A strange scene happened downstairs, as they were leaving. The news had gone round among the nurses that an officer of “Ara” had come to inspect the hospital, with means of help. Twenty of them suddenly came clamouring round Dr. Weekes, all crying together, all stretching out their hands to him, like a Greek chorus, with burning eyes in white faces. It was almost dark in the passage there, and Bertram was alarmed by those women’s eyes and by the almost savage anguish of their voices.
“What do they say?” asked Dr. Weekes, turning to Nadia. “What’s their trouble, anyhow?”
“They say they are starving. They implore you to send them bread. How can they nurse the sick, they say, when they are so weak and famished? Only last week two of them died of dysentery, caused by hunger. Soon they will all be dead, they say, unless they get some food.”
“Tell them,” said Dr. Weekes, “that the A. R. A. will send them food, though we are here only to feed the children of Russia.”
He turned to Bertram with troubled eyes.
“I think the Colonel will stand for that pledge. We can’t let these women starve.”
It was Nadia who translated the promise to them, and as though she were the Lady Bountiful who had been the means of rescue, they pressed round her, kissing her hands and her dress, until she laughed and protested, and pointed to the doctor as their champion. He hurried out with deep embarrassment, because one of them seized his hands and tried to kiss them.
That night, as a strange contrast to those scenes, Bertram went to the opera of Kazan with the Colonel and his little crowd. They were playing Boris Goudonoff to a crowded house of young Russians, who were warmly clad, and, in appearance, well fed.
“How is it possible that these people have enough to eat, and enjoy themselves,” asked the Colonel, “while millions are starving all around?”
“They enjoy themselves,” said Cyrus Sims, “but they’re all hungry. There’s not a single man or woman here that’s had enough to eat to-day. But they come to the opera as the one little gleam of light and joy and colour in the monotony of misery.”