“On the main square, the queue had formed as early as five o’clock, when distant roosters were crowing across the frost-whitened fields and there were no lights anywhere. Then, among the broken buildings, fog hung in wisps, but now, at seven in the morning, it was dawn, and it began to melt. Along the road, in twos and threes, more people were lining up in line, lured to the city by the holiday and market day. The boy stood right behind two men who were talking loudly to each other, and in the clear cold air the sound of the voices seemed twice as loud. The boy stamped his feet in place and blew on his red, tiptoe hands, looking first at the dirty, coarse burlap clothes of his neighbors, then at the long row of men and women in front...”