Have the last thing to do as peasants. They sell their horses. And thence go onward--in the train. Waiting in an open-air camp in Roslavl for a week or so, until they are given places. And with what desperation do they cling to the possession of their horses. II--STORY OF THE PEASANT--AND THREE MOTHERLESS CHILDREN Here I made the acquaintance of a fugitive--a bitter man. His wife died two weeks before the final ruin and he has three children, two very young, and a baby. He had owned some land and was a farmer. He had paid 12,000 rubles for it. The payment had been spread over seven years and all had been paid. He had only just begun to make a living. And now "this had happened." He had managed to bring away all his cattle. And four horses. He had gone a long way. But in Minsk province, where a continuous marsh extends for tens and tens of versts, an order had come to clear the high-road, and the cattle had been driven on to the marsh. "My little son," said he, "who had gone on in front with the cattle, ran back to meet me at a turn of the road, crying, 'Daddy, Daddy, the cattle are all drowned in the marsh.' I ran to him. The herd of cattle were twisting and writhing in the bog. Bellowing. And among them I saw mine." He spoke sadly but calmly about the death of his wife, about his land that had "cost so much money." "But I'd rather have been blinded than see such a sight. A second ruin. All my property perishing in the quagmire, and I stand on the road and become a beggar. Three horses died on the way. One remained. A little shaggy horse, ten years old, but active." In Roslavl he found a kind man who permitted him to live in his _banya_, bath-house. A black _banya_. But that was a palace! "Day and night I never cease to pray to God for the kind man who saved my children," says he. He has found a footing at Roslavl and will remain there--drives a cab. "Two rubles a day shall I earn, think I. One and a half will feed the horse, and the fifty kopecks which remain must suffice for us four." "Not a large budget. And what if you were to sell the horse and go farther?" He looked at me straight in the eyes with terror. "Master!" said he, "I have a horse, and so all the same I remain a man! A human being! But without a horse, what sort of a being should I be? What should I be?" III--STORY OF THE PROCESSION--AND THE COFFINS On all sides you hear: "Well, at least we have a horse! So we can still count ourselves human beings! Still peasants!" And if the money be all spent, and the peasant cease to be a peasant. What then? The last thing that connects him with the past, the last thing that binds him to life.