Then came Alexei Petrovitch. I've told you already. He was
always hinting at something. He was always there as though he were
waiting for something to happen. He hinted things about Vera. It's
strange, Ivan Andreievitch, but there was a day just a week before the
Revolution, when I was very nearly jumping up and striking him. Just to
get rid of him so that he shouldn't be watching me....Why even when I
wasn't there he....
"But what's that got to do with my walk? Nothing perhaps. All the same,
it was all these little things that made me, when I walked out of the
Duma that evening so queer. You see I'd been getting desperate. All that
I had left was being taken from me, and then suddenly this Revolution
had come and given me back Russia again. I forgot Alexei Petrovitch and
your Englishman Lawrence and the failure of my work--I remembered, once
again, just as I had those first days of the war, Vera and Russia.
"There, in the clear evening air, I forgot all the talk there had been
inside the Duma, the mess and the noise and the dust. I was suddenly
happy again, and excited, and hopeful.... The Enchanter had come after
all, and Russia was to awake.
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