The Way of the Cross (Doroshevich)/X
X
ALONG THE OLD ROAD
AT Dovsk a block took place.
Around the statue of Alexander II. was an immense collection of fugitives' carts.
Two thirds were moving to the south towards Kief.
One third was going toward Roslavl.
They are building barracks in Dovsk.
Only on the eighteenth of October are they beginning to build barracks.
During the week, since I passed last along this road, all has changed.
In the south it is still warm, but here it is cold.
The morning frosts have changed everything.
The forests have become clear, and it has become light in them.
The birch trees stand like dark skeletons.
The ground under them is a golden carpet of leaves.
There is work going on on the road.
People are working and Nature is working.
Near Cherikof they are building barracks.
On the nineteenth of October they are building barracks.
At twenty-five versts from Cherikof they are building barracks.
At the first post station after Roslavl.
At the post station of Sophiskaya they are building barracks.
In the province of Kaluga they are building barracks.
It is the twentieth of October, and all the same they are only building barracks!
Formerly, all the way from Roslavl to Moscow there were not crosses along the road.
Now they glimmer, they stretch on.
They have stretched to the twenty-eighth verst.
New ones, only just planed.
They have grown up here in one week.
Whilst they were building barracks.