A railway was being built in our district.

On holidays and thereabouts the town was filled with crowds of

ragamuffins called "railies," of whom the people were afraid. I used often to see a miserable wretch with
a bloody face, and without a hat, being dragged off by the police, and behind him was the proof of his
crime, a samovar or some wet, newly washed linen. The "railies" used to collect near the public houses
and on the squares; and they drank, ate, and swore terribly, and whistled after the town prostitutes. To
amuse these ruffians our shopkeepers used to make the cats and dogs drink vodka, or tie a kerosene-tin
to a dog's tail, and whistle to make the dog come tearing along the street with the tin clattering after
him, and making him squeal with terror and think he had some frightful monster hard at his heels, so
that he would rush out of the town and over the fields until he could run no more. We had several dogs
in the town which were left with a permanent shiver and used to crawl about with their tails between
their legs, and people said that they could not stand such tricks and had gone mad.
The station was being built five miles from the town. It was said that the engineer had asked for a bribe
of fifty thousand roubles to bring the station nearer, but the municipality would only agree to forty; they
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, and did not know what to do with them or where to go.
After walking for at least a couple of hours I noticed that from the station to the right of the line there
were telegraph-poles which after about one and a half or two miles ended in a white stone wall. The
labourers said it was the office, and I decided at last that I must go there.
It was a very old farmhouse, long unused. The wall of rough, white stone was decayed, and in places had
crumbled away, and the roof of the wing, the blind wall of which looked toward the railway, had
perished, and was patched here and there with tin. Through the gates there was a large yard, overgrown
with tall grass, and beyond that, an old house with Venetian blinds in the windows, and a high roof,
brown with rot. On either side of the house, to right and left, were t