I had all this in my head as I went
along. I was still feeling ill and feeble, and my half-hour's stand in
the market-place had seriously exhausted me. I had to lean against the
walls of the houses every now and then; it seemed to me that, in the
pale watery air, the whole world was a dream, the high forbiding flats
looking down on to the dirty ice of the canals, the water dripping,
dripping, dripping.... No one was about. Every one had gone to join in
the procession. I could see it, with my mind's eye, unwinding its huge
tails through the watery-oozing channels of the town, like some
pale-coloured snake, crawling through the misty labyrinths of a marsh.
In the flat I found only Uncle Ivan sitting very happily by himself at
the table playing patience. He was dressed very smartly in his English
black suit and a black bow tie. He behaved with his usual elaborate
courtesy to me but, to my relief, on this occasion, he spoke Russian.
It appeared that the Revolution had not upset him in the least. He took,
he assured me, no interest whatever in politics. The great thing was "to
live inside oneself," and by living inside oneself he meant, I gathered,
that one should be entirely selfish.
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