Producing all the
necessary papers, permits, and licences, he proceeded to the railway,
which was dying because it too was of the towns.
At the station there were thousands of others with permits to travel
for bread, and because of those thousands only those without permits
succeeded in boarding the train. This particular man fastened himself
on the lower step of a carriage, under sacks that hung from the roof,
travelling thus for some forty miles. Then he and his gramophone were
thrown off, and for the first time in his life he tramped thirty
miles on foot under the weight of a gramophone.
At the next station he climbed on to the roof of a carriage and
travelled a hundred miles further. Then he was thrown off again, But
there the main-road passed the railway; by turning aside from it,
walking through a field, fording a river, making a way through the
woods, skirting the ravines, trudging through river beds, and
traversing the marshes he reached the village of Pochinki.
He arrived there with his gramophone at sundown. The red light of the
sun was reflected on the windows, the women-folk were milking the
cows: it was already autumn and the daylight faded rapidly. The man
with the gramophone tapped at the window and Kononov Ivan lifted the
shutter.
"Look, comrade, I've a gramophone here, to exchange for flour .
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