myself to what was required and often went much farther, so far that I was barely able to make out the station. In clear weather the station could be seen at a distance
of perhaps five kilometers, for the country was quite flat. And then, if I had gone so far off that the hut in the distance only glimmered before my eyes, I sometimes
saw—it was an optical illusion—many black dots moving towards the hut. There were whole companies, whole troops. But sometimes someone really came; then,
swinging my pick, I ran all the long way back.
I finished my work towards evening and finally could retreat into my hut. Generally no visitors came at this hour, for the journey back to the villages was not entirely
safe at night. All sorts of shiftless fellows drifted about in the neighborhood; they were not natives, however, and others would take their place from time to time, but
then the original ones would come back again. I got to see most of them, they were attracted by the lonely station; they were not really dangerous, but you had to deal
firmly with them.
They were the only ones who disturbed me during the long twilight hours. Otherwise I lay on my bunk, gave no thought to the past, no thought to the railway, the next
train did not come through till between ten and eleven at night; in short, I gave no thought to anything. Now and then I read an old newspaper thrown to me from the
train; it contained the gossip of Kalda, which would have interested me but which I could not understand from disconnected issues. Moreover, in every issue there was
an installment of a novel called The Commander’s Revenge. I once dreamed of this commander, who always wore a dagger at his side, on one particular occasion
even held it between his teeth. Besides, I could not read much, for it got dark early and paraffin or a tallow candle was prohibitively expensive. Every month the
railway gave me only half a liter of paraffin, which I used up long before the end of the month merely in keeping the signal light lit half an hour for the train every
evening. But this light wasn’t at all necessary, and later on, at least on moonlit nights, I would neglect to light it. I correctly foresaw that with the passing of summer I
should stand in great need of paraffin. I therefore dug a hole in one corner of the hut, put an old tarred beer keg in it, and every month poured in the paraffin I had
saved. It was covered with straw and could attract no attention. The more the hut stank of paraffin, the happier I was; the smell got so strong because the old and
rotten staves of the keg had soaked up the paraffin. Later, as a precaution, I buried the keg outside the hut; for once the inspector had boasted to me of a box of wax
matches, and when I had asked to see them, threw them one after the other blazing into the air. Both of us, and especially the paraffin, were in real danger; I saved
everything by throttling him until he dropped all the matches.
In my leisure hours I often considered how I might prepare for winter. If I was freezing even now, during the warm part of the year—and they said it was warmer than
it had been for many years—it would fare very badly with me during the winter. That I was hoarding paraffin was only a whim; if I had been acting sensibly, I should
have had to lay up many things for the winter; there was little doubt that the company would not be especially solicitous of my welfare; but I was too heedless, or rather,
I was not heedless but I cared too little about myself to want to make much of an effort. Now, during the warm season, things were going tolerably, I left it at that and
did nothing further.
One of the attractions that had drawn me to this station had been the prospect of hunting. I had been told that the country was extraordinarily rich in game, and I had