forests on the bank. The trees are so tall that if you look to the top
it makes you dizzy. Every pine would be worth ten roubles by the prices
here."

In the overwhelming rush of his fancies, of artistic images of the past
and sweet presentiments of happiness in the future, the poor wretch sank
into silence, merely moving his lips as though whispering to himself.
The vacant, blissful smile never left his lips. The constables were
silent. They were pondering with bent heads. In the autumn stillness,
when the cold, sullen mist that rises from the earth lies like a weight
on the heart, when it stands like a prison wall before the eyes, and
reminds man of the limitation of his freedom, it is sweet to think of
the broad, rapid rivers, with steep banks wild and luxuriant, of the
impenetrable forests, of the boundless steppes. Slowly and quietly the
fancy pictures how early in the morning, before the flush of dawn has
left the sky, a man makes his way along the steep deserted bank like
a tiny speck: the ancient, mast-like pines rise up in terraces on
both sides of the torrent, gaze sternly at the free man and murmur
menacingly; rocks, huge stones, and thorny bushes bar his way, but he
is strong in body and bold in spirit, and has no fear of the pine-trees,
nor stones, nor of his solitude, nor of the reverberating echo which
repeats the sound of every footstep that he takes.

The peasants called up a picture of a free life such as they had never
lived; whether they vaguely recalled the images of stories heard long
ago or whether notions of a free life had been handed down to them with
their flesh and blood from far-off free ancestors, God knows!

The first to break the silence was Nikandr Sapozhnikov, who had not till
then let fall a single word. Whether he envied the tramp's transparent
happiness, or whether he felt in his heart that dreams of happiness were
out of keeping with the grey fog and the dirty brown mud--anyway, he
looked sternly at the tramp and said:

"It's all very well, to be sure, only you won't reach those plenteous
regions, brother. How could you? Before you'd gone two hundred miles
you'd give up your soul to God. Just look what a weakling you are! Here
you've hardly gone five miles and you can't get your breath."

The tramp turned slowly toward Nikandr, and the blissful smile vanished
from his face. He looked with a scared and guilty air at the peasant's
staid face, apparently remembered something, and