A great adventure of the soul? Yes, there was something in that. Life at its bleakest and barest like a Polar expedition to which men like Shackleton and Scott had gone so blithely. For him also, this Russian visit was to be a great adventure of the soul. Perhaps with this girl who offered him her love! Queer that! It wouldn’t be bad to “see it through” with her. He had no other call now, no kind of human tie elsewhere. Why not see it through in Russia as well as anywhere in the world? It was cut off from the rest of the world almost as completely as Robinson Crusoe’s island. A shipwrecked country of a hundred and fifty million people, with himself among them!
They talked of the Bolshevik régime. He denounced it as the greatest tyranny on earth, the most brutal type of Government ever devised by evil minds.
She shook her head at that.
“Not quite so bad. They have done some good. They have taught the people to read and write—millions of them. They have fed the children first—always.”
Bertram was amazed at her tolerance.
“Surely you don’t defend these people?”
“No,” she said, “but I understand them. They have been cruel, but through fear. They were afraid of counter-revolutions, plots of every kind. They stamped out their enemies lest the Revolution should be defeated and Czardom brought back. So it was in France, under Robespierre, was it not?”
“This Communism!” said Bertram. “It seems to me an outrage against human nature. It attempts to crush the individual instinct which is the strongest thing in life.”
“Yes,” she answered, “that is true, I am sure. But the individual must subordinate his instincts to the good of the Commonwealth. One must not forget that Communism was killed by the peasants—and alas, they too were greedy and cruel when they had the only source of wealth.”
“Is there any hope at all for human nature?” asked Bertram.