“And indeed what did names matter now?  I couldn’t believe my eyes or my ears, Ivan Andreievitch.  It looked too much like Paradise and I’d been deceived so often.  So I determined to be very cautious.  ’You’ve been taken in, Nicolai Leontievitch, many many times.  Don’t you believe this?’ But I couldn’t help feeling that if only this world would continue, if only the people could always be free and happy and the sun could shine, perhaps the rest of the world would see its folly and the war would stop and never begin again.  This thought would grow in my mind as I walked, although I refused to encourage it.

“Motor lorries covered with soldiers came dashing down the street.  The soldiers had their guns pointed, but the crowd cheered and cheered, waving hands and shouting.  I shouted too.  The tears were streaming down my face.  I couldn’t help myself.  I wanted to hold the sun and the snow and the people all in my arms fixed so that it should never change, and the world should see how good and innocent life could be.

“On every side people had asked what had really happened, and of course no one knew.  But it did not matter.  Every one was so simple.  A soldier, standing beside one of the placards was shouting:  ’Tovaristchi! What we must have is a splendid Republic and a good Czar to look after it.’

“And they all cheered him and laughed and sang.  I turned up one of the side streets on to the Fontanka, and here I saw them emptying the rooms of one of the police.  That was amusing!  I laugh still when I think of it.  Sending everything out of the windows,—­underclothes, ladies’ bonnets, chairs, books, flower-pots, pictures, and then all the records, white and yellow and pink paper, all fluttering in the sun like so many butterflies.  The crowd was perfectly peaceful, in an excellent temper.  Isn’t that wonderful when you think that for months those people had been starved and driven, waiting all night in the street for a piece of bread, and that now all discipline was removed, no more policemen except those hiding for their lives in houses, and yet they did nothing, they touched no one’s property, did no man any harm.  People say now that it was their apathy, that they were taken by surprise, that they were like animals who did not know where to go, but I tell you, Ivan Andreievitch, that it was not so.  I tell you that it was because just for an hour the soul could come up from its dark waters and breathe the sun and the light and see that all was good.  Oh, why cannot that day return?  Why cannot that day return?...”

He broke off and looked at me like a distracted child, his brows puckered, his hands beating the air.  I did not say anything.  I wanted him to forget that I was there.