It was freezing cold; every member of the audience was bundled up in overcoats. Most of them – apart from the Russians – were patched and ragged; their breath condensed in the freezing air. But they listened intently. “There is nothing so terrible as activity without insight,” said Schopen. “But to the person with a firm purpose all things are servants.” Forrester recognised Colonel Tulpanov up on the platform, nodding sagely. He looked like a military Sydney Greenstreet, as hard as nails. Forrester was convinced the Russian had singled him out among the audience, and was fixing him with the kind of stare he would normally have given people he was interrogating. Even across a crowded hall, and without being held down in a chair by a couple of NKVD thugs, it was intimidating. “Be generous with kindly words, especially about those who are absent,” said the professor. “What is uttered from the heart alone will win the hearts of others, and as soon as you trust yourself, you will know how to live.”
