A friend was sitting with him—a musician, and at one moment they compared pistols, when the musician began gesticulating with a revolver. I felt nervous because Russians are so careless with firearms. M. Aladin said that in England there were precedents and prejudices about everything; here they were fighting in order to establish their precedents and their prejudices. I asked him whether, since he knew England well, he thought political liberty was really a great advantage, and whether the great _liberté de mœurs_ enjoyed by Russians did not compensate for the _habeas corpus_. He said he wasn’t certain whether political liberty was worth having, but he was convinced it was worth fighting for. Nobody can possibly accuse this man either of talking nonsense or of being a _doctrinaire_, but he seems to me a square peg in a round hole, as Kislitzki was in the war. He does not seem to evaporate in talk. His manner is mild, almost gentle, and you at once feel he has unlimited energy. That is to say, he is just the opposite of the ordinary “Intelligent” revolutionary, who is all words and no deeds. CHAPTER XX CURRENT IDEAS ON THE DUMA ST. PETERSBURG, _June 3rd_. “The Duma is impossible,” said the Frenchman. “In what country of the world are people who commit murder amnestied? And the land question—violent measures such as the Cadets propose will ruin the country. Agrarian reforms can only be gradual.” A young man who had lately joined the Cadet party started to his feet. “You forget,” he said, “that we are in the midst of a Revolution; that it is not a question of what other countries do in times of peace and prosperity. What is called amnesty here is called justice in other countries, and as for doing things gradually, it is too late. The Ministers come to the Duma and speak of gradual reform. It is like telling a person who has got appendicitis to go to the Riviera and enjoy the sunshine. Matters have been brought to such a pass that a drastic remedy is imperative. The very people who preach to us now that prevention is better than cure are those who during fifty years refused to prevent.”