre of Russia stretches the way of the Cross for these people. And on this way, as on that other way--of Golgotha, are places, where the people faint under the burden of the Cross: Bobruisk! Dovsk! Roslavl! These are names full of affliction. Especially: The memory of Roslavl is terrible. * * * * * [3] I--STORY OF DESOLATION OF ROSLAVL Roslavl, on the River Oster, is a quiet little town in the province of Smolensk. Ordinarily, when you drive along the high-road coming from the West, in Rogachef, in Cherikof, in Propoisk, in Krichef, they will tell you that Roslavl is the first Russian town. From here to the eastward, Great Russia begins. When you arrive at Roslavl you will be awakened in the morning by the soft yet powerful baritone of its marvellous bell, sounding from the height of the Transfiguration monastery on the hill. And you will hear this, like music--for the first time on the whole of your journey from the West up till then. * * * * * Now Roslavl is choked and drowned. There is neither sugar nor salt in the town. In the streets fugitives stop you and ask, "Friend, where can I buy any salt here? I've been trying to get some all day." "Little father, where can we get any sugar? Even if it's only half a pound or a quarter of a pound." You go into a baker's shop and ask: "Have you any white bread?" The shopman looks at you in wonder. "We bake no white. Only black, and even that's all taken for the fugitives." "The fugitives will eat us up," says Roslavl in terror. But the wave of fugitives comes on and on, and a stench is given forth from it. Here the great river stops, and its waters turn round and round, like a whirlpool. Roslavl is overwhelmed; the tide rises above its head. The reason?--the railway. Hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people will remember with horror the desolation of Roslavl. Here is enacted a dreadful scene: "The completion of the process"--the fugitives giving up their horses. First they were as "gipsies," but now they have turned into a Khitrof market.[4] Numbers of the fugitives, the great majority of them, having exhausted their last strength and reached the railway.