n reason. He
got very excited when he talked to me and asked me whether I thought
it would all be very terrible."

"He is a nervous fussy little man. Russians are not cowards, but
Andrey Vassilievitch lost his wife last year. He was very devoted to
her--very. He is miserable without her, they say. Perhaps he has come
to the war to forget her."

I was surprised at Trenchard's interest; I had thought him so wrapt in
his own especial affair that nothing outside it could occupy him. But
he continued:

"He knew the tall doctor--Nikitin--before, didn't he?"

"Yes.... Nikitin knew his wife."

"Oh, I see.... Nikitin seems to despise him--I think he despises all
of us."

"Oh no. That's only his manner. Many Russians look as though they were
despising their neighbours when, as a matter of fact, they're really
despising themselves. They're very fond of despising themselves: their
contempt allows them to do what they want to."

"I don't think Nikitin despises himself. He looks too happy--at least,
happy is not the word. Perhaps triumphant is what I mean."

"Ah, if you begin speculating about Russian expression you're lost.
They express so much in their faces that you think you know all their
deepest feelings. But they're not their deep feelings that you see.
Only their quick transient emotions that change every moment." I
fancied, just at that time, that I had studied the Russian character
very intently and it was perhaps agreeable to me to air my knowledge
before an Englishman who had come to Russia for the first time so
recently.

But Trenchard did not seem to be greatly impressed by my cleverness.
He spoke no more. We drove then in silence whilst the moon, rising
high, caught colour into its dim outline, like a scimitar unsheathed;
the trees and hedges grew, with every moment, darker. We left the
valley through which we had been driving, slowly climbing the hill,
and here, on the top of the rising ground, we had our first glimpse of
the outposts of the war. A cottage had been posted on the highest
point of the hill; now all that remained of it was a sheet of iron,
crumpled like paper, propped in the centre by a black and solitary
post, trailing thence on the ground amongst tumbled bricks and refuse.
This sheet of iron was silver in the moonlight and stood out with its
solitary black support against the night sky, which was now breaking
into a million stars. Behind it stretched a flat plain that reached to
the horizo