he theory of inexhaustible numbers, we liked
the picture of their pounding, steam-roller like, to Berlin... we
tricked ourselves, and in the space of a night our trick was exposed.

Plain enough the reasons for these mistakes that we in England have made
over that same Revolution, mistakes made by none more emphatically than
by our own Social Democrats. Those who hailed the Revolution as the
fulfilment of all their dearest hopes, those who cursed it as the
beginning of the damnation of the world--all equally in the wrong. The
Revolution had no thought for _them_. Russian extremists might shout as
they pleased about their leading the fight for the democracies of the
world--they never even began to understand the other democracies.
Whatever Russia may do, through repercussion, for the rest of the world,
she remains finally alone--isolated in her Government, in her ideals, in
her ambitions, in her abnegations. For a moment the world-politics of
her foreign rulers seemed to draw her into the Western whirlpool. For a
moment only she remained there. She has slipped back again behind her
veil of mist and shadow. We may trade with her, plunge into her
politics, steal from her Art, emphasise her religion--she remains alone,
apart, mysterious....

I think it was with a kind of gulping surprise, as after a sudden plunge
into icy cold water, that we English became conscious of this. It came
to us first in the form that to us the war was everything--to the
Russian, by the side of an idea the war was nothing at all. How was I,
for instance, to recognise the men who took a leading part in the events
of this extraordinary year as the same men who fought with bare hands,
with fanatical bravery through all the Galician campaign of two years
before?

Had I not realised sufficiently at that time that Russia moves always
according to the Idea that governs her--and that when that Idea changes
the world, _his_ world changes with it....

Well, to return to Markovitch....

VII

I was on the point of setting out for the English Prospect on Saturday
evening when there was a knock on my door, and to my surprise Nicholas
Markovitch came in. He was in evening dress--rather quaint it seemed to
me, with his pointed collar so high, his tail-coat so much too small,
and his large-brimmed bowler hat. He explained to me confusedly that he
wished to walk with me alone to the church... that he had things to
tell me... that we should meet the other