“What?”
“Why not? I shall not listen to lies and remain silent!” said Ilse, laughing. “The Revolution was good. But the Bolsheviki are nothing but greedy thieves and murderers. You and I know that. If anybody teaches people the contrary, I certainly shall have something to say.”
Palla desired to purchase silk for sofa pillows, having acquired a chaise-longue for her bedroom.
So she and Ilse went out into the sunshine and multi-coloured crowd; and all the afternoon they shopped very blissfully––which meant, also, lingering before store windows, drifting into picture-galleries, taking 144 tea at Sherry’s, and finally setting out for home through a beflagged avenue jammed with traffic.
Dusk fell early but the drooping, orange-tinted globes which had replaced the white ones on the Fifth Avenue lamps were not yet lighted; and there still remained a touch of sunset in the sky when they left the bus.
At the corner of Palla’s street, there seemed to be an unusual congestion, and now, above the noise of traffic, they caught the sound of a band; and turned at the curb to see, supposing it to be a military music.
The band was a full one, not military, wearing a slatternly sort of uniform but playing well enough as they came up through the thickening dusk, marching close to the eastern curb of the avenue.
They were playing The Marseillaise. Four abreast, behind them, marched a dingy column of men and women, mostly of foreign aspect and squatty build, carrying a flag which seemed to be entirely red.
Palla, perplexed, incredulous, yet almost instantly suspecting the truth, stared at the rusty ranks, at the knots of red ribbon on every breast.
Other people were staring, too, as the unexpected procession came shuffling along––late shoppers, business men returning home, soldiers––all paused to gaze at this sullen visaged battalion clumping up the avenue.