Formerly there were the village constable, the district clerk,
trumperies, requisitions, and taxations; for then it was the gentry
who were the guardians. But now, Yonov the One-Eyed croaked
exultantly:
"Now it's ourselves! We ourselves! In our own way! In our own world!
The land is ours! We are the masters: it is the Rising! _Our_ Rising!"
There were no storms that winter; it was cold and dark, and the wolf-
packs were astir. One after another the inhabitants were stricken
down with typhoid--it was with typhoid that they paid for the Rising!
Half the village succumbed and was borne on the peasants' sleighs to
the churchyard.
By Candlemas, when winter and summer meet, all the provisions were
exhausted, and the villagers drove to the station. But even that had
changed. New people congregated there, some shouting, others hurrying
to and fro with sacks. The villagers returned with nothing and sat
down to their potatoes.
In the spring prayers were offered up for the dead and a religious
procession paraded round the village, the outskirts of which were
bestrewn with ashes. Then the villagers started to take tar and bast
shoes to the station; they wanted to sell them, and with the proceeds
buy ploughshares, harrows, scythes, sickles, and leather straps. But
they never reached the station.
Their way led them through fields all lilac-coloured in the glowing
sun: there they encountered an honest peasant dressed in a short fur
jacket and a cap beneath which his look was calm and grave.
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