ing of the vast problems of a society of a hundred million
people staggering on the verge of anarchy, and upon the other he was
perplexed by the feverish inattention of Prothero to the tremendous
things that were going on all about them. It was only presently when the
serenity of his own private life began to be ruffled by disillusionment,
that he began to realize the intimate connexion of these two systems of
thought. Yet Prothero put it to him plainly enough.

"Inattentive," said Prothero, "of course I am inattentive. What is
really the matter with all this--this social mess people are in here, is
that nearly everybody is inattentive. These Big Things of yours, nobody
is thinking of them really. Everybody is thinking about the Near Things
that concern himself."

"The bombs they threw yesterday? The Cossacks and the whips?"

"Nudges. Gestures of inattention. If everybody was thinking of the Res
Publica would there be any need for bombs?"

He pursued his advantage. "It's all nonsense to suppose people think of
politics because they are in 'em. As well suppose that the passengers on
a liner understand the engines, or soldiers a war. Before men can
think of to-morrow, they must think of to-day. Before they can think
of others, they must be sure about themselves. First of all, food; the
private, the personal economic worry. Am I safe for food? Then sex, and
until one is tranquil and not ashamed, not irritated and dissatisfied,
how can one care for other people, or for next year or the Order of the
World? How can one, Benham?"

He seized the illustration at hand. "Here we are in Warsaw--not a month
after bomb-throwing and Cossack charging. Windows have still to be
mended, smashed doors restored. There's blood-stains still on some
of the houses. There are hundreds of people in the Citadel and in the
Ochrana prison. This morning there were executions. Is it anything more
than an eddy in the real life of the place? Watch the customers in the
shops, the crowd in the streets, the men in the cafes who stare at the
passing women. They are all swallowed up again in their own business.
They just looked up as the Cossacks galloped past; they just shifted a
bit when the bullets spat...."

And when the streets of Moscow were agog with the grotesque amazing
adventure of the Potemkin mutineers, Prothero was in the full tide of
the private romance that severed him from Benham and sent him back to
Cambridge--changed.

Before they r