To-night Trenchard was an Englishman. He had been really useful at O—— and he had felt a new spirit of kindness around him. He did not know that Marie Ivanovna had made her declaration to us and that we were therefore all anxious to show him that we thought that he had been badly treated. Moreover he suspected, with a true English distrust of emotions, that the Russians before him were inclined to luxuriate in their gloom. Molozov's despair and Ivan Mihailovitch's passionate eyes and jerking white hands irritated him.
He smiled a practical English smile and looked about him at the swaying procession of carts and soldiers with a practical eye.
"Come," he said to Molozov, "don't despair. There's nothing really to be distressed about. There must be these retreats, you know. There must be. The great thing in this war is to see the whole thing in proportion—the whole thing. France and England and the Dardanelles and Italy—everything. In another month or two—"
But Molozov, frowning, shook his head.
"This country ... no method ... no system. Nothing. It is terrible.... That's a pretty girl!" he added moodily, looking at a group of peasants in a doorway. "A very pretty girl!" he added, sitting up a little and staring. Then he relapsed, "No system—nothing," he murmured.
"But there will be," continued Trenchard in his English voice. (He told me afterwards that he was conscious at the time of a horrible priggish superiority.) "Here in Russia you go up and down so. You've no restraint. Now if you had discipline—"
But he was interrupted by the melancholy figure of an officer who hung on to our slowly moving carriage, walking beside it with his hand on the door. He did not seem to have anything very much to say but looked at us with large melancholy eyes. He was small and needed dusting.
"What is it?" asked Molozov, saluting.
"I've had contusion," said the little officer in a dreamy voice. "Contusion ... I don't feel very well. I don't quite know where I ought to go."
"Our doctors are just behind," said Molozov. "You can come on with them."