hat Dr. Semyonov
and the Sisters Marie Ivanovna and Anna Petrovna had arrived from ----,
and that we might be off at any moment. I was aware, as he
spoke, of a great stir beyond the window and saw, passing up through
the valley, a flood of soldiers, infantry, cavalry, kitchens with
clumsy black funnels bobbing on their unsteady wheels, cannon,
hundreds of carts; the soldiers came up through our own garden
treading down the cabbages, stopping at the well near our door and
filling their tin kettles, tramping up the road, spreading, like
smoke, in the far distance, up the high road that led into the
furthest forest.

"They say--to-night--for certain," said Andrey Vassilievitch, his fat
hand trembling on my bed. He began to talk, his voice shaking with
excitement. "Do you know, Ivan Andreievitch, I am continually
surprised at myself: 'Here you are, Andrey Vassilievitch, here, at the
war. What do you make of it?? I say to myself. Just consider.... No,
but seriously, Ivan Andreievitch, of course I must seem to all of you
something of a comic figure. When my wife was alive--how I wish that
you could have known her! Such a remarkable woman; every one who met
her was struck by her fine character--when my wife was alive I had my
position to support. That I should have been a comic figure would have
distressed her. But now, who cares? Nobody, you may very truly say....
Well, well. But the point is that this evening we shall really be in
the thick of it. And--may I tell you something, Ivan Andreievitch?
Only for yourself, because you are an Englishman and can be trusted:
to speak quite truthfully I'm frightened. I say to myself that one is
at the war and that one must be frightened at nothing, and still I
remain frightened.... Frightened of what?... I really cannot tell you.
Death, perhaps? But no, I should not be sorry to die--there are
reasons....

"And yet although I should not be sorry to die, I remain
frightened--all night I was awake--I do my utmost to control it, but
there is something stronger than I--something. I feel as though if I
once discovered what that something was I should not be frightened any
longer. Something definite that you could meet and say to yourself:
'There, Andrey Vassilievitch, you're not frightened of _that_, are
you? What is there to be frightened of?... Why then, you know, I don't
believe I should be frightened any more!'"

I remember that he then explained to me that he wished Nikitin had
been