t it into Anna
Mihailovna's head to send him! He's a tiresome little man--I've known
him earlier in Petrograd! He's on my nerves already with his chatter.
No, it's too bad. What can he do with us?"

"He has a very good business head," I said. "And he's not really a bad
little man. And he's very anxious to do everything."

"Ah, I know those people who are 'anxious to do everything.'... Don't
I know? Don't you remember Sister Anna Maria? anxious to do
everything, anything--and then, when it came to it, not even the
simplest bandage.... Nikitin's a good man," he added, "one of the best
doctors in Petrograd. We've no doctors of our own now, you
know--except of course Alexei Petrovitch. The others are all from the
Division--"

"Ah, Semyonov!" I said. "How is he?"

At that moment he rode up to us. Seen on horseback Alexei Petrovitch
Semyonov appeared a large man; he was, in reality, of middle height
but his back was broad, his whole figure thickly-set and muscular. He
wore a thick square-cut beard of so fair a shade that it was almost
white! His whole colour was pale and yet, in some way, expressive of
immense health and vitality. His lips showed through his beard and
moustache red and very thick. His every movement showed great
self-possession and confidence. He had, indeed, far more personality
than any other member of our Otriad.

Although he was an extremely capable doctor his main business in life
seemed to be self-indulgence. He apparently did not know the meaning
of the word "restraint." The serious questions in life to him were
food, drink, women.

He believed in no woman's virtue and no man's sincerity. He hailed any
one as a friend but if he considered some one a fool he said so
immediately. He concealed his opinions from no one.

When he was at work his indulgence seemed for the moment to leave him.
He was a surgeon of the first order and loved his profession. He was a
man now of fifty, but had never married, preferring a long succession
of mistresses--women who had loved him, at whom he had always laughed,
to whom he had been kind in a careless fashion.... He always declared
that no woman had ever touched his heart.

He had come to the war voluntarily, forsaking a very lucrative
practice. This was always a puzzle to me. He had no romantic notions
about the war, no altruistic compulsions, no high conceptions of his
duty ... no one had worked more magnificently in the war than he. He
could not be said to