There was a touch on his shoulder and Lanzerotti sat down beside him, saying in a low voice, "All right, but talk fast. And smile now and then, so it will look casual. I understand how you couldn't discuss it last night with Rosa in the droshky." "She got angry," said Heidekopfer. "Just like Ann." "And you think you have the explanation?" "You said something about pattern. It makes one. Mass hypnotism." Lanzerotti gestured with one hand, as though he were pointing to the group around them. "I find that difficult to credit. The thing hasn't existed since the days of the dictators and their wars." "Remember that these people are the overflow of a totalitarian state. And I don't mean mass hypnotism with one person hypnotizing many, as among the old dictators, but with the group exerting mass pressure on one person. The will of all is the will of one." Lanzerotti smiled. "I think you misinterpret. There is undoubtedly some pressure from what might be called public opinion, but--" "Listen!" cried Heidekopfer, desperately. "It all fits together. Kazetzky twirled something bright in his fingers when he asked Rosa to spend the day with him, and all of them rallied round. They've achieved some kind of mental integration and they want to expand--" Lanzerotti laid a hand on his knee. "You're talking too loud. And I think on the wrong lines. The nature of this development is essentially elymosynnary--" Heidekopfer experienced a sensation of being surrounded by stone walls as two of the Tolstoians stood over them. One was a member of the Supreme Soviet whose name he had, of course, forgotten, and the other was a remarkably pretty girl with ash-blond hair pulled back from a well-shaped forehead. He got up, as the man from the Supreme Soviet said, "Sonia Grigorevna is the cousin of the patriarch Pitrim Androvich." "Heidekopfer, Robert Murrayovich," said Heidekopfer, dutifully. Lanzerotti repeated his part of the formula, but the girl seemed to be concentrating on the reporter. "Is it not a joy to be in this beautiful countryside?" she said, looking at him directly. "I find it so." "Would it be your will to let me show you some of the flowers of happy Tolstoia?" she said. * * * * * If he were right, this was his chance to get one of them apart from the rest, where the group pressure would presumably be less effective. He said, "It would please me very much." She reached out a hand to take his. "Come," and led the way across the bowl of green. A group of men and women stood in their path. "We are going to look at flowers together," the girl announced gaily. "Pitrim Androvich thinks it would be good." They all seemed to find something delightfully humorous in this, and there was a burst of laughter as they crowded round. "Flowers are nature's key to happiness!" boomed one of the men, patting Heidekopfer on the shoulder. "You will see what fine ones we produce in happy Tolstoia."