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
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