A few irregular spots of earth darkened the snowy fields like the mouths of craters. Spring seemed to be wafted out of the woods.

Jonas and Shemariah walked quickly on the narrow path. They heard the sharp crackle of the brittle snow under their boots. They carried their round white bundles over their shoulders on sticks. Once or twice Shemariah tried to start a conversation with his brother. Jonas did not answer. He was ashamed because he had drunk and collapsed like any peasant.

In the places where the path was so narrow that both brothers could not walk side by side, Jonas let the younger lead the way. He would have preferred Shemariah to walk in front of him all the way. Where the path became broader, he slowed his step in the hope that Shemariah would go ahead without waiting for him. But it was as though the younger boy feared to lose the elder. Since he had seen that Jonas could get drunk, he no longer trusted him. He doubted the common sense of the older boy. He felt himself responsible for him.

Jonas knew what his brother was thinking. A vast insane scorn boiled in his heart. ‘Shemariah is ridiculous,’ thought Jonas. ‘He’s as thin as a ghost, he can’t even hold his stick, he keeps shifting it about, the bundle will fall in the dirt yet.’ At the picture of Shemariah’s white bundle slipping from the smooth stick into the black dirt of the road, Jonas laughed aloud.

‘What are you laughing at?’ asked Shemariah.

‘At you!’ answered Jonas.

‘I have a better right to laugh at you,’ said Shemariah.

Again they were silent. The pine forest grew black around them. The silence seemed to come not out of themselves but out of it. From time to time a stray wind rose, a homeless wind. A willow bush moved in its sleep, twigs rubbed dryly against each other, clouds fled swiftly over the sky.

‘Well, we are soldiers now!’ said Shemariah suddenly.

‘Sure,’ said Jonas. ‘And what were we before? We haven’t any trade. Should we become teachers like our father?’

‘Better than to be soldiers,’ said Shemariah. i might be a merchant and go out into the world!’

‘Soldiers are also part of the world, and I could never be a merchant,’ said Jonas.

‘You’re drunk!’

‘I’m as sober as you are. I can drink and still be sober. I can be a soldier and see the world.