For the first few weeks his company was stationed in Polotzk.
I saw my cousin drill on the square, carrying a gun, _on a Sabbath_.

I felt unholy, as if I had sinned the sin in my own person.

It was easy to understand why mothers of conscript sons fasted and wept and prayed and worried themselves to their graves.
There was a man in our town called David the Substitute, because he had gone as a soldier in another's stead, he himself being exempt.

He did it for a sum of money.

I suppose his family was starving, and he saw a chance to provide for them for a few years.