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Show 54 THE DARK FURICS'I‘ THE SCHOOL-HOVSE The arriral of the rest of the Oboz silenced her. 55 She back to that fortnight and remember that we had, so many remained, with wide-open staringr eyes, her hand at her of us, been restless and discontented at the quiet. of it. breast, watching, saying absent-mindedly to the children: Oddly enough, of all the many backgrounds that were, dur- "how Katya. . . . New about l" Anna. . . . See what you're v the whitewashed walls were eoloured maps of Galieia and tables of the Austrian kings and queens: on the blackboard in;r the next months, to follow in procession behind me, there only remain to me with enduring vitality: this school-house at 0-, the banks of the River Nestor which I had indeed good reason to remember, and finally the forest of 87A llow strange a contrast, that school-house with its little, garden and white cobbles and that forest which will, to the still an untinished arithmetical sum and on the master's end of my life, ever haunt my dreams. The school was spotlessly clean. In the sehoolroom the rough benches were marked with names and crosses. 0n desk a pile of exercise books. And yet, by its very contrast, how fittingr a background In a moment everything was changed; the sanitars had turned the schoolroom into a dtn'mitory, another room was to be our dining-room. another a bedroom for the Sisters. In the high raftered kitchen our midday meal was alreadV cooking: the little cobbled court was piled high with lud- gage. In the field beyond the house the sanitars'had pitched their tents. I walked out into the little garden-a charming place with yew hedges, a lichen-cmered well and old thickappletrees, and here I found an Old man in a broatl-ln‘immed straw hat tending the bees. The hires were open and he was working with a knife whilst the bees hung in a trembling hovering cloud about him. I spoke to him but he paid no attention to me at all. I watched him then spoke again; he straightened himself then looked at me for a moment with eyes full of scorn. \Vords of fury, of abuse to our Prologue this school-house madel I wonder whether Nikitin sees it still in his Visions? Trenehard and Sem- yonoV . . . does it mean anything to them, where they now are? First of them all, Marie Iy'anovna. . . . I see her still, bending over the well looking down, then suddenly flinging her head back, laughing as we stood behind her, the sunlight through the apple-trees flashing in her eyes. . . That fortnight must be to many of us of how ironie. of how tragic a tranquillity/l So we settled down and did our best to become happily accustomed to one another. ()ur own immediate company numbered twenty or sovhlolozov, two doetors, myself, 'l‘rem-hard and Andrey Vassiliey'iteh, the two new Sisters and the three former ones, tire or six young Russians, gentlemen of ease and leisure who had had some "bandaging" praetiee at the lletrog‘rad hospitals, and three very youne; perhaps, seemed to tremble on his lips, then shaking his medical students, directly attached to our two dot-tors. head he turned his back upon me and continued his work. Here we were for a fortnight and it was strange to me. addition to these there were the doetors, Sisters and students l‘t‘lt'llflllltfi‘ to the army itse‘lf-»vtl1(‘ Sixty-Fifth l'ivision ot' the Ninth Army. These sometimes lived with us and some times by themselves; they had at their head t‘olouel Ublou in the days of stress and excitement that followed, to li'i'li knowl"l‘xV- ll "lllltnl'y doctor of much experience and wide Behind us I could hear the soldiers breaking the garden- fence to make stakes for their tents. ' V in |