Page:The Russian Review Volume 1.djvu/104

86 a cigar, looked at the peasant with interest, and then turned away again.

"Are you a laborer?" continued the bearded peasant.

"No, I'm going to a new place. To Siberia. To live there."

"So-o!" The bearded peasant nodded several times. "But how can you expect to go so far without a ticket?"

"Just as God wills."

"So you haven't got any money, either, have you?"

"Lord, no! What do I want money for? Money's nothing. I can earn it, if I get work. But I've got another trouble,—no document."

"Haven't you got a passport?"

"No, brother, that's the worst of it."

The bearded peasant nodded again, his glance sterner than ever.

"How is it then?" said he. "No ticket, no money, no passport, and still you're going?"

The little peasant burst out laughing, like a child.

"Just so . . . Going . . . Started out at Chernigov . . . Part of the way on train, part on foot . . ."

"And sometimes astride a stick, eh?" said the black-haired official.

He burst out into contemptuous laughter, and again applied himself to the contemplation of the night landscape outside.

The peasant brightened up at once.

"That's it exactly, your Honor," said he. "That's just it. 'Move along on your own two.' That's said about us."

"But they'll send you back." The bearded peasant continued to express his astonishment. "The police will bring you back. And you'll see enough of prison yet for your unruliness."

"People say they don't send you back. A soldier was in our village some time ago,—an experienced fellow. Well, he used to say that there are places in Siberia about which the authorities don't know anything at all. There's a great big swamp. So big, it's, say, a thousand versts. You can't go through it on foot, or on horseback. Nobody can get through, except a squirrel or a hare, it's such an awful swamp. On one side of the swamp is the Ocean Sea, on the other, the Turkish land, right where the Turks live. China isn't far away, either. And right in the middle of this swamp there is a big forest. The soldier used to say it's so big, so big . . . There isn't another one like it in the whole country. And all sorts of trees grow there, pines, and oaks, and elms, and hazel-nuts, and they grow like grass, and nobody counts them. You can chop down as many as you like, nobody will ever say a word. And right in the middle of that forest there is a village, a big village, almost like a capital. And the authorities don't know anything about the village, and never find their way there."

"You must be afraid of the authorities," said the official from his corner, and laughed again.

"Why, sure, your Honor! Nobody can help fearing the authorities," answered the peasant eagerly. "They're our