Our very hearts stood still. The Austrians were here
then.... This was the end....
"It's the bridge," Semyonov said quietly, and of course ironically.
"We've blown it up. There'll be the other in a moment."
There was--a second shock brought down more dust and a large scale of
gilt wood from one of the cornices. We waited then for our orders,
looking down from the windows on to what seemed a perfect babel of
disorder and confusion.
"We must be at X---- to-night," Molozov told us. "The Staff is on its
way already. We should be moving in half an hour."
We made our preparations.
Trenchard, meanwhile, had had during this afternoon one driving
compelling impulse beyond all others, that he must, at all costs,
escape all personal contact with Marie Ivanovna. It seemed to him the
most awful thing that could possibly happen to him now would be a
compulsory conversation with her. He did not, of course, know that
she had spoken to us, and he thought that it would be the easiest
thing in all the confusion that this retreat involved that he should
be flung up against her.
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