g 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 r