“...The war had already entered the slow life of people, but it was still judged by old magazines. I still half-believed that war could happen now, in our time. Somewhere in the east, in case of pacification in China, they kept soldiers in lambskin caps to guard the borders, but no one can have any real war with Russia. Russia is bigger and stronger than anyone in the world, so what if it was defeated by the Japanese, and if anyone touches it, it will all rise up, all the millions of its Orthodox gray heroes. No one doubted that Russia would win, and there was more curiosity than anxiety about what would happen if the war had already begun...”