It is asked: "Where are the numberless local officials, the people looking after the village in time of peace, where are they now in the time of terror and calamity, where have they betaken themselves--where, saving themselves, do they receive their former official salary? How they have abandoned this illiterate people who do not even understand the Russian language well, in such a moment." They looked after them all the time like children, and then, in the difficult moment, abandon the children to the will of Fate! Had they come with their own refugees, had even the least important of them come, there would have been someone to whom to turn for information, to find out things. But abandoned, left entirely to themselves, the fugitives grope about, and feel their way like people with bandaged eyes. * * * * * I made acquaintance with a priest. He spoke bitterly. There was desperation in his voice. "We try to preserve ourselves together. But we are assigned to places! Assigned! One part of the flock to Riazan, another to Kazan, a third to Orenburg!" Here in the wood are fugitives at the last limit of their strength, making a decision: To deprive themselves of the last thing--to sell their horses. They sell them in the market-place, in Muchin yard, to "Northern-Help," to the Government, _fkaznu_, as they say. Then they are already not muzhiks; they wander over from this camp to the camp near the railway station. And whilst they are encamped in the wood they go backwards and forwards between the relief points of "Northern-Help" and the "Municipal Alliance." On the great highway--a promenade--as one of the numerous gendarmes keeping order put it. Not only is it difficult to drive through, but difficult to walk through. The people flock first one way, then the other, with downcast visage, to the forest, from the forest, from one side of the highway to the other side of the highway. At the bonfires they warm their red and chilblained hands. Horses pass through the crowd. With triangular brandings on their hind legs. Many horses wander about lost. They come to the high-road, to the people, to the other horses. They wander about quietly, somehow helplessly, looking around them with their wise, sad eyes. As if they were seeking their own people. Horses at the last gasp of their strength. But no one pays any attention to them. Neither do the horses pay attention. They stumble upon people. In the peasant huts occupied as relief points bread is taken in at the back door, cut up there, and handed out from a little window in the front. So from morning to night bread flows in an uninterrupted stream. Sentries keep the order of those who are waiting for bread. In front of the bread windows range endless ranks of fugitives. Thousands and thousands of people. One person moves an inch, another person moves an inch, and from the midst is heard wails. "You're suffocating me! Oh, suffocating!"