They talked of the mystery of life and death, the chances of world peace, the future of civilisation. Strange topics of conversation between a young man and woman! But travelling through Russia after war and revolution, they seemed the only subjects worth discussing.
Dr. Weekes joined them, and told stories of his experiences in Armenia and the Balkans—tragic tales of widespread famine, disease, death. He, too, balanced the possibilities of Western civilisation. Disease, unless checked by international effort, might wipe it out in Central Europe. It had already made deep tracks in fields of child life. Another war, anything like the last, would so weaken Europe, apart from its own massacres, that plague and pestilence might do more destruction than Attila and his Huns in the old days of the Roman Empire.
“You and I,” he said, turning to Nadia with his slow smile, “are two of the most important people in the world. We’re disease-killers, apostles of sanitation. But the odds against us are millions to one.”
“The fewer men, the greater share of honour,” said Nadia.
She had a surprising knowledge of literature, Russian, French, and English, and, better than such knowledge, a keen intelligence and candour of outlook which made her opinion astonishing for so young a woman.
But Bertram admired her, not for her cleverness of opinion, but for her spiritual quality and entire absence of self-consciousness. Delicate as she was, the daughter of an aristocracy to which physical labour had been abhorrent, she stooped to dirty work with a sense of beauty in its labour, and Bertram was horrified to find her swilling down the filthy lavatories before the rest of the travellers had stirred from their bunks.
“For God’s sake,” he said, “leave that to the provodnik. It’s his job, not yours.”
“It’s a job he neglects,” she said, smiling. “As one of the medical staff of ‘Ara,’ cleanliness and sanitation are in my department. The smell from this place is terrible.”
“All the more reason for you to avoid it,” said Bertram.
She shook her head.