"Don't you know that in Muchin yard, beyond the town, they're buying
for the Government. There you would get a fairer price."
The fugitive does not succeed in answering for himself. Once more the
crowd of people with quick movements and feverish eyes.
"The Government? There, you'll never get a turn! It's necessary to
stand three days. He's got to hurry for the train. See what a lot of
people are coming in. He will be late, and have to wait a month in the
open. The autumn rains will start. And cold. All his children will
freeze. From Bobruisk another five hundred thousand are coming. Who are
you, Mister? Are you someone from the Government or a Relief Committee?"
"Our little children are just freezing to death," says another fugitive.
And at this market where horses and people are crushed in one compact
mass where from the heat of bodies and the smell of horses it is
difficult to breathe, if any one is cheerful, it is only the purchaser.
The fugitives have not much to say for themselves, and that in a
low voice--as if stunned. They sell their horses and stand as if in
perplexity. They go away--horseless, peasants no longer, wordless. In
appearance so calm and indifferent: as if nothing had happened. No
expression of the grief, of the deadly melancholy which is in the soul.