Our only other transition, after a day or two longer at our farmhouse, was forward four versts to a tiny village on a high hill overlooking the Nestor, to the left of Nijnieff.

This village was called Mittoevo.

Mittoevo was to be our world for many weeks to come.

We inhabited once again the large white deserted country-house with the tangled garden, the dusty bare floors, the broken windows.

At the end of the tangled garden there was a white stone cross, and here was a most wonderful view, the high hill running precipitously down to the flat silver expanse of the Nestor that ran like a gleaming girdle under the breasts of the slopes beyond.