was simply a picnic to us.... No, they saw in it no drama whatever.

Nevertheless how are we to be assured that these others, Anna
Petrovna, Sister K----, Goga, the Doctors had not their own secret
view? The subject here is simply the attitude of certain private
persons with whom I was allowed some intimacy ... for the rest one has
no right to speak.

There comes then the second difficulty, namely: that of Nikitin,
Andrey Vassilievitch, Semyonov and Marie Ivanovna one can only present
a foreign point of view. Of Nikitin and Andrey Vassilievitch, at
least, I was the friend, but however deeply a Russian admits an
Englishman into friendship he can, to the very last, puzzle, confuse,
utterly surprise him. The Russian character seems, superficially, with
its lack of restraint, its idealism, its impracticality, its
mysticism, its material simplicities, to be so readily grasped that
the surprise that finally remains is the more dumbfounding. Perhaps
after all it is the very closeness of our resemblance the one to the
other that confuses us. It is, perhaps, that in the Russians' soul the
East can never be reconciled to the West. It is perhaps that the
Russian never reveals his secret ideal even to himself; far distant is
it then from his friend. It may be that towards other men the Russian
is indifferent and towards women his relation is so completely sexual
that his true character is hidden from her. Whatever it be that
surprise remains. For to those whom Russia and her people draw back
again and again, however sternly they may resist, this sure truth
stands: that here there is a mystery, a mystery that may never be
discovered. In the very soul of Russia the mystery is stirring; here
the restlessness, the eagerness, the disappointment, the vision of the
pursuit is working; and some who are outside her gates she has drawn
into that same search.

I am not sure whether I may speak of Nikitin as my friend. I believe
that no one in our Otriad save Trenchard could make, with truth, this
claim. But for his own reasons or, perhaps, for no reason at all, he
chose me on two occasions as his confidant, and of these two
occasions I can recall every detail.

We returned that night from S---- to find that the whole Otriad had
settled in the village of M----, where I myself had been the night
before. We were all living in an empty deserted farmhouse, with a
yard, a big orchard, wide barns and a wild overrun garden. We were, I
think, a l