I don't think he liked it very much, for presently he was succeeded by a train official, very drunk, though I am bound to say he was the only drunken man I saw on all that long train journey from Stretensk to Petrograd. It was a little unlucky we were at such close quarters. Everyone, too, was very apologetic.
He was a good fellow. It was an unfortunate accident and he would be very much ashamed.
I suppose he was, for the next day he too disappeared and his place was taken by a professor from one of the Siberian universities who was seeking radium. He was a nice old gentleman who had learned English but had never had the chance of hearing it spoken. Where he went in the daytime I do not know, probably to a friend's compartment, and Buchanan and I had the place to ourselves. We could and did invite the Cossack officer and the Hussar officer and his belongings and the naval man to tea, and we had great games with the little fox-terrier “Sport” from next door, but when night fell the professor turned up and notified me he was about to go to bed. Then he retired and I went to bed first on the lower seat. He knocked, came in and climbed up to his bunk, and we discoursed on the affairs of the world, I correcting his curious pronunciation. He really was a man of the world; he was the sort of man I had expected to meet in Siberia, only I had never imagined him as free and sharing a railway compartment with me. I should have expected to find him toiling across the plains with the chains that bound his ankles hitched to his belt for convenience of carrying. But he looked and he spoke as any other cultivated old gentleman might have spoken, and looking back I see that his views of the war, given in the end of August, 1914, were quite the soundest I have ever listened to.
“The Allies will win,” he used to say, “yes, they will win.” And he shook his head. “But it will be a long war, and the place will be drenched in blood first. Two years, three years, I think four years.” I wonder if he foresaw the chaos that would fall upon Russia.
These views were very different from those held by the other men.
“Madame,” the Cossack would say, laughing, “do you know a good hotel in Berlin?”
I looked up surprised. “Because,” he went on, “I engage a room there. We go to Berlin!”
“Peace dictated at Berlin,” said they all again and again, “peace dictated at Berlin.” This was during the first onward rush of the Russians. Then there came a setback, two towns were taken and the Germans demanded an indemnity of twenty thousand pounds apiece.
“Very well,” said the Cossack grimly, and the Hussar nodded his head. “They have set the tune. Now we know what to ask.”
But the professor looked grave. “Many towns will fall,” said he.