"Good-evening," I said.
"Good-evening, Panna," they replied.
"Have you come far?"
"Far? I should say we've been two months on the road," replied the
best-dressed man of the three. He had fur cuffs and collar on his long
sheepskin coat, and his boots were strong and well made.
"Can you tell me where we can get some tobacco?" he asked.
I directed him down the street a little way. He took a piece of silver
from a leather purse he wore round his neck, and gave it to one of his
companions, who left on the errand. The other man went round to the tail
of the cart and took down two bags of grain for the horses' supper.
"Good horses you have there," I said, to say something.
"Yes, indeed; the best horses a man ever had; less good ones would have
died on the road long ago. I bought them for fifty roubles apiece, and I
wouldn't take two hundred and fifty for them to-day. But, then, they're
all I have left of back there." He spoke in a quiet voice, scratching
his stubby, unshaven face, absent-mindedly.
"Is he traveling with you?" I asked, pointing to the man who was
slinging the grain-bags round the horses' necks.
"Yes. I picked him up along the road. His horse had died under him and
he counted himself no longer a human being. What was he, indeed, with
nothing he could call his own in the world any more? I let him come
along with me. I had extra room. So I let him come along with me." His
voice had no expression in it.
"But haven't you a family?" I asked.
"I have three children," he replied.
"It must be hard to take care of children at such a time as this."
"God knows it is," he replied. There was a sudden desperate note in his
voice. "It's a woman's business. But my wife died on the way. A month
and a half ago--soon after we started. It seems soon, now, but we'd been
long enough on the road to kill her with the jolting and misery of it."
"Was she sick?"
"She died in childbirth. There was no one to take care of her, and
nothing for her to eat. I made a fire, and she lay on the ground. All
night she moaned. She died toward morning. The baby only lived a few
hours. It was better it should die. What was ahead of it but suffering?
It was a boy, and my wife and I had always wanted a boy. But I wouldn't
have minded so much if the little wife had lived. It's hard without
her."
The man returned with the tobacco and the three peasants lighted
cigarettes. All was quiet. I heard nothing but the champing of the
horses as they munched the grain and the whistling of the wind through
the poplars in the convent garden.
"Kiev is a big city--a holy city, I've heard. Many from our town have
made a pilgrimage here," the rich peasant observed.
For the moment I'd forgotten where I was. Now I heard the city noises;
the footsteps grinding on pavements; the whistle and grinding of trains.
And the lights from the city reddened the mists that rose from the
Dnieper.
The carts in front began to move on.
"Where are we going?"--"What are the orders?"--"Is there a relief
station here?" every one cried at once.
"Good-bye. A good journey," I cried.
"Thank you. Good-bye."
The men stepped out into the road again. I watched cart after cart pass
me. The women looked straight out between the horses' ears, and showed
no curiosity or wonderment at being in a big city for the first time in
their lives. Strange sights and faces had no significance for them any
more.