But for us not to talk--for one of us to be silent--do you know how hard that is ?...

And through it all how I despise myself for wishing to tell them! What business is it of theirs?
Then this war.

Can you conceive what it is doing to Russians?
If you have loved Russia and dreamed for her and had your dreams flung again and again to the ground and trampled on--and now, once more, the bubbles are in the sky, glittering, gleaming ...

do we not have to speak, do you think?
Must it not be hard, when before we have not been able to be silent about women and vodka, to be silent now about the dearest wish of our heart?
We have come out here, all of us, to see what we will find.

I have come because I want to get nearer to something--I had brought something in my heart about which I had learnt to be silent.