a gorgeous
figure, stiff with the splendour of his robes, talked in a dark garden
with his lady. Their voices murmured, a lute was played, some one sang,
and through the thread of it all I saw that moment when, packed together
on our cart, we hung for an instant on the top of the hill and looked
back to a country that had suddenly crackled into flame. There was that
terrific crash as of the smashing of a world of china, the fierce
crackle of the machine-guns, and then the boom of the cannon from under
our very feet... the garden was filled with revellers, laughing,
dancing, singing, the air was filled again with the air of gold paint,
the tenor's voice rose higher and higher, the golden screens closed--the
act was ended.

It was as though I had received, in some dim, bewildered fashion, a
warning. When the lights went up, it was some moments before I realised
that the Baron was speaking to me, that a babel of chatter, like a
sudden rain storm on a glass roof, had burst on every side of us, and
that a huge Jewess, all bare back and sham pearls, was trying to pass me
on her way to the corridor. The Baron talked away: "Very amusing, don't
you think? After Reinhardt, of course, although they say now that
Reinhardt got all his ideas from your man Craig. I'm sure I don't know
whether that's so.... I hope you're more reassured to-night, Mr.
Durward. You were full of alarms the other evening. Look around you and
you'll see the true Russia...."

"I can't believe this to be the true Russia," I said. "Petrograd is not
the true Russia. I don't believe that there _is_ a true Russia."

"Well, there you are," he continued eagerly. "No true Russia! Quite so.
Very observant. But we have to pretend there is, and that's what you
foreigners are always forgetting. The Russian is an individualist--give
him freedom and he'll lose all sense of his companions. He will pursue
his own idea. Myself and my party are here to prevent him from pursuing
his own idea, for the good of himself and his country. He may be
discontented, he may grumble, but he doesn't realise his luck. Give him
his freedom, and in six months you'll see Russia back in the Middle
Ages."

"And another six months?" I asked.

"The Stone Age."

"And then?"

"Ah," he said, smiling, "you ask me too much, Mr. Durward. We are
speaking of our own generation."

The curtain was up again and I was back in my other world. I cannot tell
you anything of the rest of the play--I reme