Vlas Mikhaĭlovich Doroshevich, The Way of the Cross — Meeting the Fugitives (1916)
“ Here a man can be lost, as a needle in a bundle of hay. —I've lost my husband, he's lost—I can still hear the monotonous expressionless voice of the peasant woman as I leave the encampment. The man has been drowned in this river of people. We come to the second relief point of the Municipal Alliance. Farther on we shall see them every fifteen or seventeen versts. ”
Vlas Mikhaĭlovich Doroshevich, The Way of the Cross — Meeting the Fugitives (1916)
“ The hewn stumps gleam oftener and oftener. But if you ask the peasants —Don't the fugitives do some damage? They all reply —Nitchevo. Nothing that matters. In Smolensk province they already begin to add, —At first they did. But now they have gendarmes in charge of them. The fugitives are now met in large parties. Ahead of them goes a gendarme on horseback. —And that's all right? In charge of the gendarmes they do no damage?—I ask. —Eh, master!—answers the old peasant whom I am questioning—there's no animal that does so much harm when he strays to feed, as man! ”
Vlas Mikhaĭlovich Doroshevich, The Way of the Cross — Meeting the Fugitives (1916)
“ But with each ten versts of our onward journey we meet the fugitives more and more often, and the lines of them become longer and longer. There, on the beautiful shore of the winding River Izvera, in one of its curves, under an acacia, in the clear sweet air a little smoke is curling. Ten covered carts are encamped there. The folk have stopped to cook dinner. Near them sits a policeman in a cart. I go nearer. The policeman is talking to an old woman lying on the ground. —Don't you know that a sick person mustn't lie on the ground like this? You're old, but you must understand that. ”
