lf in the depths of England somewhere. However,
considering what has happened to-day and what they expect will happen
now at any moment, the strain on our nerves is pretty severe, and as
usual at such times I will fill in my diary. This is probably the last
time that I write it here as we move as soon as the wagons return,
which should be in about two hours from now.

All our things are packed and I shall slip this book into my bag as
soon as I have written this entry; but I have probably two or three
hours clear for writing, as everything is ready for departure.
Meanwhile I am wonderfully tranquil and at peace, able, too, to think
clearly and rationally for the first time since Marie's death. I want
to give an account of the events since my last entry minutely and as
truthfully as my memory allows me.

At about half-past eleven last night Semyonov and I went up to our
bedroom to sleep, Nikitin being on duty. There was not much noise, the
cannon sounding a considerable distance away, but the flashlights and
rockets against the night-sky were wonderful, and when we had blown
out the candle our dark little room leapt up and down or turned round
and round, the window flashing into vision and out again. Semyonov was
almost immediately asleep, but I lay on my back and, of course, as
usual, thought of Marie. My headache of the evening still raged
furiously and I was in desperately low spirits. I had been able to eat
nothing during the preceding day. I lay there half asleep, half awake,
for, I suppose, a long time, hearing the window rattle sometimes when
the cannon was noisy and feeling under the jerky reflections on the
wall as though I were in an old shambling cab driving along a dark
road, I thought a good deal about that talk with Semyonov that I had.
What a strange man! But then I do not understand him at all. I don't
think I understand any Russian, such a mixture of hardness and
softness as they are, kind and then indifferent, cruel and then
sentimental. But I understand people very little, and in all my years
at Polchester there was never one single person whom I knew. Semyonov
is perfectly right, I suppose, from his point of view to think me a
fool. I lay there thinking of Semyonov. He was sleeping on his back,
looking very big under the clothes, his beard square and stiff, lit up
by the flashing light and then sinking into darkness again. I thought
of him and of myself and of the strange contrast that we were, and h