“Of course the will must be awakened, inspired, concentrated,” she went
on. “That is the true task of real agitators. One has got to give up
one’s life to it. The degradation of servitude, the absolutist lies must
be uprooted and swept out. Reform is impossible. There is nothing to
reform. There is no legality, there are no institutions. There are
only arbitrary decrees. There is only a handful of cruel--perhaps
blind--officials against a nation.”
The letter rustled slightly in her hand. I glanced down at the
flimsy blackened pages whose very handwriting seemed cabalistic,
incomprehensible to the experience of Western Europe.
“Stated like this,” I confessed, “the problem seems simple enough. But I
fear I shall not see it solved. And if you go back to Russia I know that
I shall not see you again. Yet once more I say: go back! Don’t suppose
that I am thinking of your preservation. No! I know that you will not
be returning to personal safety. But I had much rather think of you in
danger there than see you exposed to what may be met here.”
“I tell you what,” said Miss Haldin, after a moment of reflection. “I
believe that you hate revolution; you fancy it’s not quite honest. You
belong to a people which has made a bargain with fate and wouldn’t like
to be rude to it. But we have made no bargain. It was never offered to
us--so much liberty for so much hard cash. You shrink from the idea
of revolutionary action for those you think well of as if it were
something--how shall I say it--not quite decent.”