“Well, what do you know?” I asked.
“I know nothing,” he chuckled. “But remember, Barin, in a week’s time, if you want me I’m your friend. Who knows? In a week I may be a rich man.”
“Some one else’s riches,” I answered.
“Certainly,” he said. “And why not? Why should he have things? Is he a better man than I? Possibly—but then it is easy for a rich man to keep within the law. And then Russia’s meant for the poor man. However,” he continued, with great contempt in his voice, “that’s politics—dull stuff. While the others talk I act.”
“And what about the Germans?” I asked him. “Does it occur to you that when you’ve collected your spoils the Germans will come in and take them?”
“Ah, you don’t understand us, Barin,” he said, laughing. “You’re a good man and a kind man, but you don’t understand us. What can the Germans do? They can’t take the whole of Russia. Russia’s a big country.... No, if the Germans come there’ll be more for us to take.”
We stood for a moment under a lamp-post. He put his hand on my arm and looked up at me with his queer ugly face, his sentimental dreary eyes, his red nose, and his hard, cruel little mouth.
“But no one shall touch you—unless it’s myself if I’m very drunk. But you, knowing me, will understand afterwards that I was at least not malicious—”
I laughed. “And this mysticism that they tell us about in England. Are you mystical, Rat? Have you a beautiful soul?”
He sniffed and blew his nose with his hand.