In fine, anything can happen at a Russian party.  What happened on this occasion was this.  The silence had lasted for some minutes, and I was wondering for how much longer I could endure it (I had one eye on Nina somewhere in the background, and the other on Bohun restlessly kicking his patent-leather shoes one against the other), when suddenly a quiet, ordinary little woman seated near me said: 

“The thing for Russia to do now is to abandon all resistance and so shame the world.”  She was a mild, pleasant-looking woman, with the eyes of a very gentle cow, and spoke exactly as though she were still pursuing her own private thoughts.  It was enough; the windows flew open, the souls came flooding in, and such a torrent of sound poured over the carpet that the naked statuary itself seemed to shiver at the threatened deluge.  Every one talked; every one, even, shouted.  Just as, during the last weeks, the streets had echoed to the words “Liberty,” “Democracy,” “Socialism,” “Brotherhood,” “Anti-annexation,” “Peace of the world,” so now the art gallery echoed.  The very pictures shook in their frames.

One old man in a white beard continued to cry, over and over again, “Firearms are not our weapons... bullets are not our weapons.  It’s the Peace of God, the Peace of God that we need.”

One lady (a handsome Jewess) jumped up from her chair, and standing before us all recited a kind of chant, of which I only caught sentences once, and again: 

“Russia must redeem the world from its sin... this slaughter must be slayed...  Russia the Saviour of the world... this slaughter must be slayed.”

I had for some time been watching Bohun.  He had travelled a long journey since that original departure from England in December; but I was not sure whether he had travelled far enough to forget his English terror of making a fool of himself.  Apparently he had....  He said, his voice shaking a little, blushing as he spoke: 

“What about Germany?”

The lady in the middle of the floor turned upon him furiously: 

“Germany!  Germany will learn her lesson from us.  When we lay down our arms her people, too, will lay down theirs.”

“Supposing she doesn’t?”

The interest of the room was now centred on him, and every one else was silent.

“That is not our fault.  We shall have made our example.”

A little hum of applause followed this reply, and that irritated Bohun.  He raised his voice: 

“Yes, and what about your allies, England and France, are you going to betray them?”

Several voices took him up now.  A man continued: 

“It is not betrayal.  We are not betraying the proletariat of England and
France.  They are our friends.  But the alliance with the French and
English Capitalistic Governments was made not by us but by our own
Capitalistic Government, which is now destroyed.”

“Very well, then,” said Bohun.  “But when the war began did you not—­all of you, not only your Government, but you people now sitting in this room—­did you not all beg and pray England to come in?  During those days before England’s intervention, did you not threaten to call us cowards and traitors if we did not come in? Pomnite?”