... We ought to
move that fellow out of that. He may be alive still."
And how silly such a sentence when only yesterday, just here, there was
the beggar who sold boot-laces, and just there, where the man lay, an
old muddled Isvostchick asleep on his box!
We moved forward, and instantly it was as though I were in the middle of
a vast desert quite alone with all the hosts of heaven aiming at me
malicious darts. As I bent down my back was so broad that it stretched
across Petrograd, and my feet were tiny like frogs.
We pulled at the man. His head rolled and his face turned over, and the
mouth was full of snow. It was so still that I whispered, whether to
Bohun or myself, "God, I wish somebody would shout!" Then I heard the
wood of the kiosk crack, ever so slightly, like an opening door, and
panic flooded me as I had never known it do during all my time at the
Front.
"I've no strength," I said to Bohun.
"Pull for God's sake!" he answered. We dragged the body a little way; my
hand clutched the thigh, which was hard and cold under the stuff of his
clothing. His head rolled round, and his eyes now were covered with
snow.
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