From my own obscurity, against my
will, against my courage, against my own knowledge of myself,
circumstances were demanding that I should advance and act. It was of no
avail to myself that I should act unwisely, that I should perhaps only
precipitate a crisis that I could not help. I was forced to act when I
would have given my soul to hold aloof, and in this town, whose darkness
and light, intrigue and display, words and action, seemed to derive some
mysterious force from the very soil, from the very air, the smallest
action achieved monstrous proportions. When you have lived for some
years in Russia you do not wonder that its citizens prefer inaction to
demonstration--the soil is so much stronger than the men who live upon
it.
Nevertheless, for a fortnight I did nothing. Private affairs of an
especially tiresome kind filled my days--I saw neither Lawrence nor
Vera, and, during that period, I scarcely left my rooms.
There was much expectation in the town that February 14th, when the Duma
was appointed to meet, would be a critical day. Fine things were said of
the challenging speeches that would be made, of the firm stand that the
Cadet party intended to take, of the crisis with which the Court party
would be faced.
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