She had had, she said, an English nurse, and then an English governess.
Of course they asked me many questions about the future.

Would we be close to the Front?
How many versts?
Would there be plenty of work, and would we _really_ see things?
We wanted to be useful, no use going if we were not to be useful.

How many Sisters were there then already?
Were they "sympathetic"?
Was Molozov, the head of the Otriad, an agreeable man?
Was he kind, or would he be angry about simply nothing?
Who would bandage and who would feed the villagers and who would bathe the soldiers?
Were the officers of the Ninth Army pleasant to us?
Where?
Who?
When?
The day slipped away, the colours were drawn from the sky, the fields, the hills, the stars came out in their myriads, thickly clustered in ropes, and lakes and coils of light; the air was scented with flowers.

The second night passed.
The greater part of the next day was spent in H----, a snug town with a little park like a clean handkerchief, streets with coloured shops, neat and fresh-painted like toys from a toy-shop, little blue trains, statues of bewigged eighteenth-century kings and dukes, and a restaurant, painted Watteau-fashion with bright green groves, ladies in hoops and powder, and long-legged sheep.

Here we wandered, five of us.