“Moscow!”
Christy grinned, and confessed it sounded like asking for the tiger’s cage to be opened. But he wanted to get into Russia, and The New World had asked him to go. It was impossible to find out the truth of what was happening there. Everything one read was a manufactured lie. He wanted to know the truth. He would be restless until he found out. Was there anything at all to be said for the Russian experiment—Communism? It was no good talking about Bolshevik atrocities. They weren’t Communism. He wasn’t sure of them, anyhow, but if they’d happened, they belonged to the realm of that murder mania which overtakes people in times of war and revolution. He wanted to see how the system worked, whether it was any solution of Capitalist civilisation. It was absurd to pretend that Western civilisation was the last word in human wisdom and scientific organisation. The profiteer was in himself a denial of that! Perhaps, with all their blunderings and cruelties, Lenin and his crowd had caught hold of some sound idea. Perhaps it was the beginning of a new era in social history. He wanted to see for himself, to know. He had no preconceived ideas. He was out for the truth, whatever it might be.
“I’m afraid you’ll go Bolshevik!” said Bertram. “If you do, our friendship ends.”
He spoke the last words lightly, but not without sincerity and fear.
“I’ll let you know,” said Christy. “A post card will do. ‘I’ve gone Bolshy.’ ”
He laughed at the thought of the postcard travelling from Moscow with its awful message to the outer world. Probably the censor would seize it. It would be burnt at the end of a pair of tongs, lest it should spread sedition. Bertram’s world would never know. At some future date he might hear of his former friend leading a Red Army against Poland, or sitting with a long white beard, like Karl Marx, in the Kremlin, ruling Russia.
It was some minutes later when Bertram asked a question sharply:
“Have you told Janet Welford?”
Christy poked the fire, and put it out, with great deliberation.
“No.”