hey
would not give in to the extra ten thousand, and now the townspeople are
sorry because they had to make a road to the station which cost them
more. Sleepers and rails were fixed all along the line, and
service-trains were running to carry building materials and labourers,
and they were only waiting for the bridges upon which Dolyhikov was at
work, and here and there the stations were not ready.

Dubechnia--the name of our first station--was seventeen versts from the
town. I went on foot. The winter and spring corn was bright green,
shining in the morning sun. The road was smooth and bright, and in the
distance I could see in outline the station, the hills, and the remote
farmhouses.... How good it was out in the open! And how I longed to be
filled with the sense of freedom, if only for that morning, to stop
thinking of what was going on in the town, or of my needs, or even of
eating! Nothing has so much prevented my living as the feeling of acute
hunger, which make my finest thoughts get mixed up with thoughts of
porridge, cutlets, and fried fish. When I stand alone in the fields and
look up at the larks hanging marvellously in the air, and bursting with
hysterical song, I think: "It would be nice to have some bread and
butter." Or when I sit in the road and shut my eyes and listen to the
wonderful sounds of a May-day, I remember how good hot potatoes smell.
Being big and of a strong constitution I never have quite enough to eat,
and so my chief sensation during the day is hunger, and so I can
understand why so many people who are working for a bare living, can
talk of nothing but food.

At Dubechnia the station was being plastered inside, and the upper story
of the water-tank was being built. It was close and smelt of lime, and
the labourers were wandering lazily over piles of chips and rubbish. The
signalman was asleep near his box with the sun pouring straight into
his face. There was not a single tree. The telephone gave a faint hum,
and here and there birds had alighted on it. I wandered over the heaps,
not knowing what to do, and remembered how when I asked the engineer
what my duties would be, he had replied: "We will see there." But what
was there to see in such a wilderness? The plasterers were talking about
the foreman and about one Fedot Vassilievich. I could not understand and
was filled with embarrassment--physical embarrassment. I felt conscious
of my arms and legs, and of the whole of my big body, an