in Mittoevo 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 Krylov. 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. "To-morrow" 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