"That's a fine forest," I said to my companion.
"Yes, the forest of S----, stretches miles back into Galicia." It was
Nikitin that day who spoke to me. We turned carelessly away. Meanwhile
how difficult and unpleasant those first weeks at Mittoevo were! We had
none of us realised, I suppose, how sternly those days of retreat had
tested our nerves. We had been not only retreating, but (at the same
time) working fiercely, and now, when for some while the work
slackened and, under the hot blazing sun, we found nothing for our
hands to do, a grinding irritable reaction settled down upon us.
I had known in my earlier experience at the war the troubles that
inevitably rise from inaction; the little personal inconveniences, the
tyrannies of habits and manners and appearances, when you've got
nothing to do but sit and watch your immediate neighbour. But on that
earlier occasion our army had been successful; it seemed that the war
would soon find its conclusion in the collapse of Germany, and good
news from Europe smiled upon us every morning at breakfast.
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