Then Madame Roskova began to bring in her friends, who had been waiting impatiently to make Madame Palma's acquaintance, and once they began coming the little house was rarely free of them. For, since the privilege of visiting among themselves was about the only privilege the Free Command possessed, they availed themselves of it to the full. Their lives were hard and meagre, but in many cases their capacities for enthusiasm, and even their enthusiasms, had survived their sufferings. How they managed to live on the trifling allowance made by the paternal Government they would have found it difficult to explain. Their condition, indeed, was almost analogous to that of the proverbial villagers who wrung a livelihood out of one another's washing. Anna Roskova, for instance, earned scanty kopecks by mending and stitching for the officers of the guard. Then there were occasional trifling remittances from friends at home, some of which reached them and some of which did not. But all helped one another, and among them they fought the wolf from the door. They were most of them men and women of education and utterly unused to manual labour, save such as the mines had painfully taught them. And, since there was no opening for the professions, even if they had been allowed to follow them, they just grubbed along from hand to mouth as best they could and stubbornly refused to starve. They ate little and thought and talked much. Paul Pavlof--whom they knew only as Serge Palma--was better circumstanced than most, by reason of his quasi-official duties. But his own wants were of the smallest, and his hand and house and slim purse had always been open to all who needed help. Naturally, that house became the life-centre of the community and had rarely been without visitors of an evening, until the arrival of that least expected of all visitors turned the world upside down for some of them. While Hope lay in the little inner room, desiring nothing but quiet, Anna Roskova had rigidly forbidden visitors the house, and the cheerfulness of the community suffered eclipse. Now that the shadow had passed they returned with doubled enjoyment, and Hope need never lack company. They rejoiced in her courage in compassing that wearisome journey, and one and all made much of her. They brought her books and papers, such as they had, and were ready to sit and talk by the hour of Russia and their nipped hopes and blighted endeavours. When the distasteful day was over they came quietly in, one by one, and, over the steaming samovar of coarse brick tea, lived their lives again, and even ventured at times to entertain hopes of the future.