Very glad when it was over...."
We had arrived, indeed, although we did not then know it and were
expecting, every moment, to move back again, at the conclusion of our
first exodus. 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 Mittoevo. Mittoevo 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. At the end
of the tangled garden there was a white stone cross, and here was a
most wonderful view, the high hill running precipitously down to the
flat silver expanse of the Nestor that ran like a gleaming girdle
under the breasts of the slopes beyond. These further slopes were
clothed with wood. I remember, on the first day that I watched, the
forest beyond was black and dense like a cloud resting on the hill;
the Nestor and our own country was soaked with sun.
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