Page:The Shield (Knopf, 1917).djvu/194

168 image, sorrowful and disquieting, lingered before my eyes. Of course, he, too, tried not to attract attention—and therein is the cause of his shyness; and when his wound will be dressed and he will be put into bed, he will also try not to moan. For, what right has he to moan aloud?

It is very possible, that he has no right of settlement in Petrograd and is allowed to stay there only as one of the wounded; a rather precarious right! And that which is home for others is nothing but a kind of honourable imprisonment for him; he will be kept for a while, then they will let him go, saying: "Go away, you must not be here."

And what if his mother, or sister, or father, who also have no right of settlement, will desire to come to him and kiss his bloodstained hand which has defended Russia—vague, distant Russia? But these reflections and questions came to my mind later. At the moment, I beheld, with the eyes of a peaceful citizen, the bloody, hardened blotch and the dreadful pallor of war, and the needless terror before that which, after all, is your own, and I felt an overwhelming depression and sadness.