Panna Lolla an old one that
she wants to fix up for the police authorities. But she can't speak
Russian, and is very frightened. She asked Panna Lolla if she knew any
one who could write Russian. Marie forbade Panna Lolla to go near the
woman again. It is just as well, for Panna Lolla likes excitement, and
is capable of saying anything to keep it going.

III

_August._

_Darlingest Mother and Dad:--_

We were arrested four days ago--and you will wonder why I keep on
writing. It relieves my nerves. Ever since the _revision_ Marie and I
have gone over and over the same reasoning, trying to get at why we were
arrested. To write it all out may help the restlessness and anxiety
and--yes--the panicky fear that rises in my throat like nausea. Life is
so terribly insecure. I feel as though I had been stripped naked and
turned out into the streets, with no person or place to go to.

It was four o'clock, and we had just finished dinner. In an hour and a
half we were leaving for Odessa. All our trunks and bags were packed,
and our traveling suits brushed and pressed. Panna Lolla was crying at
having to part from Janchu, and mending some stockings for him. He was
asleep. Marie and I were sitting in our little salon, rejoicing that we
should be in Bucharest in a few days where there was no war and we could
speak French again. War--blood-tracks on the snow, and cholera and
typhus camps under a burning sun. To shut it out for one instant and
pretend that the world was the way it used to be. What a heaven
Bucharest seemed!

And suddenly the door of our apartment opened. Six men came into the
room, two in uniform, the other four in plain clothes. It never occurred
to me that they had anything to do with me. I thought they had mistaken
the door. I looked at Marie questioningly. There was something peculiar
about her face.

The four plain-clothes men stood awkwardly about the door which they had
closed softly behind them. The two men with white cord loops across the
breast of their uniforms went over to the table on the right and put
down their black leather portfolios. They seemed to make themselves at
home, and it angered me.

"What are these people doing here?" I asked Marie sharply.

She addressed the officer in Polish, and he answered curtly.

"It's a _revision_," she replied.

"A what?"

"A _revision_," she repeated.

I remember that I consciously kept my body motionless,