verflowed: with the greatest difficulty we secured a
small wooden compartment with seats sharp and narrow and a smell of
cabbage, bad tobacco, and dirty clothes. The floor was littered with
sunflower seeds and the paper wrappings of cheap sweets. The air came
in hot stale gusts down the corridor, met the yet closer air of our
carriage, battled with it and retired defeated. We flung open the
windows and a cloud of dust rose gaily to meet us. The whole of the
Russian army seemed to be surging upon the platform; orderlies were
searching for their masters, officers shouting for their orderlies,
soldiers staggering along under bundles of clothes and rugs and
pillows; here a group standing patiently, each man with his
blue-painted kettle and on his face that expression of happy,
half-amused, half-inquisitive, wholly amiable tolerance which reveals
the Russian soldier's favourite attitude to the world. Two priests
with wide dirty black hats, long hair, and soiled grey gowns slowly
found their way through the crowd. A bunch of Austrian prisoners in
their blue-grey uniform made a strange splash of colour in a corner of
the platform, where, very contentedly, they were drinking their tea;
some one in the invisible distance was playing the balalaika and every
now and then some church bell in the town rang clearly and sharply
above the tumult. The thin films of dust, yellow in the evening sun,
hovered like golden smoke under the station roof. At last with a
reluctant jerk and shiver the train was slowly persuaded to totter
into the evening air; the evening scents were again around us, the
balalaika, now upon the train, hummed behind us, as we pushed out upon
her last night's journey.

The two Sisters had the seats by the windows; Nikitin curled up his
great length in another corner and Andrey Vassilievitch settled
himself with much grunting and many exclamations beside him. I and
Trenchard sat stiffly on the other side.

I had, long ago, accustomed myself to sleep in any position on any
occasion, however sudden it might be, and I fancied that I should now,
in a moment, be asleep, although I had never, in my long travelling
experience, known greater discomfort. I looked at the dim lamp, at the
square patch beyond the windows, at Nikitin's long body, which seemed
nevertheless so perfectly comfortable, and at Andrey Vassilievitch's
short fat one, which was so obviously miserably uncomfortable; I smelt
the cabbage, the dust, the sunfl