I’ve seen picture postcards. You don’t need any door to go into the shops. The windows reach to the ground.’

‘Hey, why are you so down in the mouth?’ a peasant suddenly called at them from the opposite corner.

Jonas and Shemariah acted as though they had not heard or as though the question was not for them. To pretend to be deaf when a peasant spoke to them was in their blood. For a thousand years nothing good had ever come of it when a peasant asked a question and a Jew replied.

‘Hey!’ said the peasant and got up.

Jonas and Shemariah also got up.

‘Yes, I spoke to you Jews,’ said the peasant. ‘Have you had anything to drink yet?’

‘Had our drink,’ said Shemariah.

‘I haven’t,’ said Jonas.

The peasant brought out a bottle which he had worn on his breast under his tunic. It was warm and slippery and stank more of the peasant than of its contents. Jonas put it to his mouth. He revealed full, deep-red lips. One saw his strong white teeth on either side of the neck of the brown bottle. Jonas drank and drank. He did not notice the light hand of his brother which pulled his sleeve warningly. Like an enormous infant he held the bottle in both hands. His shirt shimmered white through the worn thin stuff on his crooked elbow. Regularly, like a piston in a machine, his Adam’s apple rose and fell under the skin of his neck. A soft choking gurgle sounded in his throat. Everybody watched how the Jew drank.

Jonas was finished. The empty bottle fell out of his hand into his brother Shemariah’s lap. He himself followed it as though he had to take the same path. The peasant stretched out his hand and dumbly asked Shemariah for the bottle. Then he caressed the broad shoulders of the sleeping Jonas with the tip of his boot.

They reached Podvorsk where they had to change. It was still seven versts to Yurki, where they had to go on foot. Who knew whether anyone would give them a lift on their way! All the travellers helped heave Jonas upright. As soon as he got outside he was sober again.

They walked on. It was night. They felt the moon was there behind milky clouds.