"I've got a telephone. I'm very happy where I
am."
"It is a queer place," he said. "Isn't it awfully unhealthy?"
"Quite the reverse--with the sea in front of it! About the healthiest
spot in Petrograd!"
"But I should get the blues here. So lonely and quiet. Petrograd is a
strange town! Most people don't dream there's a queer place like this."
"That's why I like it," I said. "I expect there are lots of queer
places in Petrograd if you only knew."
He wandered about the room, looking at my few pictures and my books and
my writing-table. At last he sat down again by my bed.
"Now tell me all the news," I said.
"News?" he asked. He looked uncomfortable, and I saw at once that he had
come to confide something in me. "What sort of news? Political?"
"Anything."
"Well, politics are about the same. They say there's going to be an
awful row in February when the Duma meets--but then other people say
there won't be a row at all until the war is over."
"What else do they say?"
"They say Protopopoff is up to all sorts of tricks. That he says prayers
with the Empress and they summon Rasputin's ghost.
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