l and noble in spite of whatever
man may do with it, or is Semyonov right and there is no meaning in my
love for Marie, nothing real and true except the things we see with
our eyes, hear with our ears? Is Semyonov right, or are Nikitin,
Andrey Vassilievitch and I?... And now let me stick to facts. I left
this morning about six with twenty wagons to fetch wounded. _Such_ a
wonderful summer morning--the Forest quite incredibly beautiful, birds
singing in thousands, and that strange little stream that runs near
our house and can look so abominable when it pleases, was trembling
and lovely as though it didn't know what evil was. We got to the first
Red Cross place about eight. Here was Krylov. What a good fellow!
Always cheerful, always kindhearted, nothing can dismay him. A Russian
type that's common enough in spite of all the "profound pessimism of
the Russian heart" that we're always hearing of. There he was anyway,
working like a butcher before a feast-day. Dirty looking barn they
were working in and it smelt like hell. Cannon pretty close too. They
say the Austrians are fearfully strong just here and of course our
ammunition is climbing down to less than nothing--looks as though we
were going to have a hot time soon. I turned in and helped Krylov all
the morning and somehow his fat, ugly face, his little exclamations,
his explosive comical rages, his sudden rough kindnesses did one a
world of good. We filled the wagons and sent them back, then about
midday, under a blazing hot sun, we went on with the others. Is there
any place in the globe hot and suffocating quite as this Forest is?
Even in the open spaces one can't breathe and there's never any proper
shade under the trees. At first we were at a loss, No one seemed quite
to know where the Vengrovsky Polk were. I had to go on alone and
reconnoitre. I was right out in the open then and more alone than one
could believe. Cannon were blazing away and one battery seemed just
behind me--and yet I couldn't see it. I could see nothing--only great
ridges of hills with the Forest like gigantic torrents of green water
under the mist, and just at my feet cornfields _thick_ with
cornflowers. Then I saw rather a wonderful thing. I came to the edge
of my hill and looked down into a cup of a valley, quite a little
valley with the green waves towering on every side of it. Through the
mist there shimmered below me a blue lake. I was puzzled--there was no
water here that I knew, but by