I am waiting now for the return of my opportunity.
On the night of the death of Marie Ivanovna I slept a heavy, dreamless sleep. I was wakened between six and seven the next morning by Nikitin, who told me that he, Trenchard, Andrey Vassilievitch and I were to return at once to the forest. I realised at once that indescribable quiver in the air of momentous events. The house was quite still, the summer morning very fresh and clear, but the air was weighted with some crisis. It was not only the death of Marie Ivanovna that was present with us, it was rather something that told us that now no individual life or death counted … individualities, personalities, were swallowed up in the sweeping urgency of a great climax. Nikitin simply told me that a furious battle was raging some ten versts on the other side of the river, that we were to go at once to form a temporary hospital behind the lines in the Forest; that the nurses and the rest of the Otriad would remain in Mittövo to wait for the main tide of the wounded, but that we were to go forward to help the army doctors. He spoke very quietly. We said nothing of Marie Ivanovna.
I dressed quickly and on going out found the wagons waiting, some fifteen or twenty sanitars and Trenchard and Andrey Vassilievitch. The four of us climbed into one of the wagons and set off. I did not see Semyonov. Trenchard was pale, there were heavy black lines under his eyes—but he seemed calm, and he stared in front of him as though he were absorbed by some concentrated self-control. For the first time in my experience of him he seemed to me a strong independent character.
We did not speak at all. I could see that Andrey Vassilievitch was nervous: his eyes were anxious and now and then he moistened his lips with his tongue. When we had crossed the river and began to climb the hill I knew that I hated the Forest. It was looking beautiful under the early morning sun, its green so delicate and clear, its soft shadows so cool, its birds singing so carelessly, the silver birches, lines of light against the dark spaces; but this was all to me now as though it had been arranged by some ironic hand. It knew well enough who had died there yesterday and it was preparing now, behind its black recesses, a rich harvest for its malicious spirit. We passed through the cholera village and reached the white house of yesterday at about ten o’clock. As we clattered up to the door I for a moment closed my eyes. I felt as though I could not face the horrible place, then summoning my control I boldly challenged it, surveying its long broken windows, its high doorway, its sunny, insulting garden. We were met by the stout doctor, whom I had seen before. As he is of some importance in the events that followed I will mention his name—Konstantine Feodorovitch Kryllow. He was large and stout, a true Russian type, with a merry laughing face. He had the true Russian spirit of unconquerable irrational merriment. He laughed at everything with the gaiety of a man who finds life too preposterous for words. He had all the Russian untidyness, kindness of heart, gay, ironical pessimism. “Tomorrow” was a word unknown to him: nothing was sacred to him, and yet at times it seemed as though life were so holy, so mysterious, that the only way to keep it from careless eyes was by laughing at it. He had no principles, no plans, no prejudices, no reverences. If he wished to sleep for a week he would do so, if he wished to eat for a week he would do so. If he died tomorrow he did not care … it was all so absurd that it was not worth while to give it any attention. He would grow very fat, he would die—he would love women, play cards, drink, quarrel, give his life for a sentimental moment, pour every farthing of his possessions into the lap of a friend, incur debts which he would not pay, quarrel wildly with a man about a rouble, remember things that you would expect him to forget, forget everything that he should remember—a pagan, a saint, a blackguard, a hero—anything you please so long as you do not take it seriously.
This morning he was dirty and looked as though he had slept for many nights without taking off his clothes—unshaven, his shirt open showing his hairy chest, his eyes blinking in the light.
“That’s good,” he said, seeing us. “I’ve got to be off, leaving the place to you. … Fearful time they’re having over there,” pointing across the garden. “Yes, five versts away. Plenty of work in a minute. Brought food with you? Very little here.” Then I heard him begin, as he walked into the house with Nikitin, “Terrible thing, Doctor, about your Sister yesterday. … Terrible. … I—”
I remember that my great desire was that I should not be left alone with Trenchard. I clung to Andrey Vassilievitch, and a poor resource he was, watching with nervous eyes the building and the glimmering forest, dusting his clothes and beginning sentences which he did not finish, Trenchard was quite silent. We entered the horrible room of yesterday. The dirty plate and the sardine-tin were still there with the flies about them: the highly coloured German supplement watched us from its rakish position on the wall, the treatise on New Mexico was lying on the table. I picked up the book and it opened naturally at a place where the last reader had turned down the corner of the page. The same page happens to be quoted exactly in
