I went this afternoon, for the second time to-day, to the Soldiers’ Hospital. One of them asked me whether Paris was in Turkey. He said the Turks were nice. Another asked me whether there wasn’t a place where it was all water. I described Venice as best I could. On my way to the hospital I went to the Hôtel Dresden. Metrofan has been killed. His sister and his wife arrived in tears and in a terrible state. He was shot by a shell. _January 3rd._ In the hospital a soldier told me two fairy tales; one was about a wizard, and the other was in octosyllabic verse. It took twenty-five minutes to tell. When he alluded to the “cloak of darkness” he called it a “waterproof” cloak. _January 4th._ A cabman who drove me home last night drove me again to-day. He said it was lucky I had taken him yesterday, because he had not had another fare; and that he had told his comrades all about it, and had said he would have been lost had not the Lord sent him a Barine, and such a Barine too! (I had heavily overpaid him.) I said, “I suppose you said, ‘God sent you a fool.’” “Oh! Barine, don’t offend God,” he answered. The cabmen are a constant source of amusement to me here. The other day, when I was driving, the cabman stopped and made another one stop to admire his horse. After we drove on again, we kept on meeting again, and every time we met we slowed down, and the conversation about the horse and how much it had cost was continued. _January 5th._ I taught a soldier at the hospital the Latin alphabet. He said he would write me a letter soon in Latin letters; only he did not understand the use of the letters W and X; but he added, I will somehow or other find letters which will serve as equivalents to these in the Russian alphabet. From having had much conversation with people who defend the revolutionaries with what seems to me nonsensical exaggeration, I feel a wave of reaction coming over me. I can never resist this subtle spirit of contradiction when I am with people who belong to a party, and hear them express party feeling in unmeasured and exaggerated terms. If I am with violent Conservatives a subtle spirit of Liberalism rises within me, and _vice versâ_. Besides this, I hate political _parties_. CHAPTER VIII THE “INTELLIGENZIA” _January 6th._