“It hasn’t happened yet,” said Christy. “It won’t happen.”
The young Jew was incredulous.
“We have read a lot about it in Prahvda. That’s our Soviet paper. All your people are starving, are they not?”
“They were pretty well fed when I left them,” said Christy, laughing.
The young Jew did not believe him, by the look in his eyes, but the curtain was rung up again, and they left him.
“They all think there’s been a bloody revolution in England,” said Christy. “They get no news except the stuff published for propaganda purposes. The outside world is a mystery to them.”
“It will soon be to us,” said Bertram. “I’ve heard nothing since I left Riga. For all I know England may have been sunk beneath the sea. Or Ireland.”
“No such luck,” said Christy, making the obvious gibe.
They went back through the snow with the audience of the Marinsky Theatre, to the music of sleigh-bells. That night they slept at a place called the International Hostel, which was another kind of “Guest-house,” mostly inhabited by Soviet officials of high rank, and by German traders. Most of the night was spent in catching bugs.