But experience was never to come to him in regard to Marie Ivanovna; he was to know as little of her at the end as he had known at the beginning, and this whole conversation with her (of course, I have only his report of it) is clouded with his romantic conception of her.

To that I might add also my own romantic conception; if Trenchard never saw her clearly because he loved her, I never saw her clearly because--because--why, I do not know....

She was, from first to last, a figure of romance, irritating, aggressive, enchanting, baffling, always blinding, to all of us.
During the morning after our arrival in M---- Trenchard worked in the theatre, bandaging and helping with the transport of the wounded up the high and difficult staircase.

Then at midday, tired with the heat, the closeness of the place, he escaped into the little park that bordered the farther side of the road.

It was a burning day in June--the sun came beating through the trees, and as soon as he had turned the corner of the path and had lost the line of ruined and blackened houses to his right he found himself in the wildest and most glittering of little orchards.