Among this gray wilderness of ruin fugitives were wandering. These people who preserved their horses and could still go on--in their own carts. They sought here any bits of harness or shafts or wheels that could serve them better than their own. From various separate parts they put together whole carts. Some of the branded horses had come here. Seeking perhaps, by scent or by instinct, the carts to which they had once been harnessed. They wandered and stumbled like shadows, hardly keeping their feet. They fell. There lies one. He breathes heavily, suddenly quivers tremulously. In his round, glassy eyes there is suffering. He tries to raise his head from the ground. He has not strength to hold it up, and lets it fall again. Then suddenly he begins to wail, just like a man. A little farther off lies a horse already stiff, and its long, long, lean legs stretch out. * * * * * The crowd does not melt away but increases. Here it is cold, here there is no forest. And the fugitives press together closely, family to family. Only warming themselves in the smoke of their bonfires. There are bonfires day and night. Wandering women go from house to house in the neighbourhood. They stop outside the doors, crying: "Give, for Christ's sake, give us wood." And, the heart anguished, they give. --More still is stolen! * * * * * Irritated by fear for themselves, frightened at these "unheard-of people," the little towns and hamlets and the "all-understanding" villages ... one can only express astonishment at the celerity with which man adapts himself to circumstances. Where and when have these peasants of yesterday learnt so quickly to build dens and dwelling-places from any sort of rubbish? It's as if they were born nomads. It simply makes one wonder. Out of what was all this put together? How does it hold? Some slates stolen from one place, a paling broken somewhere else, an armful of hay, rags brought in by the children--and behold, a dwelling-place. "And, O Lord, how to thank Thee that there is no longer any rain!" --They freeze, get ill, watch their children die, and wait. It's not possible to breathe. All around is human filth. In certain stinking horrible ponds, the peasant women with feet blue from the cold, are washing clothes. And these ponds also are tainted with filth....