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.
Along the main street of Roslavl from earliest morning till the
darkness of night without interruption, without ceasing, go two
processions, one one way, the other the other. On one side of the road
come an endless series of grey carts, one after another endlessly--and
pass away towards that stretch of the road where yesterday we saw
innumerable camp bonfires. On the other side coming from that place
come refugees on horseback, some astride, some sitting sideways,
on little worn-out horses. They go to the bazaar. Betwixt the two
processions is the long empty alley of the middle of the street.
On both sides there is silence as if funeral processions going in
opposite directions were meeting one another. Not even looking at one
another, in fact, as if they did not remark one another.
To the town:
--To seek salt?
To know:
--What further orders have been given? Whither should they go now?
No, no, they are carrying coffins through--mostly children's. A peasant
is carrying a coffin on his shoulder. Silently after him and without
weeping strides his peasant wife. Clinging to her skirts also silently
and without weeping come frozen barefooted children.
Look, here comes a large coffin. From the hardly shut lid hang new
and bright coloured cottons. It is a girl that has died. Four girls
are carrying the coffin. They will bury her in the right way, with
the ritual. The little procession went past, simple, beautiful,
melancholy. No one stopped to look round, to turn the head. No one
meeting the procession crossed himself, nor drew off his hat, nor gave
any attention. As if the people had ceased to see with their eyes.
And there stretches, stretches, along the footways, along the margin of
the road, without respite, without interval, without interruption, the
two processions ever coming towards one another and passing.
Grey carts, carts, carts. Horses, horses, horses, fugitives wandering
like shadows, horses, children's coffins, and again horses, horses,
horses. The head turns giddy looking at the endless movement. It
becomes difficult to breathe because of that which passes before the
eyes.
In this little town through which comes such an ocean of people, it is
as quiet as if it were all one great funeral. I had hardly come into
the market-place before the crowd swirled round me with quick movements
and feverish eyes. Whence had they come to Roslavl? Whence had so
many come? There were all dialects. Great Russian, Russian and Little
Russian accent, with Polish accent.