FIRST MOVE TO THE ENEMY It was during two nights in the forest of S----, about which I must afterwards write, that I had those long conversations with Trenchard, upon whose evidence now I must very largely depend.

Before me as I write is his Diary, left to me by him.

In this whole business of the war there is nothing more difficult than the varied and confused succession with which moods, impressions, fancies, succeed one upon another, but Trenchard told me so simply and yet so graphically of the events of these weeks that followed the battle of S---- that I believe I am departing in no way from the truth in my present account, the truth, at any rate as he himself believed it to be....
The only impression that he brought away with him from the battle of S---- was that picture, lighted by the horizon fires, of Marie Ivanovna kneeling with her hand on Semyonov's shoulder.

That, every detail and colour of it, bit into his brain.
In understanding him it is of the first importance to remember that this was the one and only love business of his life.

The effect of those days in Petrograd when Marie Ivanovna had shown him that she liked him, the thundering stupefying effect of that night when she had accepted his love, must have caught his soul and changed it as glass is caught by the worker and blown into shape and colour.