The spectacle of their escape from the shadows lessened the pain of being left behind. Perhaps even a moment’s contemplation of the future helped to bring it about? Every thought vibrates through the universe. Then there was absolution in thought, even from the anger of everlastingly talking people, contemptuous of silence and aloofness. And there was unity with the future.
The surrounding light glowed with a richer intensity. Flooded through her, thrilling her feet to swiftness.
If the revolutionaries could be with her now, they would find in her something of the state towards which they were violently straining? They would pause and hover for a moment, with half envious indulgence. But sooner or later they would say things about robust English health; its unconsciousness of its surroundings.
The mystery of being English. Mocked at for stupidity and envied for having something that concerned the mocking people of the two continents and challenged them to discover its secret.
But by to-morrow night she would have nothing but the little set of remembered facts, dulled by the fatigue of her day’s work. These would save her, for the one evening, from appearing as the unintelligent Englishwoman of foreigner’s experience. But they would also keep out the possibility of expressing anything.
Even the bare outlines of socialism, presented suddenly to unprepared English people, were unfailing as a contribution to social occasions. They forced everyone to look at the things they had taken for granted in a new light, and to remember, together with the startling picture, the person who first drew it for them. But to appear before these Russians talking English socialism was to be nothing more than a useful person in uniform.
What was the immediate truth that shone, independent of speculation, all about her in the English light; the only thing worth telling to enquiring foreigners?
It was there at once when she was alone, or watching other people as an audience, or as an uncommitted guest, expressing in a great variety of places different sets of opinions. It was there radiant, obliterating her sense of existence, whenever she was in the midst of things kept going by other people. It could be given her by a beggar, purposefully crossing a street ... not ‘pitiful,’ as he was so carelessly called—but something that shook her with gratitude to the roots of her being. But the instant she was called upon there came the startled realisation of being in the world, and the sense of nothingness, preceding and accompanying every remark she might make.
One opinion self-consciously stated made the light go down. Immediate substitution of the contrary, produced a chill followed by darkness.... Men called out these contradictory statements, each one with his way of having only one set of opinions.
How powerful these Russians were, in advance, making her count herself up. If she saw much of them she would fail and fade into nothing under the Russian test. If there were only one short interview she might escape unknown, and knowing all the things about Russian revolutionaries that Michael Shatov had left incomplete.