Car il n’y a pas d’enfer au pays du Bon Dieu.
Je leur dirai: Venez, doux amis du ciel bleu,
Pauvres bêtes chéries qui d’un brusque mouvement d’oreilles,
Chassez les mouches plates, les coups et les abeilles. …
That brought tranquillity back to me. I found another poem—his “Amsterdam.”
Les maisons pointues ont l’air de pencher. On dirait
Qu’elles tombent. Les mâts des vaisseaux qui s’embrouillent
Dans le ciel sont penchés comme des branches sèches
Au milieu de verdure, de raye, de rouille,
De harengs saurs, de peaux de moutons et de bouille.
Robinson Crusoë passa par Amsterdam
(Je crois du moins qu’il y passa) en revenant
De l’île ombreuse et verte aux noix de coco fraîches.
Quelle émotion il dut avoir quand il vit luire
Les portes énormes, aux lourds marteaux, de cette ville! …
Regardait-il curieusement les entresols
Ou les commis écrivent les livres de comptes?
Eut-il envie de pleurer en resongeant
A son cher perroquet, à son lourd parasol,
Qui l’abritait dans l’île attristée et clémente? …
I was asleep; my eyes closed; the book fell from my hand. Someone near me seemed to repeat in the air the words:
Robinson Crusoë passa par Amsterdam
(Je crois, du moins, qu’il y passa) en revenant
De l’île ombreuse. …
“De l’île ombreuse” … “Robinson Crusoë passa” …
I was rocked in the hot golden air. I slept heavily, deeply, without dreams. …
I was awakened by a cold fierce apprehension of terror. I sat up, stared slowly around me with the sure, certain conviction that some dreadful thing had occurred. The orchard was as it had been—the sun, lower now, shone through the green branches. All was still and even, as I listened I heard the sharp crack of the ball upon the bat breaking the evening air. My heart had simply ceased to beat. I remember that with a hand that trembled I picked up the book that was lying open on the grass and read, without understanding them, the words. I remember that I said, out aloud: “Something’s happened,” then turning saw Semyonov’s face.
I realised nothing save his face with its pale square beard and red lips, framed there by the shining green and blue. He stood there, without moving, staring at me, and the memory of his eyes even now as I write of it hurts me physically so that my own eyes close.
That was perhaps the worst moment of my life, that confrontation of Semyonov. He stood there as though carved in stone (his figure had always the stiff clear outline of stone or wood). I realised nothing of his body—I simply saw his eyes, that were staring straight in front of him, that were blazing with pain, and yet were blind. He looked past me and, if one had not seen the live agony of his eyes, one would have thought that he was absorbed in watching something that was so distant that he must concentrate all his attention upon it.
I got upon my feet and as my eyes met his I knew without any question at all that Marie Ivanovna was dead.
When I had risen we stood for a moment facing one another, then without a word he turned towards the house. I followed him, leaving my book upon the grass. He walking slowly in front of me with his usual assured step, except that once he walked into a bush that was to his right; he afterwards came away from it, as a man walking in his sleep might do, without lowering his eyes to look at it. We entered by a side-door. I, myself, had no thoughts at all at this time. I felt only the cold, heavy oppression at my heart, and I had, I remember, no curiosity as to what had occurred. We passed through passages that were strangely dark, in a silence that was weighted and mysterious. We entered the room where we had been earlier in the afternoon; it seemed now to be full of people, I saw now quite clearly, although just before the whole world had seemed to be dark. I saw our two soldiers standing back by the door; a doctor, whose face I did not know, a very corpulent man, was on his knees on the floor—some sanitars were in a group by the window. In the middle of the room lay Marie Ivanovna on a stretcher. Even as I entered the stout doctor rose, shaking his head. I had only that one glimpse of her face on my entry, because, at the shake of the doctor’s head, a sanitar stepped forward and covered her with a cloth. But I shall see her face as it was until I die. Her eyes were closed, she seemed very peaceful. … But I cannot write of it, even now. …
My business here is simply with facts, and I must be forgiven if now I am brief in my account.
The room was just as it had been earlier in the afternoon; I saw the sardine-tin, the dirty plate that had a little cloud of flies upon it; the room seemed under the evening sun full of gold dust. I crossed over to our soldiers and asked them how it had been. One of them told me that they had gone with the boiler to the trenches. Everything had been very quiet. They had taken their stand behind a small ruined house. Semyonov had just returned from telling the officers of the Rota that the tea was ready when, quite suddenly, the Austrians had begun to fire. Bullets had passed thickly overhead. Marie Ivanovna had seemed quite fearless, and laughing, had stepped, for a moment, from behind the shelter to see whether the soldiers were coming for their tea. She was struck instantly; she gave a sharp little cry and fell. They rushed to her side, but death had been instantaneous. She had been struck in the heart. … There was nothing to be done. … The soldiers seemed to feel it very deeply, and one of them, a little round fellow with a merry face whom I knew well, turned away from
