Twelve hours with Kameneff!!!
He arrived at 11 a.m. with a huge album of photographs of the
Revolution, very interesting. After looking at it he sat to me for an
hour. We then lunched at Claridges’. After lunch we went for a taxi
drive along the Embankment, and passing the Tate Gallery, went in. It is
being re-arranged, but we found the Burne-Jones’ that Kameneff was
looking for. He stood for a long time before “The King and the
Beggar-maid.” I suppose that in the new system all the beggar-maids are
queens, and that the real kings sit at their feet.
At 4 o’clock we went to Trafalgar Square to see what was going on. The
Council of Action were having a meeting. Kameneff assured me that he
must not go near the platform, or be recognised by his friends, as he
was under promise to the Government to take no part in demonstrations,
nor to do any propaganda work. However, I dragged him by the hand to the
outskirts of the crowd, and for no reason that I can explain, the shout
went up, “Gangway for speakers,” and a channel opened up before us, and
we were rushed along it. Happily for Kameneff, there was a hitch as we
approached the platform. The crowd thought that a policeman was
favouring us unduly, and getting us to the platform, and a youngish man
said: “Stop that, policeman, this is a democratic meeting” and tried to
prevent us going any farther. For awhile I felt the hostility of the
people around me.
One of the speakers, referring to the spirit of 1914, said that we had
given our husbands and sons then, but that we did not mean ever to give
them again, and, I, thinking of Dick, joined in the shouts of “Never,
never!” with some feeling, and I felt the atmosphere kindlier around me
after that. When Lansbury tried to speak, he was acclaimed with cheers,
and had to wait patiently while they sang “For he’s a jolly good
fellow,” and cheered him again.
He seemed to me to talk less of “Class” and more of “Cause.” Just for a
second he paused when saying, “What we have to do, is to stop----” I
filled in the gap with “Mesopotamia.” Whereupon the crowd shouted “Here,
here!” and “God bless you!” After that I was one of them. Then someone
recognised Kameneff, and the whisper went round and spread like
wildfire. The men on either side of him asked if they might announce
that he was there, to which he answered a most emphatic “No.”
When Lansbury had finished speaking, there was an appeal for money for
the “Cause.” It was interesting to watch the steady rain of coins, and
very touching were the pennies of the poor. Lansbury buried his face in
his hat for protection.
After that we went away, and a gangway was made for us, and all along
the whisper went of “Kameneff,” and the faces that looked at us were
radiant as though they beheld a saviour.
We took a taxi and drove to Hampton Court, and went into the park, to
get away from the Sunday crowd. We sat on Kameneff’s coat on the grass
in the middle of an open space, and the air was heavy and the sun
fitful, as though a storm impended. The distant elms were heavy green,
and there was a great stillness and calm.
We talked about the meeting, and of the magnetism of a crowd. He noticed
my suppressed excitement, for I had blood to the head! If we had been
rushed to the platform, I could have
[Illustration: BUST OF KRASSIN.
_p. 23._]
spoken to the people, I am sure that I could. He said that he had been
terribly moved to speak, and that it had been a great effort to hold
back.
We talked and talked, and then some rain drops forced us to get up and
return to the Mitre hotel for dinner. After dinner, the weather cleared,
and we had a lovely hour and a half in a boat on the river. There was a
three-quarter moon, and the water reflected the pink lights from the
Chinese lanterns of the houseboats. From the garden of Hampton Court,
rose up what seemed to be a giant cypress tree, silhouetted against the
dusk, and the reflection of it doubled its height. It was like something
in Italy. I rowed the boat, which I loved doing, and Kameneff hummed
Volga boatman-songs. Or else we broke back into discussions, and then he
forgot that he was steering, and we had several slight collisions, and
narrow escapes from more serious ones!
It was a very successful evening, and we came back by the last train to
Waterloo, _still_ talking, chiefly about that impending and all
absorbing visit to Moscow, and we parted on my doorstep at a quarter to
midnight.