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Updated: May 15, 2025
What "Tristram Shandy" was to me once under fire near Nijnieff, and "Red-gauntlet" on an awful morning when our whole Otriad meditated on the possibility of imprisonment before the evening with nothing to be done but sit and wait! I went into the garden with M. Jammes.
Two: the evening at O , when Marie Ivanovna had been angry and we had first heard the cannon. Three: the day at S and Marie kneeling on the cart with her hand on Semyonov's shoulder. Five: the talk with Marie in the park. Six: the wet night at Nijnieff.
One was of Semyonov sitting on the stone under the cross, looking up at me with comfortable and ironical insolence, Semyonov so strong and resolute and successful. Semyonov who got what he wanted, did what he wanted, said what he wanted. The other picture was of myself, as I had been the other night when I had gone with the wagons to Nijnieff to fetch the wounded.
"Ours, your Honour." "Well, we'll go on and see." I had listened to this conversation with the sensation of a man who has stopped himself on the very edge of a precipice. I thought in those few moments with a marvellous and penetrating clarity. I had, after all, been always until now at the battle of S , or when I had gone with the wagons to Nijnieff, on the outskirts of the thing.
I walked on, my boots knocking against one another, thinking to myself: "If I'm not given something to do very soon I shall be just as I was the other night at Nijnieff and then I shall suddenly take to my heels down this road as hard as I can go!" It was then that I tumbled straight into the arms of Nikitin, who was standing at the edge of the forest, watching for me.
Death too.... How clear now it was to me! During these weeks I had wondered, pursued the thought of Death. Was it this? Was it that? Was it pain? Was it terror? I had feared it, as for instance when I had seen the dead bodies in the Forest, or stood under the rain at Nijnieff. I had laughed at it as when I had gone with the sanitars. I had cursed it as when Marie Ivanovna had died.
Most unpleasant, moving an inch an hour, Cossacks riding one down if one preferred to go on foot to being bumped in the haycart. Every one in the depths of depression. Crossed the Nestor, a perfectly magnificent river. Five versts further, then stopped at a farmhouse, pitched tents. Instantly hundreds of wounded. Battle fierce just other side of Nijnieff.
Was with Durward and Andrey Vassilievitch in a Podvoda Like the latter, but he's out of place here. Arrived 1.30. "June 24th. Off early morning. This time black carriage with Sisters K and Anna Petrovna. More dust thousands of soldiers passing us, singing as though there were no retreat. News from L very bad. Say there's no ammunition. Arrived Nijnieff evening 7.30. Very hungry and thirsty.
Our only other transition, after a day or two longer at our farmhouse, was forward four versts to a tiny village on a high hill overlooking the Nestor, to the left of Nijnieff. This village was called Mittövo. Mittövo was to be our world for many weeks to come. We inhabited once again the large white deserted country-house with the tangled garden, the dusty bare floors, the broken windows.
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