Now there are two classes, the
bourgeoisie and the proletariat--"
"You are a fool! Why, my friend, I spent two years in Schl?sselburg
for revolutionary activity, when you were still shooting down
revolutionists and singing 'God Save the Tsar!' My name is Vasili
Georgevitch Panyin. Didn't you ever hear of me?"
"I'm sorry to say I never did," answered the soldier with humility.
"But then, I am not an educated man. You are probably a great hero."
"I am," said the student with conviction. "And I am opposed to the
Bolsheviki, who are destroying our Russia, our free Revolution. Now
how do you account for that?"
The soldier scratched his head. "I can't account for it at all," he
said, grimacing with the pain of his intellectual processes. "To me
it seems perfectly simple-but then, I'm not well educated. It seems
like there are only two classes, the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie--"
"There you go again with your silly formula!" cried the student.
"--only two classes," went on the soldier, doggedly.
ldquo;And whoever isn't on one side is on the other..."
We wandered on up the street, where the lights were few and far
between, and where people rarely passed. A threatening silence hung
over the place-as of a sort of purgatory between heaven and hell, a
political No Man's Land. Only the barber shops were all brilliantly
lighted and crowded, and a line formed at the doors of the public
bath; for it was Saturday night, when all Russia bathes and perfumes
itself.
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