My first thoughts reading this story is how astonishing it is that the peasants are so removed from the world they have not known about any news from the place their living for over six years. To top it off they are being arrested for a joke they told to someone that had no idea was in power. How could one get arrested to a joke? I cannot imagine living in a society that I could be arrested because a joke I had made. Also reading through this passage reminds me of a game we used to play when we were kids. We used to play “telephone” in elementary school and it would start with a phrase and by the end the phrase would be disoriented in some way and in this passage that is exactly what happened to the dismay of these two peasants.