nd Semyon met for the first time on the line midway
between the huts. Semyon took off his hat and bowed. "Good health to
you, neighbour," he said.

The neighbour glanced askance at him. "How do you do?" he replied;
then turned around and made off.

Later the wives met. Semyon's wife passed the time of day with her
neighbour, but neither did she say much.

On one occasion Semyon said to her: "Young woman, your husband is not
very talkative."

The woman said nothing at first, then replied: "But what is there for
him to talk about? Every one has his own business. Go your way, and
God be with you."

However, after another month or so they became acquainted. Semyon
would go with Vasily along the line, sit on the edge of a pipe, smoke,
and talk of life. Vasily, for the most part, kept silent, but Semyon
talked of his village, and of the campaign through which he had
passed.

"I have had no little sorrow in my day," he would say; "and goodness
knows I have not lived long. God has not given me happiness, but what
He may give, so will it be. That's so, friend Vasily Stepanych."

Vasily Stepanych knocked the ashes out of his pipe against a rail,
stood up, and said: "It is not luck which follows us in life, but
human beings. There is no crueller beast on this earth than man. Wolf
does not eat wolf, but man will readily devour man."

"Come, friend, don't say that; a wolf eats wolf."

"The words came into my mind and I said it. All the same, there is
nothing crueller than man. If it were not for his wickedness and
greed, it would be possible to live. Everybody tries to sting you to
the quick, to bite and eat you up."

Semyon pondered a bit. "I don't know, brother," he said; "perhaps it
is as you say, and perhaps it is God's will."

"And perhaps," said Vasily, "it is waste of time for me to talk to
you. To put everything unpleasant on God, and sit and suffer, means,
brother, being not a man but an animal. That's what I have to say."
And he turned and went off without saying good-bye.

Semyon also got up. "Neighbour," he called, "why do you lose your
temper?" But his neighbour did not look round, and kept on his way.

Semyon gazed after him until he was lost to sight in the cutting at
the turn. He went home and said to his wife: "Arina, our neighbour is
a wicked person, not a man."

However, they did not quarrel. They met again and discussed the same
topics.

"All, mend, if it were not for men we should not be poki