hill but we were not replying. Everything this afternoon has looked as
though they were preparing for a heavy attack. Our little window was
open and the sky beyond was a sort of very pale green, and against
this you could see a flush of colour rising and falling like the
opening and shutting of a door. Everything quite silent except the
Austrian cannon and a soldier, delirious, downstairs, singing.

The Forest was deep black, but you could see the soldiers' fires
gleaming here and there like beasts' eyes. Our room was almost dark
and I was very startled to find Semyonov sitting on his bed and
staring in front of him. He looked like a wooden figure sitting there,
and he didn't move as I came in. I'm glad that although I'm still
awkward and clumsy with him (as I am, and always will be, I suppose,
with every one) I'm not afraid of him any more. The room was so dark
that he looked like a shadow. I had intended to fetch something and go
away, but instead of that I sat down on my bed, feeling suddenly very
tired and lethargic.

"Well, Mr.," he said in the ironical voice he always uses to me.

(I would wish now to repeat if I can every word of our conversation.)

"Krylov has been again," I said. "He told Nikitin that we ought to go
to-night. Nikitin asked him whether the Division had plenty of wagons
and Krylov admitted that there weren't nearly enough. He agreed that
it would make a lot of difference if we could keep this place going
until to-morrow night--all the same he advised us to leave."

"We'll stay until some one orders us to go," said Semyonov. "It will
make a difference to a hundred men or more probably. If they do start
firing on to this place we can get the men off in the wagons in time."

"And what if the wagons have left for Mittoevo?"

"We'll have to wait until they come back," he answered.

We sat there listening to the cannon. Then Semyonov said very quietly
and not at all ironically, "I wish to ask you--I have wished
before--tell me. You blame me for her death?"

I thought for a moment, then I replied:

"I did so at first. Now I do not think that it had anything to do with
you or with me or with any one--except herself."

"Except herself?" he said. "What do you mean?"

"She wished it, I think."

His irony returned. "You believe in the power of others, Mr., too
much. You should believe more in your own."

"I believe in her power. She was stronger than you," I answered.

"I'm sure that you lik