.. 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 sent instead of Semyonov. Nikitin was much more sympathetic.
"You seem very fond of Nikitin," I said.
"We are friends ... we have been friends for many years. My wife was
very fond of him. I am a lonely man, Ivan Andreievitch, since the
death of my wife, and to be with any one who knew her is a great
happiness ... yes, a great happiness."
"And Semyonov?" I asked.
"I have nothing to say against Alexei Petrovitch," he answered
stiffly.
When later I joined the others at the cottage higher up the road taken
by the doctors of the Division, I discovered Trenchard in an ecstasy
of happiness. He did not speak to me but his shining eyes, the
eagerness with which standing back from the group he watched us all,
told me everything. Marie Ivanovna had been kind to him, and when I
found her in the centre of them, her whole body alert with excitement,
I forgot my anger at her earlier unkindness or, if I remembered it,
laid it to the charge of my own imagination or Trenchard's
sensitiveness.
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