"I do not believe."
"And I also."
For an instant her hand touched my head, and the instant was gone.
"Do you know," she said, "I am leaving for the war."
"Go? But you will not be able to bear it."
"I do not know. But they need help, the same as you or my brother. It
is not their fault. Will you remember me?"
"Yes. And you?"
"And I will remember you too. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye for ever!"
And I grew calm and felt happier, as if I had passed through the most
terrible that there is in death and madness. And yesterday, for the
first time, I entered my house calmly without any fear, and opened my
brother's study and sat for a long time at his table. And when in the
night I suddenly awoke as if from a push, and heard the scraping of
the dry pen upon the paper, I was not frightened, but thought to myself
almost with a smile,--
"Work on, brother, work on! Your pen is not dry, it is steeped in
living human blood. Let your paper seem empty--in its ominous emptiness
it is more eloquent of war and reason than all that is written by the
most clever men. Work on, brother, work on!"
... And this morning I read that the battle is still raging, and again
I was possessed with a dread fear and a feeling of something falling
upon my brain. It is coming, it is near; it is already standing upon
the threshold of these empty, light rooms. Remember, remember me, dear
girl; I am going mad. Thirty thousand dead, thirty thousand dead!...