' 'Your Honour,' he says, 'there is nothing there; a fat
man, but God has the rest of him--I hate him for his emptiness.' I'm
in a humour to talk. I have, in a way, fulfilled the purpose that my
English tutor created in me. I've grown a sort of quiet skin, you
know, but under that skin the heart pounds away, the veins swell to
bursting. I'm a fool behind it all--just a fool as every Russian is a
fool with more in hand than he knows how to deal with. You don't
understand Russia, do you? No, and I don't and no one does. But we can
all talk about her--and love her too, if you like, although our
sentiment's a bad thing in us, some say. But for us not to talk--for
one of us to be silent--do you know how hard that is?... And through
it all how I despise myself for wishing to tell them! What business is
it of theirs? Then this war. Can you conceive what it is doing to
Russians? If you have loved Russia and dreamed for her and had your
dreams flung again and again to the ground and trampled on--and now,
once more, the bubbles are in the sky, glittering, gleaming .
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