I crossed Nevsky and stood on the other side. From there I could not
hear Comrade Trotzky, but studied his movements and gesticulation, his
manner of scratching his nose, of quickly turning his head in a derby,
and the nervous shrugging of his shoulders. The mob applauded him
after every phrase, making his speech a series of separate sentences
and thus giving him the advantage of thinking of most radical ideas,
while awaiting for the listeners to finish the applause.
I have finally decided to give in my resignation. What is the use? No
work is being done. We only talk. The whole administration, the whole
administrative machinery, stands still, evidently retrograding every
day.
Many understand it. Rodzianko is going away south; a man whom they
think too old and too much of a reactionary. He is quite depressed,
I presume, but likes to look perfectly satisfied. When I asked him
whether the war looked to him as though it were to be continued, he
gazed at me, and not after hesitation sighed, and said:
"Yes, if the army will stand the effects of order number one."
And then, fearing the next question coming, he assumed the air of a
busy man and shook hands--"as he had to go and see his relatives."
Nearing the house I saw Kerensky in the Emperor's car, proud, and
smiling to left and right. His Excellency, the Minister of Justice!
3.
Everybody is sure and proud that he is building up the new Russia.
Lawyers and doctors, engineers and priests, all run with busy
faces,--they think a statesman of today must run,--everybody gives
orders, counter-orders, nobody carries them out, nobody listens. There
are about 200,000 Napoleons in Petrograd today; as they multiply by
section, this number will be enormous before long. The situation,
however, does not improve....
In the office there was quite a discussion of the probabilities, and
I was listening to the younger people. Criticism and "my own opinion"
are the main sicknesses. Perhaps the private initiative used to be so
hardly oppressed, that it comes out at present in excess.
Why should lawyers be convinced, that their profession gives them
the right, _primo genio_ to be statesmen? I should suggest an
archeologist, or a man in charge of a lighthouse.
4.
We all went to the "Farce," Maroossia and F., myself and Misha.
Afterwards we had supper. At the next table to us were the M's.,
Alexander Ivanitsky and the Baroness B. Since her return she certainly
looks much better. At first I did not see her, then before all she
reprimanded me in her usual kind manner. She had grown a little
thinner and has more jewelry I should say, and is as fascinating as
before. When she speaks one can see that she thinks of far distant
things.
"We all are busy these days," she said, when I asked her whether she
came here from England just for curiosity to see all of us under the
Provisional Government. "You did not change at all." Misha, who did
not know B. before, did not like her very much,--in fact, they all
think she is suspicious. Aren't these youngsters peculiar? Especially
Misha who is so grouchy lately--all seems dangerous to him. I never
think that a woman can be anything but pretty or hideous. There is no
middle, and no suspicion about them. If a woman is, what they perhaps
would call "suspicious"--then there is a man's influence behind
her--so find the man (and it is easy) and she is as plain as a card
on the table. Baroness B. is pretty. And if she likes to talk like a
Pythia,--that's her way of making people interested in her.
Maroossia complained of a headache, so we left early. Baroness is in
the Hotel d'Europe--she is so sorry that "her Astoria" became such a
hole. Well--not only her Astoria.
5.
It certainly would be a wonder to expect anything but confusion from
the men who recently became the leaders of 180 millions. The leaders
are sure they can make wonders.
Prince Lvov! This old squeaking carriage, as Polenov says, is a man
from whom I would not expect anything. It is enough to look at his
beard, with remnants of yesterday's dinner on it, at his small blue
foxy eyes always reddish and always dropping tears. Miliukov! Minister
of Foreign Affairs! All his experience consists of a continuous chain
of political breaks and a series of moderately paid, superficial
articles on Balkan questions in a provincial newspaper. And, Monsieur
Kerensky,--_la fine fleur_--the Minister of Justice, a little man with
a single kidney and a double ambition. Insects!
These people would not be able to administer a small country
community, and here they are confronted with three immense
propositions: the Great War, the building up of a new state, and the
fighting of an organized propaganda directed against the war, and
against order.
It was enough for the ladies (and for Maroossia too) to see all of
these people in power, in order to find interesting points, not only
in their political activities, that would not be so bad--but in their
private lives too. They all already know who these people are,
what they eat, when and where they were born, what their wives and
mistresses look like, etc., etc., up to the most intimate deeds and
traits of their characters. The foreign ladies also take a very keen
interest in those little tea-chats. All prefer to listen to them much
rather than to the events at the front.
Vadbolsky wrote me a letter sent through the "Help the Soldiers"
society. Of course he could not say much. They all realize that
discipline is going down with tremendous speed, at least at the
Northern front. The soldiers listen more to what the Council of
Deputies say than to anything else. This treble power--the Council,
the Government and the Army Authorities--must be united, but there is
no one to realize it; and if there were, there would be no possibility
of co-ordinating the different currents.
6.
Evening with the Ivanitskys.
After dinner we all went into the library and started as usual to
speak of our very bad affairs, the high cost of living, even here, in
a private home, reserved, not to be accused of reactionary tastes. The
ladies looked at every one who would start to talk, as if he would be
_the man_ to solve all of our complicated problems and mishaps.
Baroness B., whom I had seen very much lately, talked to me for a
while in a corner, to the ridiculous anger of Maroossia who went to
bed tonight without kissing me. She (the Baroness) said that Sophie
had already reached London after the stay in Copenhagen and Paris.
"Her mission," she said,--as usual coquettishly and childishly looking
around with a fear of being overheard,--"was a failure." In Copenhagen
"they would not even listen", to Sophie, and she was told that the
solution and the "démarches" must be made, if made, from London, as
there people have every means to arrange with Berlin. I asked the
Baroness to keep all of this news to herself, and not to drag me, or
what would be worse, Maroossia, into any conspiracy. "Be just as you
are and don't try to become more serious, it may spoil you"--. Heavens
knows what the Baroness has become since her peculiar conduct with the
Vassilchikov and her permanent whisperings to Madame Vyrubov and
the rest of the gang. But still, there was already a movement about
Tsarskoe Selo. If I were not so particular about avoiding silly
conversations, I would have asked her what she meant by communicating
Sophie's failure to me.
Finally, I am glad, I did not ask her questions. What is the use of
the Emperor's release to me? A man who did not know how to pick his
advisors, who did not know how to arrange his home affairs, his Alice
von Hessen Darmstadt, his monks and his generals, does not deserve to
be too much regretted, and certainly does not deserve too particular
interest. Baroness B's. actions are strange. Is she paid? By whom?
Cash? Promises?...
(_a page missing_)
... was stopped by me and slightly pursed her red lips, we joined
the rest, where a British Major (I never can think of his name) was
telling of his experiences in the research work for German propaganda
in Petrograd. So sorry he had to speak French with his typical
Anglo-Saxon struggles with "D" and "T," that makes French so perfectly
ununderstandable in an English mouth. It is horrid that people like
the Ivanitskys don't know English well enough, and now, when we all
have to be among our British allies, we make ourselves, and the allies
as well, simply ridiculous!
So the Major explained that their man was at several meetings of a
body, which he called "Le conseil secret du parti bolchévique" (that
must have been something very bad indeed), where a man by name Lenine
was present, also communists Bronstein, Nakhamkes, Kohan, Schwarz
and others, I forget. They all are conspiring. "Be no war with
our brethren," "Be peace on earth," "Closer together peasants and
soldiers, workingmen and poor," "To hell with the intelligentzia,"
"Long live the International," etc., etc., was all we saw on the
banners lately. The queerest thing is that the British agent at the
meeting saw amongst the anarchists several men from the police, and
a fellow by name of Petrov, the same one that had the accident on the
Moscow railway and was asked to leave the Foreign Office a couple of
years ago. Now Petrov is with the communists. Again the agent reported
the presence of the 1905 blackhundreds. They all are there, and
instead the "Boje Tsaria Khrani," they shout the International. They
all understand their people (the agent said) and they all are with
the Lenine and others, to return to the sweet past by destroying the
bitter present. Sir George, the Major continued, knew all about these
significant political blocks, and reported them to London, but the
Foreign Office and the Conseil de Guerre seem to be either ignorant (I
would not be very much surprised), or know more than the Ambassador,
so, as yet, our Cabinet has not been warned. Our Cabinet! It sounds
majestic.... Since Miliukov left, and the mercantile Monsieur
Tereshchenko took his hot seat--everything goes to the devil with our
policy abroad. It is strange, for Mr. Tereshchenko must be well posted
in foreign relations: both of his French twin mistresses gave him
every possibility of becoming "bien versé."
But--oh, shades of Count Nesselrode and Prince Gorchakov! Inspire
the newcomer, looking from the walls of the Foreign Office, at his
struggles! Your illegitimate son needs your sense and help ...
7.
Since the scandalous discovery of the plot (Mr. Kerensky took personal
care to make it scandalous)--perhaps it was not a plot, but just a
few letters of the Gr. Duchess M.P., Tsarskoye Selo has become very
difficult to reach and to visit. A few days ago Maroossia came
home from A. very late and so tired that I thought she was ill. The
communication seems completely stopped, and soldiers were looking in
the automobile every five minutes. Once she thought they would arrest
her. Sentinels not only around the Palace, but in the garden too, with
a double chain of Reds on the streets! The General told Maroossia that
some one explained to him that these difficulties and impediments were
provoked by the successes of the Germans on the Riga front, and that
they expect a serious drive on Petrograd, and twice insinuated about
her going to Yalta, or Gurzoof, or Gagry,--as things there rapidly
were becoming complicated. So said the Admiral too, in his peculiar
way: "The rats before a shipwreck usually feel the coming wreck by
instinct, and run on the decks." He said that was his impression in
Tsarskoye. Every rat is exceedingly nervous and tries to disappear
from the Palace under some pretext or other, and the Palace is
deserted.
Kerensky is coming there very often, usually with his milk-fed
A.D.C.... This man wants to be generous, he wants to be square, in
fact,--he wants to be magnificent. He calls the Emperor "Colonel
Romanov," or "Nikolai Alexandrovich." Never says, "Your Majesty." He
feels sure that he is beloved in Tsarskoye, and that they speak of
him with tears of gratitude, admiring his justice and his manners. I
hardly think Kerensky realizes that they are simply frightened, and
feel with their inborn appreciation of the man, that by playing on his
exceedingly well developed self-veneration--they might be saved.
I have been told in the Club that the Government is planning to get
rid somehow of the whole family. The foxy old Polenov explained to us
after bridge that he would not be surprised if Kerensky would say to
the Lenine crowd that the Emperor should be taken somewhere in the
country on account of the German advance, and to Buchanan ... on
account of the growing strength of Lenine. "Many more people are
interested in this affair," he said, "than even Kerensky knows. If he
knew, he would have a larger field for bargaining."
Devil knows who is who now! If police officers enlist in the
communists,--what is next? Trotzky's going to a high mass?
8.
Dined with Buchanans and the Lazarevs. Ros. was wounded. We all
enjoyed this little story:--
A German girl was asked:
"Können sie Ibsen?" To which she replied:
"Nein! Wie macht man das?"
9.
I suspected, and feared, that it could or might have happened,--and so
it was!
Yesterday Mikhalovsky asked me to come to his office. He looked queer
and worried, and when I stepped in, he closed the door and started to
reproach me with every sign of excitement, so proper to him; spitting
all over my face.
"I never expected that from you! I never expected! How is it? What is
it!?..." and so on.
I stopped him and asked him to be more explicit, as I could not grasp
all of the meaning of his eloquence. After he lit a cigarette (how
many times this little thing has been a salvation!) Mikhalovsky became
more comprehensible and told me that Misha phoned at one o'clock in
the night and asked him to come immediately to the Intelligence in his
private office. Mikhalovsky, who is now taking great care of himself,
drinks some waters, takes green pills and goes to bed at nine, became
enraged and refused, but Misha said he was an ass, and simply had to
dress and go to the headquarters. So the old thing had to dress and
appear. Misha showed him a short note from the French Agent which
read something like this:--"Baroness B. evidently communicating with
Copenhagen through Sharp and Starleit M. General Z. to be approached,
also Quart.--General R. In one instance a package carried to
Sestroretsk by a lady in a blue tailor suit with white fox fur. Trail
lady, arrest Baroness B. Watch Finland Depot, radio to Generals Z. and
R." No signature.
My astonishment was very great, and I said that "though I have known
Baroness B. quite well since I met her in Paris and Monte Carlo
and...."
(_five lines scratched out from manuscript_).... "Quit your damn jokes
for a while," he exclaimed. "Do you realize, what you are talking
about? The lady with the fox--is Maroossia!"
"Maroossia? Spying?" I said, becoming angry in my turn. "You will have
to account for it, Boris Platonovich, as even an old friend and
relative must think over those accusations."
Then Mikhalovsky explained that Misha's man followed the lady--up to
the house, and that it _was_ Maroossia. Another one "listened in," and
understood from Maroossia's and Baroness B's. conversation, that
my wife took the package to a certain Madame van der Hüchts in
Sestroretsk, on being told to do so by the Baroness, and that she did
not know what there was in it, and even did not know who Madame van
der Hüchts was.
"You see, you boneheaded fool," Mikhalovsky continued, "what was the
danger? If Misha had not succeeded in having his own man listen in,
and do it quietly, all of this detective work, your Maroossia would be
gone by this time." "But,"--he continued, "now the case is closed,
as far as your wife is concerned, and the only thing I wish to insist
upon,--is to get Maroossia out of here right now. Furthermore, you
should give her a scolding."