As far as I was concerned, since I could not take care of the wounded, at least I helped diligently in the enterprises got up by the ladies of Kutais in their behalf. I remember an evening garden-party which assembled the inhabitants of the city on the “Boulevard,” as a promenade in the middle of the town, shaded by trees, is called. There were Chinese lanterns, orchestral music (“God save the Tsar,” a potpourri from Glinka’s opera _Zhizn dlya Tsarya_, the Balkan March, Slavonic songs, and the like), sale booths, and a tombola. Between two trees, brilliantly lighted up, had been placed a great painting of a touching scene on the battlefield: in the foreground a wonderfully beautiful Russian sister of charity, with tears on her cheeks, bending tenderly over a wounded Turkish soldier, whose head she was raising in order to give him nourishment; in the background a tent, powder smoke, dead horses, and bursting shells. I myself shed a tear or two as I stood in front of that picture; and at the tombola, where I bought chances till my pocketbook was drained, I won a small earthen vase, which I had them raffle off again. And thus I believed that I had paid my tribute of sympathy for the tragedy of the Balkans. The war took its course. We received very sad letters from the Dedopali; she was worried about her two sons, who had gone with the army. Suddenly there arose the rumor that the plague had broken out in a place not far away. That filled us with real dismay. When the news came I burst out in self-reproaches. “Oh, where have I brought you? It is my fault that you came here, My Own.” He comforted me: “Not for a moment have I regretted it. If only nothing happens to you! But even if we must perish now, still we have had our share of happiness.” The pestilence, however did not spread. The fate of being carried off by the terrible angel of destruction, to which we had resigned ourselves, was spared us. In other respects things were going very badly with us. In the disorder caused by the events of the war no one any longer thought of taking lessons, and we were fearfully pinched. There were days when we actually made the acquaintance of the specter Hunger. But everything that befell us, whether joy or sorrow, brought us closer and closer together, and later we were grateful to Fate for having enriched us with such experiences. Without doubt they were essential to the strengthening of our characters, and to educating us into that sympathy with the sorrows of humanity, with the wretchedness of the people, which in days to come formed the basis of our united work in the service of mankind, and which awakened in each of us feelings that gave delight to the other.