The overall mood of this volume is one of melancholy and loss, weary resignation to one's lot—trudging round and round on the rusty hamster wheel of life.

They began to come upon from time to time small cairns of rock by the roadside. They were signs in gypsy language, lost patterans.

Over the table hung a lamp with an embroidered shade brightly lighting up the arrangements for tea underneath, a bottle of vodky, cold refreshments, and the brick walls hung with eikons and pictures.[…]At the moment when Nikita came in from the stable she was pouring out some vodky into a thick glass and offering it to Vassili.[…]Now the smell of vodky, especially then when he was half dead with cold, troubled Nikita seriously.

Not only Cato is vanquished by Caesar, but the treachery and perfidiousness of Syphax prevail over the honest simplicity and the credulity of Juba.