Although we saw no soldiers we were not entirely alone. In and out of the sunny caverns, appearing outlined against the darkness, vanishing in a sudden blaze of light, were shadows of the citizens of Vulatch. They seemed to me, without exception, to be Jews. From most of the Galician towns and villages the Jews had been expelled—here they only, apparently, had been left. Of women I saw scarcely any—old men, with long dirty black or grizzled beards, yellow skins, peaked black caps, and filthy black gowns clutched about their thin bodies. They watched us, silently, ominously, maliciously. They crept from door to door, stole up the stone steps and vanished, appeared, as it seemed, right beneath our horses’ feet and disappeared. If we caught them with our eyes they bowed with a loathsome, trembling subservience. There were many little Jewish children, with glittering eyes, naked feet, bare scrubby heads and white faces. Nikolai at length caught an old man and asked him where the soldiers were. The old man replied in very tolerable Russian that all the soldiers had gone last night—not one of them remained—but he believed that some more were shortly to arrive. They were always coming and going, he said.
We stayed where we were, under the blazing sun, and held council. In every doorway, in every shadow, there were eyes watching us. The whole town was overweighted, overwhelmed by the brooding Forest. From where we stood I could see it rising on every side of us like a trembling, threatening green wave; in the furious heat of the sun the white ruins seemed to jump and leap.
“Well,” I said to Trenchard, “what’s to be done?”
He pulled himself back from his thoughts.
He had been sitting in the cart, quite motionless, his face white and hidden, as though he slept. He raised his tired, heavy eyes to my face.
“Do?” he said.
“Yes,” I answered impatiently. “Didn’t you hear what Nikolai said? There are no soldiers here. We can’t find Maximoff because he isn’t here. We must go back, I suppose.”
“Very well,” he answered indifferently.
“I’m not going back,” I said, “until I’ve had something to drink—tea or coffee. I wonder whether there’s anything here—any place we could go to.”
Nikolai inquired. Old Shylock pointed with his bony finger down the street.
“Very fine restaurant there,” he said.
“Will you come and see?” I asked Trenchard.
“Very well,” said Trenchard.
I told Nikolai to stay there and wait for us. I walked down the street, followed by Trenchard. I found on my left, at the top of a little flight of steps, a house that was for the most part untouched by the general havoc around and about it. The lower windows were cracked and the door open and gaping, but there stood, quite bravely with new paint, the word “Restoration” on the lintel and there were even curtains about the upper windows. Passing through the door we found a room decently clean, and behind the little bar a stout red-faced Galician in white shirt and grey trousers, a citizen of the normal world. We were just then his only customers. We asked him for tea and sat down at a little table in the corner of the room. He did not talk to us but stood in his place humming cheerfully to himself and cleaning glasses. He was a rogue, I thought, looking at his little eyes, but at any rate a merry rogue; he certainly had kept off from him the general death and desolation that had overwhelmed his neighbours. I sat opposite to Trenchard and wondered what to say to him. His expression had never varied. As I looked at him I could not but think of the strength of his eyes, of his mouth, the quiet concentration of his hands … a different figure from the smiling uncertain man on the Petrograd station—how many years ago?
Our tea was brought to us. Then quite suddenly Trenchard said to me:
“Did she say anything before she died?”
“No,” I answered quietly. “She died instantly, they told me.”
“How exactly was she killed?”
His eyes watched my face without falter, clearly, gravely, steadfastly.
“She was killed by a bullet. Stepped out from behind her shelter and it happened at once. She can have suffered nothing.”
“And Semyonov let her?”
“He could not have prevented it. It might have happened to anyone.”
“I would have prevented it,” he said, nodding his head gravely.
He was silent for a little; then with a sudden jerk he said:
“Where has she gone?”
“Gone?” I repeated stupidly after him.
“Yes—that’s not death—to go like that. She must be somewhere still—somewhere in this beastly forest. What—afterwards—when you saw her—what? … her face? …”
“She looked very peaceful—quite happy.”
“No restlessness in her face? No anxiety?”
“None.”
“But all that life—that energy. It can’t have stopped. Quite suddenly. It can’t. She can’t have wanted not to know all those things that she was so eager about before.” He was suddenly voluble, excited, leaning forward, staring at me. “You know how she was. You must have seen it numbers of times—how she never looked at any of us really, how we were none of us—no, not even Semyonov—anything to her really; always staring past us, wanting to know the answer to questions that we couldn’t solve for her. She wouldn’t give it all up simply for nothing, simply for a bullet …” he broke off.
“Look here, Trenchard,” I said, “try not to think of her just now more than you can help, just now. We’re in for a stiff time, I believe. This will be our last easy afternoon, I fancy, and even now we ought to be back helping Nikitin. You’ve got to work all
