You want to be seriously
occupied in it to prevent your thinking too much about it. Then,
because you're English, you want to see what the Russians are really
like. You're curious and sympathetic, inquisitive and, perhaps, a
little sentimental about it.... Am I right?"
"No, not quite--there are other things. I'd like to tell you. Do you
mind," he said suddenly looking up straight into my face with a
confiding smile that was especially his own, "if I talk, if I tell you
why I've come? I've no right, I don't know you--but I'm so happy
to-night that I _must_ talk--I'm so happy that I feel as though I
shall never get through the night alive."
Of our conversation after this, or rather of _his_ talk, excited,
eager, intimate and shy, old and wise and very, very young, I remember
now, I think, every word with especial vividness. After events were to
fix it all in my brain with peculiar accuracy, but his narration had
that night of itself its own individual quality. His was no ordinary
personality, or, at any rate, the especial circumstances of the time
drove it into no ordinary shape, and I believe that never before in
all his days had he spoken freely and eagerly to any one.
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