At dawn we left Hango, but there was such a wind blowing that the ship
anchored just at the entrance of the harbour, and for a few hours we
swung round. No one complained of delay and no one seemed to be in a
hurry. There was no attempt to keep a scheduled time: a calm atmosphere
of fatalism, which is probably Russian, seemed to hang over us.
The sun was shining brilliantly when we finally set out to sea, and I
was having a most interesting conversation with Mr. Aschberg, a Swedish
banker, who did me the compliment of talking to me on political economy,
of which I understood nothing. He told me interesting things about
Bolshevik business transactions with Germany, in which it seemed that
the Bolsheviks were alienating the German workers by negotiating with
the German capitalists.
In my own mind I did not see how they could do otherwise, but my
ignorance on these things is so great, that I try to learn all I can
without giving myself away by asking too many questions. It is a slow
process, but I have hopes. The mere fact of being under the wing of a
man like Kameneff, and bound for Russia, seems to make people talk to me
as if I were a man. It is a great comfort no longer to meet people on a
social or superficial ground. There were people even who talked to me on
most obscure subjects, and asked for my intercession for them with
Kameneff!
At sunset we steamed into Reval, where the pointed towers and the sound
of old bells as in Italy awakened one to a new atmosphere that was no
longer Scandinavian. A motor met us at the quay, the only motor there,
and a man who had crossed with us, and whom I suspected of being a
British agent, said to me ironically as he drove away in a droshki:
“How very smart and distinguished of you to have a motor----”
Kameneff’s boy of twelve met us, and there were two small children as
well, belonging to Gukovski, the Soviet representative at Reval. They
took up most of the room that was needed for luggage. Alexandre Kameneff
had to stand on the step outside, and a soldier of the Red Army on the
other. Thus our curious car-load made its way, hooting loudly through
mediæval tortuous streets.
What followed is rather nebulous in my mind. I was very tired and the
town very dark; there were stars overhead, but no street lamps. We drove
to some bleak building called the Hotel Petersbourg, which seemed to be
the Bolshevik G.H.Q. It was dirty and grim, and full of strange-looking
people who talked no language that I understood. They looked at me
strangely; a great many hands shook mine. Kameneff was too busy to
explain to me what our plans were, or what was going to happen next, or
maybe he forgot that I could not understand. He was too surrounded for
me to be able to ask him any questions, so I just looked vague, waited
about and followed, relying on my eyes to convey the explanations that
my ears were denied. Kameneff was the centre of perpetual discussions
in which everyone spoke at the same moment, very quickly and very loud.
At first I suspected a most agitating State Council, but it turned out
to be merely a discussion as to where we should have supper. Finally it
was decided that we should go to the apartment in an hotel where the
wife of a Comrade would look after us. Off we went on foot over
cobblestones. The streets were full of people who moved like shadows,
and one could only see faces when they passed the glare of a lighted
doorway. We followed along in couples. At my side was Alexandre
Kameneff, a nice boy and friendly, but he could only talk Russian.
We got to the hotel (such an hotel, more like a wayside inn). We were
taken to the Comrade’s apartment, where his wife received us with great
cordiality and talked to me in good French.
There was a samovar, and we had excellent tea with lemon in it, and some
cold smoked salmon on thick slices of buttered bread. Kameneff and the
two Comrades were too absorbed in their discussion to eat anything. One
Comrade was telling something, Kameneff took notes, and our host, a
small nervous man, rolled bread pellets.
Madame, in an even voice, plied me with questions:
“When did you leave London?”
“How long did you take from Stockholm to Reval? Oh, dear, a day and a
half late! We have no news here, tell me some.”
“Is Comrade Kameneff really _chassé_ from England?”
“Is it true that Krassin will soon follow?”
“What pretty hair you have, mademoiselle. Is it naturally that colour?
Does it curl naturally so?”
“Is there a famine in England? I hear there is no longer sugar or
butter? But there will be a famine when your strike begins?”
“What, you have not a macintosh with you?”
“Nor an umbrella?”
“Nor thicker shoes than that?”
“But do you not know there is nothing to be had in Russia?”
“You have goloshes? That is good.”
“And soap? Yes, they will do your washing if you give them soap to do it
with----”
Kameneff left us to attend a meeting elsewhere. It was now pretty late,
and I was tired; the room was small, and full of smoke and food. When I
had finished my tea, Alexandre Kameneff and the soldier who had not left
us since our arrival, took me back to the headquarters. I did not know
what was to become of me, and no one understood me. The dimly-lit
corridors were crowded with strange loungers. I was shown into a grim
room where portraits of Lenin and Trotsky adorned the walls, and there I
sat silently among people I could not talk with. After awhile, to my
intense relief, Kameneff appeared. In this strange _milieu_ in which I
was so utterly lost, Kameneff seemed to me the oldest and the only
friend I had in the world, and I metaphorically clung to him as a
drowning man to a straw. Somebody in the crowd, taking pity on my
helplessness, or else wondering what I was asking for in three unknown
languages, had sent him to me. He asked what on earth I was doing there.
As if I knew! I followed him to another room, bigger and fuller of
people, who all looked very serious and sat in a circle. The meeting
went on, and I sat obscurely in a corner wondering whether, if I
understood Russian, I should be allowed to be there. At last, bored by
watching them and learning nothing from it, I got out a pencil and paper
from the hand-case I had with me and wrote a letter to Dick. It was the
last place from which I could post a letter and the last time I could
write letters uncensored. I wrote to Dick from my heart, thinking of him
at that moment in bed, so very far away, looking so round and pink, and
with one arm outside the bedclothes. In spirit I was kneeling by his
bedside and kissing the little bare arm. Dick and Margaret both know
that when I am away from them I come in spirit in the night, and they
often find a rose petal or a bud, or maybe a tiny feather, something
very light, that I leave on the pillow to prove that I have been. Never
had I been more with them in spirit than this night, when I felt so
lonely and bewildered. Later on I wrote an apology to F. E., explaining
why I had not turned up at Charlton to do his bust. It was one of the
things that I felt rather badly about, for I had left England the very
day that I was due at the Birkenheads’. I could not at that time
explain, and they must have thought me so very rude. It is funny that
none of these people, not even Kameneff have heard of F. E., either as
Smith, Lord Birkenhead, or Lord Chancellor. Chancellor of the Exchequer
they understand, but no other Chancellor.
When at last the meeting was over, I was introduced to Gukovski, and
gathered that we were in his room. He is a little bent man, who broke
his back some time past in a motor accident. He has red hair and beard,
and small narrow eyes that look at one with close scrutiny, and give one
a shivery feeling. He asked me what my mission was, and when I had told
him he said: “Do you think that you are going to get Lenin to sit to
you?” I did think so, and his eyes twinkled with merriment. “Well you
won’t!” he said and chuckled.
Kameneff went off to converse on the telephone with Tchicherin at
Moscow, and did not come back. I waited and waited, and Gukovski began
packing a trunk; he was evidently coming with us. I watched him, a man’s
packing is always a rather interesting and pathetic sight, but even that
ceased to interest me after awhile, and I became conscious of a feeling
bordering on tears and sleep. Where on earth was Kameneff, and why
didn’t he come back, or else explain to me how long this waiting was to
go on. After awhile I discovered that Gukovski’s secretary, a young man
called Gai, could speak perfectly good English. From him I learnt that
our train was leaving “about midnight” for Moscow, and that I could go
to it any time I liked and find my sleeper. I ought to have known this
long before as it was already nearly midnight. I made Alexandre Kameneff
and the soldier take me to the station immediately. Of course when I got
there the train was nowhere to be found--it was in a siding--and I sat
down on a stone step and waited, thankful at least for the fresh air and
the absence of glaring lights. When our “wagon-de-luxe” finally
[Illustration: BRIDGE BLOWN UP BY YUDENITCH.
_p. 61._]
appeared it was the best that I have ever seen. It had been the Special
of the Minister for Railways, and was very spacious and comfortable. As
soon as Kameneff, Gukovski and his little girl joined us, the train
started and we had a midnight supper of tea and caviare.