The student was a very intense fellow. His voice fairly rang with the determination of a man consecrated to a cause.
“My word,” said the officer to me, “these two will be arrested this very hour if the gendarme appears. That student chap cares not whether he dies to-day or to-morrow.”
“Bravo!” I cried, curious for the officer’s reply. Instantly his face sobered.
“Hush, man! Do you forget you are now in Russia?”
I laughed unbelievingly, and the attaché who was sitting next to me and who had been listening said: “Let me tell you a little story. Once I was in a village church when an old woman suddenly made a scene in the gallery. She was carried down-stairs and into the air, where a crowd gathered about her. ‘What is it?’ ‘What is the matter?’ we all asked her. Amid her tears and with shortened breath she said: ‘I was in the gallery. I had no prayer-book, so I asked the sexton to give me one. He went down-stairs and handed one up to me from below.’ ‘Well?’ ‘He stood on the floor and handed me the book—and I was in the gallery.’
“‘That would be impossible, woman,’ we said. ‘No man could reach that distance.’
“‘But I say he did. He did hand it to me,’ protested the woman. At last an old body on the edge of the crowd exclaimed: ‘It could not be the churchman. It was surely the devil.’
“The excited one grew calm then, and after a minute said quietly: ‘Perhaps it was. It is so hard, sometimes, to tell who is man and who is devil.’
“Remember that, sir, as long as you are in Russia—it is hard to tell who is man and who is devil.”
The discussion raged hot till near midnight. Only the officer remained silent. He could not speak. He dared not—then. He listened intently and his eyes often glistened with interest. At last he took from his grip a bottle of liquor and a traveling drinking-cup. Filling the cup he held it high above him and in a voice that sounded to me full of hollow mockery shouted: “Vive la Russie!” The carriage suddenly fell silent. The student evidently hesitated whether to speak his defiance or not. I felt confident that the officer was heart and soul with the sentiments of the student, so I ventured to murmur, distinctly, but not too openly: “Vive la Revolution!”