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82 aloud in vain, for your only answer would be the deathlike silence, except that here and there you might hear the gasping of an invalid or the deep cough of some old woman who is living out her days upon the stove. Also, there might appear from behind the fence a long-haired, barefooted youngster of three, clad only in a shirt, who would gaze mutely at the new-comer, and then timidly hide himself again.

The same deep silence, the same deep peace, lies also upon the fields. Only somewhere over the distant soil there can be seen moving, like an ant, a sunburnt ploughman. Occasionally he leans upon his plough to clear his forehead of the sweat. Even the manners of that region are possessed of a still restfulness which nothing can disturb. Never has a robbery or a murder or a similar happening been known there; never have the inhabitants succumbed to strong passions, or experienced hazardous adventures. Indeed, what passions, what adventures would have the power to move them? No man has ever strayed beyond his own circle, for the local inhabitants dwell far from other men, and both the nearest village and the nearest country town lie distant from twenty-five to thirty versts.