things are twisted after going through a
hospital. Things that counted before don't seem to count any more. You
take refuge in generalities to get out of your mind a look you have seen
in a soldier's eyes.

It was an improvised hospital,--some building or other turned into a
place to receive the hundreds of wounded that are pouring into Kiev
every day. It was a big room, with rows and rows of beds, and in every
bed a man. One man was wounded in the back, and his breath whistled
through the open hole like steam through an escape valve. His face was
wound in white bandages. Others were there, dying from terrible stomach
wounds. One man's head moved from side to side incessantly, as though he
could never again find comfort on earth. Some moan. Others lay
absolutely motionless, their faces terrible dead-white masks. Their
bodies looked so long and thin under the sheets, with their toes turned
up. It was indescribably terrifying to think that human beings could go
through so much and continue to live. I was more frightened than ever
before in my life. The smell of blood--the closeness of the hot
sick-room--flies buzzing about. I saw brown varnish-like stains on some
of the white bandages. The indifferent, business-like attitude of the
nurses infuriated me. But, of course, they can't be any other way and
deal with it all.

I can't write any more. But is there any excuse for this?

RUTH.

_August 10, 1915._

Lately, our conversation at table has been suppressed by the appearance
of a young woman whom the rest suspect of being a spy. She is dark, and
never utters a word. All through dinner she keeps her eyes on her
plate. I said something in French to her the other day, but, apparently,
she did not understand. Across the table, the Morowski boys laughed at
me. I suspect that they, too, had tried to speak to her, for she is
pretty, and had been snubbed like me. I don't know how the idea of her
being a spy got round. She may have been sent here to keep her eyes on
the Polish refugees in the _pension_. Her room is in our corridor, and
this morning Marie saw, through the open door, Panna Lolla and Janchu
talking to her. It appears that Janchu had been inveigled in by bonbons,
and Panna Lolla had gone in after him. Panna Lolla said the young woman
was so lonely. She is a Pole and wants to leave Russia. She hates it
here. But she has no passport. She showed