We reported ourselves on arrival, as arranged, at a spacious old house in a narrow street near the University, which thenceforth became our headquarters; and, within a few hours, a kind of hospital, also, for there were soon many wounded to be cared for.
Anne organized a band of women as amateur nurses, with Natalya at the head of them, in our house, while others were on duty elsewhere. This quarter, as I found, was a stronghold of the League; and many houses were, like ours, turned into temporary hospitals. But I gathered that comparatively few of Anne's most influential colleagues were in sympathy with her efforts to mitigate the horrors that surrounded us. In that way, we, her own chosen band, worked almost alone. Most of the revolutionists were as callous, as brutal, as the Cossacks themselves,--women as well as men. They would march in procession, waving banners and singing patriotic songs, and, when the inevitable collision with the soldiers came, they would fight like furies, and die with a laugh of defiance on their lips. But those who came through, unscathed, had neither care nor sympathy to bestow on the fallen.
"I join your band of nurses?" a handsome vivacious little woman--evidently one of her own rank--said to Anne one day, with a scornful laugh. "I am no good at such work. Give me real work to do, a bomb to throw, a revolver to fire; I have that at least"--she touched her fur blouse significantly. "I want to fight--to kill--and if I am killed instead, well, it is but the fortune of war! But nursing--bah--I have not the patience! You are far too tender-hearted, Anna Petrovna; you ought to have been a nun; but what would our handsome Loris have done then? Oh, it is all right, _ma chère_; I am quite discreet. But do you suppose I have not recognized him?"
"And others,--do they recognize him?" she asked quietly.
"Who knows? We are too busy these days to think or care who any one is or is not. Besides, he is supposed to be dead; it was cleverly planned, that bomb affair! Was it your doing, Anna? He is too stupidly honest to have thought of it himself. There! Do not look so vexed, and have no fear that I shall denounce him. He is far too good-looking! You have a _penchant_ for good-looking men," she added, with an audacious glance in my direction.