Groups formed in the garden. People lay down on the grass, and political discussions were held by recumbent speakers. When they reached a certain pitch of excitement they knelt. Two men attracted my attention by the heated argument in which they were engaged, kneeling opposite each other in a circle of recumbent listeners. Presently a bell rang and the meeting was resumed. I said to one of the arguers: “Why do you all quarrel so much? You are disunited, and there is only one Government.” He took me aside and explained his views. He was a tall, bearded, intelligent-looking man, a native of the Urals; he had been a soldier and an engineer, and had had to leave the country for his opinions. He had educated himself in France, Germany, and Belgium, and had attended a Labour Congress in London. He was a Social Democrat. He said this meeting was absurd. “You see the real workmen can’t come to a meeting like this; it’s too expensive. I was disappointed in Aladin’s speech. I think he is unfair in blaming us for being feeble compared with the French revolutionaries. The circumstances are different. We have the proletariate here, and that important fact makes a great difference.” I asked him if he thought there would be a social revolution in Russia. He said he thought Socialism must be adopted by all countries at the same moment. He thought that the Russian people were less capable of introducing it than any people. “When these people talk the poverty of their thought appals me,” he said. “And then the monotony of the tragic note—never a gleam of humour; never a touch of irony. Count Heyden is the only man in the Duma who shows any signs of it. Look at our Government, they lay themselves open to ridicule. By ridicule one can pulverise them; nobody thinks of doing it, and the strain of this long-drawn-out tragic emphasis is intolerable. Yes, I was disappointed in Aladin. But the first time I saw him I was convinced that he would play a part in the Russian Revolution. It is a good thing that such men should be. Gapon, however much we may blame him, played a great part.” I found he thoroughly disbelieved in the Cadets and believed only in the proletariate. Later on other speeches were made denouncing the Cadets and the foreign loan, and a resolution was passed repudiating it. The meeting went on till past seven o’clock, and then the mass of people returned to St. Petersburg, having thoroughly enjoyed their picnic. I went to the Duma yesterday afternoon and heard some of the speeches of the much-abused Cadets. It was like listening to Mr. Asquith and Mr. Haldane after a dose of Hyde Park oratory. But because people appear to one to talk nonsense that is no proof that they will not get the upper hand. “Vous êtes des verbiageurs,” said the Duc de Biron to the revolutionary tribunal. They guillotined him nevertheless. And Danton said that Robespierre was not capable “de faire cuire un œuf.” Yet Robespierre played a part in the Revolution.