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?"