The Way of the Cross. Vlas Mikhailovich Doroshevich

sleeves, the pockets, and the waists are all adorned with embroidery in coloured thread.

      ​Now all these are dirty, all are covered with a thick layer of dust, they are torn and ragged, but you can see that they were once beautiful, ornamental, and in themselves signs of wealth.

      And that not very long ago.

      —It’s the third month!

      —We’ve been journeying nine weeks!

      —Seven weeks since we left!

      The peasants answer weariedly in reply to the question:

      —Have you been long on the road?

      A whole eternity!

      —I can’t make it out—said one of the fugitives to me. He was serving as a soldier, and used even such phrases as "the masses."

      —I can’t make it out: either my home was all a dream, or I’ve gone out of my mind now, and God knows when I shall understand. My home burnt, cattle drowned in the river, no little wife, she ​died on the road; my two children also died and we buried them by the wayside and put crosses over the graves. I've got one son left and one horse. That’s all we are in the world. Is it possible that I am the same man as I was?

      He had the common appearance of a fugitive—a two-horse cart with a single shaft and canvas tilt.

      When you meet the first party of fugitives upon the road you think that they’re gipsies.

      The populations of whole provinces have become gipsies, and in the month of October are leading a nomad life on the road and in the forests.

      It is necessary to form some estimate of the greatness of their unexampled trial. To a cart that should be drawn by two horses one often sees only one.

      The other has fallen, or has been sold by the way.

      ​No harness of any kind, only a horse-collar.

      And that lonely horse in the shafts has the air of an orphan, and imparts that air to the whole conveyance.

      By the side of the horse walks the peasant or his wife, turn by turn.

      They only go on foot in the mornings.

      —To get warm.

      In the mornings there are five degrees of frost in the fields.

      But they all are travelling in their carts.

      All of them have sore feet and many are lame.

      Inside the carts, under feather beds, under old clothes and rags, sit or lie five or seven human beings.

      The carts are crowded with people.

      The little horses find it hard to draw the people and their luggage.

      What is in the carts?

      —We only brought_the bedding!

      ​—We only managed to bring the linen! these are the answers you hear.

      You meet the very strangest cartloads.

      They sometimes carry—layers of iron.

      —The roof!

      It was the most valued possession.

      —Their cottage had an iron roof!

      When they were forced to flee, they took this most valued thing and carried it they knew not whither.

      Why?

      —It was the most valuable. At the sides of the carts the peasants have slung their kitchen utensils, as gipsies do.

      It cuts one to the heart to see these remains of what was lately—only yesterday—opulence and sufficiency.

      One often sees enamelled ware

      Enamelled kettles, frying-pans, basins.

      Suddenly comes a cart with a watering-pot fastened at the side.

      ​Just one watering-pot remains from the whole garden and vegetable plot!

      Sewing machines stick out from the sides of the carts.

      It’s as if there had been a fire.

      A fire in which all has been destroyed, and the people have caught up

      —The most precious things!

      Often, behind the carts, instead of spare wheels as in the majority of cases—is tied on a Viennese chair.

      They had been proud of this chair.

      —It had been the chair for guests.

      —They didn’t get along anyhow in their home. They had Viennese chairs. Theirs wasn’t an izba.

      And now, when they sleep in the woods and travel slowly along the road, in cold and hunger, they carry these chairs with them as:

      —Their most precious possession.

      Under the cart sometimes dogs are ​tied, and they run along there as they can.

      They’re tied up so that they won’t get run over by the relief cars that come swiftly along.

      How moving and how instant in its appeal is this enormous and silent procession! How it grips one’s heart! The procession moving no one knows whither.

      Into the unknown.

      Silently, above all.

      The over-wearied horses do not shy when motor-cars pass them. They do not even prick up their ears.

      And the dogs don’t bark.

      The people in the carts do not talk.

      —They have said all they’ve got to say.

      They move like grey shadows, like the dead.

      The peasant women are silent.

      Even the children do not cry.

      ​At the relief points, where thousands of people are gathered together, you are impressed by the silence.

      What a silent country it is!

      You can go for tens and for hundreds of versts—and still meet an almost uninterrupted stream of grey carts

      Like a series of spectres.

      And silent, silent, silent.

      Nothing but hopeless boredom and grief in their eyes.

      Weary and indifferent faces, as of convicts being marched along the road

      And only by the new white wooden crosses along the side of the road can you see how much suffering has silently passed there.

      A river of suffering has coursed along.

      At the medical stations the doctors tear their hair.

      —What can we do? Confess our helplessness? Numbers come to us suffering ​from rheumatism. From rheumatism in its most acute form. What can we do? What help can we give these people who must spend their nights in the forests?

      There are many cases of typhoid fever

      And at the medical stations on the road the doctors give a sigh of relief and exclaim

      —Thank God, no typhus.

      Dysentery is raging.

      —It is astonishing, how many are suffering from dysentery!—and that also is a matter for despair.

      Nearly everybody has bronchitis.

      Many cases of acute pneumonia.

      Among the children, scarlatina.

      Scores are suffering from bruises and blisters, and have their feet bandaged up.

      So blistered, that it’s impossible to walk.

      Feet scorched from the bonfires near which the people have slept at