Gone with the Wind / Унесённые ветром

No one at Tara had ever said so many charming things about her.

All in all, life went on as happily as was possible under the circumstances. Atlanta was more interesting than Savannah or Charleston or Tara and it offered so many strange war-time occupations she had little time to think or mope. But, sometimes, when she blew out the candle, she sighed and thought: “If only Ashley wasn’t married! If only I didn’t have to nurse in that hospital! Oh, if only I could have some beaux!”

She had immediately hated nursing but she could not escape this duty because she was on both Mrs.

Meade’s and Mrs. Merriwether’s committees. And they would have been shocked to know how slight an interest in the war she had. Four mornings a week she spent in the sweltering, stinking hospital. Except for the ever-present worry that Ashley might be killed, the war interested her not at all, and nursing was something she did simply because she didn’t know how to get out of it.

Certainly there was nothing romantic about nursing.

To her, it meant groans, delirium, death and smells.

Melanie, however, did not seem to mind the smells or the wounds. And where the wounded could see her, she was gentle, sympathetic and cheerful, and the men in the hospitals called her an angel of mercy[31 - «ангел милосердия» / сестра милосердия].

On three afternoons a week Scarlett had to attend sewing circles and bandage-rolling committees of Melanie’s friends. The girls who had all known Charles were very kind to her at these gatherings but treated her, as if she were old and finished.

How unfair that everyone should think her heart was in the grave when it wasn’t at all! It was in Virginia with Ashley!

But in spite of these discomforts, Atlanta pleased her very well. And her visit lengthened as the weeks went by.

Chapter IX

Scarlett sat in the window of her bedroom that midsummer morning and watched the wagons and carriages full of girls, soldiers and chaperons ride gaily out Peachtree road in search of decorations for the bazaar which was to be held that evening for the benefit of the hospitals.

Girls in flowered cotton dresses, elderly ladies smiling in carriages, convalescents from the hospitals, officers on horseback – everybody was going to have a picnic. Everybody, thought Scarlett, sadly, except me.

It simply wasn’t fair. She had worked twice as hard as any girl in town, getting things ready for the bazaar.