Over this, in big letters, the word "FARCE."
Although we saw no soldiers we were not entirely alone. In and out of
the sunny caverns, appearing outlined against the darkness, vanishing
in a sudden blaze of light, were shadows of the citizens of Vulatch.
They seemed to me, without exception, to be Jews. From most of the
Galician towns and villages the Jews had been expelled--here they
only, apparently, had been left. Of women I saw scarcely any--old men,
with long dirty black or grizzled beards, yellow skins, peaked black
caps, and filthy black gowns clutched about their thin bodies. They
watched us, silently, ominously, maliciously. They crept from door to
door, stole up the stone steps and vanished, appeared, as it seemed,
right beneath our horses' feet and disappeared. If we caught them with
our eyes they bowed with a loathsome, trembling subservience. There
were many little Jewish children, with glittering eyes, naked feet,
bare scrubby heads and white faces. Nikolai at length caught an old
man and asked him where the soldiers were.
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