e, foaming and hissing, and drew
back again, leaving fine shells and fragments of seaweed on the beach.

'What a desolate place!' observed Elena 'I'm afraid it's too cold for
you here, but I guess why you wanted to come here.'

'Cold!' rejoined Insarov with a rapid and bitter smile, 'I shall be a
fine soldier, if I'm to be afraid of the cold. I came here... I will
tell you why. I look across that sea, and I feel as though here, I am
nearer my country. It is there, you know,' he added, stretching out his
hand to the East, 'the wind blows from there.'

'Will not this wind bring the ship you are expecting?' said Elena. 'See,
there is a white sail, is not that it?'

Insarov gazed seaward into the distance to where Elena was pointing.

'Renditch promised to arrange everything for us within a week,' he said,
'we can rely on him, I think.... Did you hear, Elena,' he added with
sudden animation, 'they say the poor Dalmatian fishermen have sacrificed
their dredging weights--you know the leads they weigh their nets with
for letting them down to the bottom--to make bullets! They have no
money, they only just live by fishing; but they have joyfully given up
their last property, and now are starving. What a nation!'

'_Aufgepasst_!' shouted a haughty voice behind them. The heavy thud of
horse's hoofs was heard, and an Austrian officer in a short grey tunic
and a green cap galloped past them--they had scarcely time to get out of
the way.

Insarov looked darkly after him.

'He was not to blame,' said Elena, 'you know, they have no other place
where they can ride.'

'He was not to blame,' answered Insarov 'but he made my blood boil with
his shout, his moustaches, his cap, his whole appearance. Let us go
back.'

'Yes, let us go back, Dmitri. It's really cold here. You did not take
care of yourself after your Moscow illness, and you had to pay for that
at Vienna. Now you must be more cautious.'

Insarov did not answer, but the same bitter smile passed over his lips.

'If you like,' Elena went on, 'we will go along to the Canal Grande.
We have not seen Venice properly, you know, all the while we have been
here. And in the evening we are going to the theatre; I have two tickets
for the stalls. They say there's a new opera being given. If you like,
we will give up to-day to one another; we will forget politics and
war and everything, we will forget everything but that we are alive,
breathing, thinking together; that we are one