But always there is a barrier between her and me; a barrier impalpable yet unpassable. I try to surmount it, but I am beaten back every time. Now it is Cassavetti who confronts me; again, and yet again, it is Loris, with his stern white face, his inscrutable blue eyes. He is on horseback; he rides straight at me, and he bears something in his arms.
I struggled up and looked around me. I knew the place well enough, the long narrow room that had once been the salle à manger in the Vassilitzi’s Warsaw house, but that, ever since I had known it, had been the principal ward in the amateur hospital instituted by Anne. A squalid ward enough, for the beds were made up on the floor, anyhow, and every bit of space was filled, leaving just a narrow track for the attendants to pass up and down.
Along that track came a big figure that I recognized at once as Mishka, walking with clumsy caution.
“You are better? That is well,” he said in a gruff undertone.
“How did I get here?” I demanded.
“Yossof brought you; he found you walking about the streets, raving mad. It is a marvel that you were not shot down.”
Then I remembered something at least of what had passed.
“How long since?” I stammered, putting my hand up to my bandaged head.
“Two days.”