What was to be the issue of all of it?

I, on this lovely evening, saw quite clearly the progress of
events that had brought me to this point. One: that drive
with Durward on the first day when we had stopped at the
trench and heard the frogs. Two: the evening at O----, when
Marie Ivanovna had been angry and we had first heard the
cannon. Three: the day at S---- and Marie kneeling on the
cart with her hand on Semyonov's shoulder. Four: her refusal
of me, the bodies in the forest, the Retreat, that night
Nikitin (getting well into the thick of it now). Five: the
talk with Marie in the park. Six: the wet night at
Nijnieff. Seven: last night's little talk with Semyonov....
Yes, I could see now that I had been advancing always
forward into the forest, growing ever nearer and nearer,
perceiving now the tactics of the enemy, beaten here,
frightened there, but still penetrating--not, as yet,
retreating ... and always, my private little history
marching with me, confused with the private little histories
of all of the others, all of them penetrating more deeply
and more deeply....

And if I lost my nerve I was beaten! If I had lost my nerve
no protecting of Marie, no defiance of Semyonov--and, far
beyond these, abject submission to my enemy in the forest.
_If_ I had lost my nerve!... _Had_ I? Was it only weariness
the other night? But twice now I had been properly beaten,
and why, after all, should I imagine that I would be able to
put up a fight--I who had never in all my life fought
anything successfully? I lay on my back, looked at the sky.
I sat up, looked at the country, I set my teeth, looked at
Nikitin.

Nikitin grunted. "I've had a good nap," he said. "You should
have had one. There'll be plenty of work for us to-night by
the sound of it." We turned a corner of the road through the
wood and one of our own batteries jumped upon us.

"I'm glad it's not raining," I said.

"We've still some way to go," said Nikitin, sitting up.
"What a lovely evening!" Then he added, quite without
apparent connexion, "Well, you're more at home amongst us
all now, aren't you?"

"Yes," said I.

"I'm glad of that. And what do you think of Andrey
Vassilievitch?"

I answered: "Oh! I like him! ... but I don't think he's