I am at a loss to understand how I came to join the demonstration over Turkey, with its flags and banners. To think of my dragging myself about the streets singing and shouting “Hurrah” and making a fool of myself generally! What a hero I felt! My heroism has brought on a bad cold, I am afraid. I have a stiff neck today and feel shivery without my coat. When I got home I found a large company collected there. It consisted of Nikolai and his wife and the inevitable Kindiakov, a lawyer, Sashenka’s friend, Fimotchka, a midwife, and a few others, making seven in all.
To celebrate the occasion I got out four bottles of wine, presented to me by Zvohansky some time back in August. We were more intoxicated by the news than the wine. We shouted and argued and made sport of Turkey; we sang national anthems, Kindiakov accompanying on the piano. It was three in the morning when I got to bed, for I had to see Fimotchka home first. It is well that I have had a snooze today, otherwise I should have been very irritable.
This is the first time in my life that I have taken part in a national demonstration, and I must confess, it was an interesting experience. I shall never forget it as long as I live. This may seem absurd to the more experienced, but what interested me the most was, that no matter where we marched, on pavement or road, the traffic stopped to make way for us. And then the flags, the spontaniety of our singing, the fact that police and soldiers saluted us as we passed, gave us a martial air, and made us feel as though we, too, were part of the war—we were the troops for home defence. There were some retired military and naval men among us, and one old fellow, an admiral, would insist on us marching in time, and when he succeeded in making us do so, now and again, our singing grew more measured and we felt more and more like soldiers on their way to the battlefield. With what a sense of joy did we sing! What faith we had in the invincibility of our strength, and how certain we felt of victory! I don’t know whether it was the strangeness of the procession, or the fact that the streets looked different, but despite my enthusiasm, the sense of panic I had felt on the first day came over me again. Distant Turkey and the war itself seemed to have come closer, so close that we could have touched them; we felt their nearness, and the sense of security was gone. It seemed as though the whole structure of our lives would collapse, and we should go down into the abysses of hell. The Turks, again, played no part in this fear; we despised them too much, and could even afford to pity them for having been duped; our fear was based on some inexplicable cause. Something I saw this morning would perhaps illustrate my meaning. On the way to the office I saw a load of young trees that were meant for planting somewhere, no doubt. Their delicate roots, with the soil clinging to them, were in baskets, but the poor things rocked to and fro on the boards. They must have felt very forlorn and strange, and were wondering where they were going. The new soil may be good for them in time to come, but until they become accustomed to the difference between the old soil and the new, they must feel very insecure.
I don’t know whether it was my enthusiasm or my fear that made me shout “Hurrah,” but while I shouted with all my heart in it, I thought, nevertheless, “My God, my God, when is it going to end?” I looked at the drizzling sky, misty and grey … the ways of the world are so enigmatical … the sky was the same as of old, the houses, those I had known in my boyhood. Where was the difference then, if houses and sky and people were the same? What had happened? I reduced myself to such a state in the end as to wonder whether I had changed personally, and a strong desire came over me to see my own face in the glass as I shouted “Hurrah.”
My enthusiasm has gone today and my fear too. Nothing on earth would make me open my mouth to shout or to sing. I am filled with a dull aching despair. My God, what is the use of it all? As a good Russian I can’t help being pleased at the prospect of the Straits and Tsar-Grad becoming ours, but my pleasure is not altogether unalloyed. We have got on quite well without Tsar-Grad so far, and what is to happen to my fat little Turk, Ibragim-Bey, who can’t escape being killed? I must be sorry for him.
I don’t know why I compare myself to that fat little Turk, for I am not fat at all. It seems such a pity that he should be hurt when he never hurt anyone. His blood will rise, of course, for the Turks are a fiery race, but why should he be roused at all? Even the gentlest dog will turn on his master when teased enough. I dislike this war intensely, for all the fine talk of the men in our office.
I was foolish enough today to try to explain to Lidotchka something about the war and Turkey. I even pointed Turkey out to her on the map. The little thing didn’t understand, of course; she was more interested in the idea that there was so much water. She made me leave my paper to come and watch her skipping. Skip away, my child, skip away, and rejoice that you are not a Belgian or Polish child, for you would have perished in the flames or been killed by a bomb dropped from the clouds.
How horrible to think that even children are being slaughtered!