"The Supreme Soviet."
"How are they elected—or chosen?"
"We all agree on them."
Heidekopfer was saved from going mad by a cry from Ann Starnes. They had passed through the cut into the hills and now, as they swung round the brow of one, a wide valley lay spread before them under the soft Venusian light. It was dotted with little clumps of trees and had houses here and there, mostly low and with curiously bound-down thatched roofs. With the green fields and grazing animals, it made a scene of truly pastoral beauty. Ann said, "Tell him to stop for a minute, will you? I want to get this."
Behrmann looked at Heidekopfer. "Is it your will also that we stop?"
"Sure, why not," said he. "Isn't even necessary to ask if the girl-friend wants it. Do you have a law about women getting permission for what they want to do, too?"
"No. Stop, Pavel Josephovitch." He turned to Heidekopfer; "But the will of one must become the will of all."
"Now I don't understand," said Heidekopfer, as Ann adjusted her camera to take a sweeping panorama of the valley. "Would you mind explaining?"
"In happy Tolstoia when the desire of one person would cause others to do what they might not desire, all must agree before it is done. To allow anything else would be compulsion, and as the Master says; 'Anything that savors of compulsion is harmful.'"
"I can see where there must be some prize family arguments in happy Tolstoia," said Ann, in English. "Would I like to be married to a man if I had to get his agreement every time I wanted to buy a new hat? No."