"Are you and Vera friends again?" I asked her.
"Oh yes! Why not?" And she went on, snapping a chocolate almond between
her teeth--"The one at the 'Piccadilly' is the best. It's an Italian
one, and there's a giant in it who throws people all over the place, out
of windows and everywhere. Ah! how lovely!... I wish I could go every
night."
"You ought to be helping with the war," I said severely.
"Oh, I hate the war!" she answered. "We're all terribly tired of it.
Tanya's given up going to the English hospital now, and is just meaning
to be as gay as she can be; and Zinaida Fyodorovna had just come back
from her Otriad on the Galician front, and she says it's shocking there
now--no food or dancing or anything. Why doesn't every one make peace?"
"Do you want the Germans to rule Russia?" I asked.
"Why not?" she said, laughing. "We can't do it ourselves. We don't care
who does it. The English can do it if they like, only they're too lazy
to bother. The German's aren't lazy, and if they were here we'd have
lots of theatres and cinematographs."
"Don't you love your country?" I asked.
"This isn't our country," she answered.
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