...
They had made me promise long before that I would spend Easter Eve with
them and go with them to our church on the Quay. I wondered now whether
all the troubles of the last weeks would not negative that invitation,
and I had privately determined that if I did not hear from them again I
would slip off with Lawrence somewhere. But on Good Friday Markovitch,
meeting me in the Morskaia, reminded me that I was coming.
It is very difficult to give any clear picture of the atmosphere of the
town between Revolution week and this Easter Eve, and yet all the seeds
of the later crop of horrors were sewn during that period. Its spiritual
mentality corresponded almost exactly with the physical thaw that
accompanied it--mist, then vapour dripping of rain, the fading away of
one clear world into another that was indistinct, ghostly, ominous. I
find written in my Diary of Easter Day--exactly five weeks after the
outbreak of the Revolution--these words: "From long talks with K. and
others I see quite clearly that Russians have gone mad for the time
being. It's heartbreaking to see them holding meetings everywhere,
arguing at every street corner as to how they intend to arrange a
democratic peace for Europe, when meanwhile the Germans are gathering
every moment force upon the frontiers.
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