e company
suddenly vanished through the windows, leaving only the bodies and
clothes. Every one sits, eyes half closed, mouths shut, hands
motionless, host and hostess, desperately abandoning every attempt at
rescue, gaze about them in despair.

The mood may easily last well into the morning, when the guests, still
silent, will depart, assuring everybody that they have enjoyed
themselves immensely, and really believing that they have; or it may
happen that some remark will suddenly be made, and instantly back
through the windows the souls will come, eagerly catching up their
bodies again, and a babel will arise, deafening, baffling, stupefying.
Or it may happen that a Russian will speak with sudden authority, almost
like a prophet, and will continue for half an hour and more, pouring out
his soul, and no one will dream of thinking it an improper exhibition.

In fine, anything can happen at a Russian party. What happened on this
occasion was this. The silence had lasted for some minutes, and I was
wondering for how much longer I could endure it (I had one eye on Nina
somewhere in the background, and the other on Bohun restlessly kicking
his patent-leather shoes one against the other), when suddenly a quiet,
ordinary little woman seated near me said:

"The thing for Russia to do now is to abandon all resistance and so
shame the world." She was a mild, pleasant-looking woman, with the eyes
of a very gentle cow, and spoke exactly as though she were still
pursuing her own private thoughts. It was enough; the windows flew open,
the souls came flooding in, and such a torrent of sound poured over the
carpet that the naked statuary itself seemed to shiver at the threatened
deluge. Every one talked; every one, even, shouted. Just as, during the
last weeks, the streets had echoed to the words "Liberty," "Democracy,"
"Socialism," "Brotherhood," "Anti-annexation," "Peace of the world," so
now the art gallery echoed. The very pictures shook in their frames.

One old man in a white beard continued to cry, over and over again,
"Firearms are not our weapons... bullets are not our weapons. It's the
Peace of God, the Peace of God that we need."

One lady (a handsome Jewess) jumped up from her chair, and standing
before us all recited a kind of chant, of which I only caught sentences
once, and again:

"Russia must redeem the world from its sin... this slaughter must be
slayed... Russia the Saviour of the world... this slaughter must