heart by the loss of a friend or a lover, Semyonov was that man. He
was a man too strong in himself and too contemptuous of weakness to
show to all the world his hurt. I myself might have seen nothing had I
not always before me the memory of that vision of his face between the
trees. But from that I had proceeded--

It was, I suppose, the first time in his life that the fulfilment of
his desire had been denied him. Had Marie Ivanovna lived, and had he
attained with her his complete satisfaction, he would have tired of
her perhaps as he had tired of many others, and have remained only the
stronger cynic. But she had eluded him, eluded him at the very moment
of her freshness and happiness and triumph. What defeat to his proud
spirit was working now in him? What longing? What fierce determination
to secure even now his ends? The change that I fancied in him was
perhaps no more than his bracing of his strength and courage to face
new conditions. Death had robbed him of his possession--so much the
worse then for Death!

Upon this day of icy cold, as I write these words, I am afraid that my
account may be taken as an extravagant and unjustified conceit. But
that I do most honestly believe it not to be. I myself felt, during my
two days' stay in that place, the strangest contact with new
experiences, new developments, new relationships. Normal life had been
left utterly behind and there was nothing to remind one of it save
perhaps that "Report on New Mexico" still there on the dusty table.
But there was the heat; there were the wheeling, circling clouds of
flies, now in lines, now in squares, now broken like smoke, now dim
like vapour; there was that old familiar smell of dust and flesh,
chemicals and blood; there were the men dying and broken, fighting
like giants, defeating fears and terrors that hung like grey shadows
about the doors and windows of the house.... Every incident and
experience that we had had at the war, every incident and experience
that I have related in these pages seemed to be gathered into this
house.... As I look back upon it now it seems, without any
extravagance at all, the very heart of the fortress of the enemy. I do
not mean in the least that life was solemn or pretentious or heavy. It
was careless, casual, as liable to the ridiculous intervention of
unimportant things as ever it had been; but it was life pressed so
close to the fine presence of Fate that you could hear the very
beating of his