I remembered that Monday was the 30th of April, and that, on that evening, there was to be a big Allied meeting at the Bourse, at which our Ambassador, Sir George Buchanan, the Belgian Consul, and others, were to speak.  I had promised to take Vera to this.  Tuesday the 1st of May was to see a great demonstration by all the workmen’s and soldiers’ committees.  It was to correspond with the Labour demonstrations arranged to take place on that day all over Europe, and the Russian date had been altered to the new style in order to provide for this.  Many people considered that the day would be the cause of much rioting, of definite hostility to the Provisional Government, of anti-foreign demonstrations, and so on; others, idealistic Russians, believed that all the soldiers, the world over, would on that day throw down their arms and proclaim a universal peace....

I for my part believed that it would mark the ending of the first phase of the Revolution and the beginning of the second, and that for Russia at any rate it would mean the changing from a war of nations into a war of class—­in other words, that it would mean the rising up of the Russian peasant as a definite positive factor in the world’s affairs.

But all that political business was only remotely, at that moment, my concern.  What I wanted to know was what was happening to Nicholas, to Vera, to Lawrence, and the others.  Even whilst I was restlessly wondering what I could do to put myself into touch with them, my old woman entered with a letter which she said had been brought by hand.

The letter was from Markovitch.

I give this odd document here exactly as I received it.  I do not attempt to emphasise or explain or comment in any way.  I would only add that no Russian is so mad as he seems to any Englishman, and no Englishman so foolish as he seems to any Russian.

I must have received this letter, I think, late on Sunday afternoon, because I was, I remember, up and dressed, and walking about my room.  It was written on flimsy grey paper in pencil, which made it difficult to read.  There were sentences unfinished, words misspelt, and the whole of it in the worst of Russian handwritings.  Certain passages, I am, even now, quite unable to interpret: 

It ran as follows: 

Dear Ivan Andreievitch—­Vera tells me that you are ill again.  She has been round to enquire, I think.  I did not come because I knew that if I did I should only talk about my own troubles, the same as you’ve always listened to, and what kind of food is that for a sick man?  All the same, that is just what I am doing now, but reading a letter is not like talking to a man; you can always stop and tear the paper when perhaps it would not be polite to ask a man to go.  But I hope, nevertheless, that you won’t do that with this—­not because of any desire I may have to interest you in myself, but because of something of much more importance than either of us, something I want you to believe—­something