III + 

“… Over at the roadhouse I saw a pair of horses tied to a post,” Kozel was saying in a doleful singsong. “The moment I looked at the wagon I knew that they were German horses. The colonists always use wagons like that. And they were a fine pair of horses! My heart almost stopped beating when I saw them.⁠ ⁠… And I know something about horses. There they were standing as if their feet were grown into the ground, and their little ears all standing up, and they were looking at me like two beasts.⁠ ⁠… You can’t say that they were very large, would not call them very good just by looking at them either, but I knew immediately what kind of horses they were. You could drive a pair like that for a hundred versts and nothing would happen to them. Just brush their mouths with hay, give them a little water, and go on with your journey. Well, what’s the use of talking! I’ll say one thing. If God himself, or some saint, would come to me now and say: ‘Look here, Onisim, I will give you back your fingers, if you will promise never to steal horses again,⁠ ⁠…’ I’ll tell you, Buzyga, if I saw those horses, I would take them. May God punish me if I wouldn’t.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“So, what happened?” interrupted Buzyga. + 

“We’re coming to that. Akim, roll me a cigarette, will you? Yes.⁠ ⁠… So I walked and walked around that wagon, maybe for a whole half-hour. I tell you, the main thing is that a man never knows his own time. If I had untied them right then and there, everything would have been all right. The road was through the woods and it was a dark night; everything was muddy and a good strong wind was blowing. What else could you wish? But I got scared. I just walked around the horses like a fool, thinking to myself: ‘Now I’ve lost my chance. Guess the German will come out of the roadhouse and that will be the end of it.’ Then I would come over again and walk around and think again: ‘Lost my chance again! Can’t do it now at all.’ And I don’t know what it was that made me so scared then.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“You have got to do it quickly,” said Buzyga resolutely. + 

“Why weren’t you with me then, Levonty?” exclaimed Kozel in a tone of passionate reproach. “But then!⁠ ⁠… I guess you hadn’t been born yet.⁠ ⁠… Yes. So I walked and walked around those horses and that wagon and could not make up my mind to do anything. Maybe it was because I was sober and hungry at the time. Who knows? At first I just waited and moped there, and then suddenly, as though somebody had hit me on the back of the neck, I ran over to the horses, untied the reins, and began to tie up the bells.⁠ ⁠… And just then out comes the German, all ready for the road. As soon as he saw me, he shouted from the steps: ‘Hey, you there! What are you doing with my horses? Trying to steal them?’ And I answered him: ‘Why should I steal this junk of yours? Haven’t I got enough of my own? You had better thank me for tying your horses to the post, otherwise they would have run away on you.’ ‘All right! All right! I know how you tie horses to posts. Get out of here, you pig!’ Well, of course, I walked over to one side and hid back of the house and started watching him. And I was so angry, I trembled all over. ‘Oh, no,’ thinks I to myself, ‘I won’t let this go.’ ” + 

“Of course not. How could you let it go?” nodded Buzyga. “I would have stolen those horses on him even if it would have taken me a year.” + 

“No, Buzyga, you wouldn’t!” replied Kozel with deep conviction. “Not from that German. You wait, don’t get angry.⁠ ⁠… Just listen to what happened after that. So I hid back of the house and watched. The German looked around and then shouted to the tavern-keeper: ‘Hey, Leyba, bring me some oats.’ Leyba brought him some and then asked him: ‘But why don’t you stay here overnight? We would take good care of your horses.’ And he said to him: ‘No, thank you, I have no time and I have far to go. I’ll feed my horses in the woods by the Volchy Razlog. Goodbye.’ ‘Goodbye.’ So the colonist got into his wagon and started out. + 

“Well, I ran after him. Down as far as Myslovo he kept pretty fast, but I knew the road well, and so I ran across the government woods. As soon as I got out on the road again and hid in a ditch, along came the German, driving slowly. I let him get ahead of me and then started to follow him. As soon as he’d start driving fast, I’d break into a run. And when he would ride slowly, I’d follow him walking. I was only twenty-five then and a pretty strong fellow. No worse than you, Buzyga. And I followed him for thirty versts, down as far as Volchy Razlog. To tell you the truth, I did not hope that he would stop in the woods overnight as he had said. I thought he was saying that just to get me off the track. But he really turned into the woods and stopped at a little clearing. There he unharnessed his horses and fixed up his wagon with the shafts raised up. I crawled along on my belly like a snake, lay down back of some bushes, and watched him. You know, at night, when you look down the hill you can’t see anything, but up the hill everything is plain.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Yes, I know,” said Buzyga impatiently. “Well?” + 

“Then I saw that he tied the horses’ legs. And what he used was iron chains, because I heard them jingle even at a distance. Well, that looked as though he were really going to stay there all night. It was terribly cold and windy. I was shaking all over. But I did not give in. I saw that German get into the wagon, move around a bit, and then he still. I waited for a long time after that; maybe for an hour or two. I started to get up from the ground a little and thought to myself, ‘Is the Dutchman really asleep or is he just pretending?’ I picked up a handful of earth and threw it ahead. The Dutchman did not make a noise. And I was angry with him, simply boiling with rage. Every time I recalled how he cursed me over there by the roadhouse, I would get angrier than ever. Well, I got up from the ground, started looking around, and there were the two horses coming along right toward me. They’d stop a moment, pick up a little grass or a dry leaf, and then move toward me again. I tell you, Buzyga, there is not a horse that is afraid of me at night. Because there is a certain word.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“Yes, I know. It’s all nonsense,” replied the horse-thief angrily. “Well, go ahead.” + 

“All right, just as you like. Pretty soon the horses got so close to me that I could almost touch them. So I moved forward a little and sort of fondled one of them and he stood still. Then I began to cut the irons. I always have a file with me.⁠ ⁠… I worked and worked and kept an eye on the wagon all the time. I decided not to take the other horse because it was very hard to cut the iron. It was thick and new. And I was sure that he would not catch me with one horse, anyway. + 

“I cut one of the irons to the middle and began to try if I could not break it. And then suddenly somebody touched me on the shoulder. I turned around, and there was the German right behind me. The devil only knows how he ever got there. He stood there looking at me as though he were laughing at me. Then he said: ‘Come along with me. I’ll teach you how to steal horses.’ I was so frightened I could not use my feet, and my tongue seemed to be glued to the roof of my mouth. But he lifted me up from the ground.” + 

“What then?” exclaimed Buzyga wrathfully. + 

The old man made a sad gesture with his mutilated hand. + 

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “May God strike me dead on this very spot if I know even now how he did it. He was just a little fellow; not much to look at; only up to my shoulders, head and all. And he dragged me along like a little child. And I let him do it⁠—had a sort of feeling that I could not get away from him. I could not even stir. And he got me as though with a pair of pincers and dragged me toward the wagon. How do I know? Maybe he wasn’t human at all? + 

“So we got to the wagon. He held me with one hand and started feeling for something with the other. And I think to myself: ‘What is he going to do now?’ He looked for something and then said: ‘Oh, I guess it isn’t here.’ Then he led me over to the other side of the wagon, felt there for a while, and finally got a hatchet. ‘Here it is,’ says he. ‘I’ve found it. Well now, put your hand on the log.’ And he said it quietly, without any anger at all. Then I understood that he was going to cut my hands off. And I began to cry like a child.⁠ ⁠… And he says to me: ‘Don’t cry. It won’t take long.⁠ ⁠…’ So I stood there like an ox that was being slaughtered, could not say anything, only shook all over. And he took my hand, put it on a piece of wood and brought the hatchet down. ‘Don’t steal horses, if you don’t know how.’ Three fingers flew right off. One of them hit me in the face. Then he hit again and again, saying all the time: ‘Don’t steal horses, if you don’t know how.⁠ ⁠…’ Then he told me to give him the other hand; I obeyed him like a little child, and put my left hand there. And he says again, ‘Don’t steal horses,’ and down came the hatchet again. This time he cut off four fingers at one blow; left only this one,” and Kozel stretched before him his mutilated hand with its single finger. “He looked at the thumb, looked at it, and then said: ‘Well, I guess you won’t be able to steal any horses with this one finger. Only you might help another thief with it. Still, I will give it to you so that you can eat and drink with it, light your pipe, and remember me all your life.’ The blood was just spurting out of the nine fingers. I could not stand it any more and almost fainted away. Then he grabbed me again like a kitten and carried me over to a big pool of water. The night was dreadfully cold and the water had frozen over. The German brought me there, broke the ice with his foot and told me to stick my hands into the water. I obeyed him and felt much easier right away. And he said to me: ‘You’d better stay there until morning. It’ll be worse for you if you take your hands out.’ And with that he walked away toward his horses and went off. Then I thought to myself that I ought to go to the doctor. But the moment I took my hands out of the water, I started hollering so that I could be heard all over the woods. The fingers hurt as though somebody were burning them with hot irons. Then I stuck them into the water again and felt better. And I stayed there until morning. As soon as I would take my hands out, it would hurt terribly, but as long as I kept them in the water it did not hurt at all. Toward morning I was almost frozen, and the water became red as blood. Somebody came along, took me into his carriage and brought me to the hospital. Well, they kept me there a month until my hands healed up a little and then let me out. But what was the use?” exclaimed he bitterly. “It would have been a hundred times better if I had died there in the Volchy Razlog!” + 

He became silent and sat there bent over, with his head bowed low. For a few minutes the horse-thieves sat motionless without saying a word. Suddenly a quiver went through Buzyga’s body as though he had just awakened from terrible dreams. He sighed loudly. + 

“And what did you do with the German after that?” asked he in a restrained voice, which quivered with fury. + 

“And what could I have done with him?” asked Kozel sadly. “What would you have done if you were in my place?” + 

“I? I? Oh!” roared Buzyga, fiercely scratching the ground with his fingernails. He was almost suffocated with anger and his eyes shone in the darkness like those of a wild beast. “I would have cut his throat when he was asleep; I would have torn his throat with my own teeth! I would.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“You would!” interrupted Kozel with a bitter sneer. “And how would you have found him? Who was he? Where did he live? What was his name? Maybe he was not human at all.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“That’s a lie,” said Akim Shpak slowly. He had been silent until now. “There is neither God nor devil in the world.⁠ ⁠…” + 

“It doesn’t make any difference!” shouted Buzyga, striking the ground with his fists. “It doesn’t make any difference. I would have burned all the colonies that I could have laid my hands on; killed their cattle and maimed their children. And I would do that until death.” + 

Kozel laughed quietly and bent his head still lower. + 

“Oh, yes!” said he with a biting reproach. “It’s all right to set fire to buildings when you have your ten fingers.⁠ ⁠… But when you have just one left”⁠—the man raised up again his terrible stumps⁠—“there is only one road left open for you, over to the church steps with the beggars.⁠ ⁠…” And he suddenly began to sing in his old, shaky voice the gloomy words of the ancient beggar-song: + 

“Woe, woe is me, the cripple.⁠ ⁠… + 

Have pity on me, for the sake of Christ.⁠ ⁠… + 

You are our benefactors.⁠ ⁠… + 

Here we sit, armless, legless, + 

We, poor cripples, here by the road.⁠ ⁠…” + 

The song ended in a cry of writhing pain, his head dropped on his knees, and the old beggar began to sob. + 

Not a word was said after that. In the river, in the grass and bushes, the frogs were croaking incessantly as if trying to outdo one another. The half-moon stood in the middle of the sky, lonely and sad. The old willows, outlined ominously against the darkened sky, raised their knotty, dried-up arms toward heaven with an expression of silent grief. + 