Yet they were in haste, all of these old men and women, fathers
and mothers, and little children; they were flying as fast as
they could; either away from something that they feared, or toward
something that they desired.
That was the strange thing--the tide on the road flowed in two
directions.
Some fled away from ruined homes to escape the perils of war. Some
fled back to ruined homes to escape the desolation of exile. But
all were fugitives, anxious to be gone, striving along the road
one way or the other, and making no more speed than a creeping
snail's pace of unutterable fatigue. I saw many separate things
in the tide, and remembered them without noting.
A boy straining to push a wheelbarrow with his pale mother in it,
and his two little sisters trudging at his side. A peasant with his
two girls driving their lean, dejected cows back to some unknown
pasture. A bony horse tugging at a wagon heaped high with bedding
and household gear, on top of which sat the wrinkled grandmother
with the tiniest baby in her arms, while the rest of the family
stumbled alongside--and the cat was curled up on the softest coverlet
in the wagon.
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