Hearing that there was a review of troops in the Red Square at 11
o’clock, I went to see what I could see. Everyone else seemed busy, and
Michael Markovitch, whom I wanted, was not to be found. If he had come
with me I should have taken my kodak, but I have not a permit and did
not feel like risking a controversy alone. Arrived in the Red Square, I
was not allowed to get anywhere near, and I did so want to see and hear
Trotsky addressing the troops. Soldiers kept the onlookers absolutely
out of the square, and I stood on the steps of the wonderful church of
St. Basil. The soldiers certainly were very amiable, and, when I
wandered rebelliously from my steps out into the road, a bayonet was
levelled smilingly at me; I made a gesture of not understanding, and
said helplessly in English “Where do you want me to go?” Whereupon the
soldier laughed and allowed me to stand by his side. The crowd was very
quiet and apathetic, one certainly was not near enough to get excited.
In the dim distance one could hear Trotsky’s voice, punctuated by cheers
from the soldiers. After awhile the crowd broke forward to where I stood
with the soldier. Some mounted detachments came towards us, very
decorative indeed with bright coloured uniforms and lances with
fluttering pennons. Suddenly a man at my side said to me in French:
“Madame, does this please you?” I was very glad to have someone to speak
to; the man was young, and, though ill-shaved, was well-dressed in
uniform. He could speak German also, but English he said he had
forgotten, though he had at one time spent three months in England.
Waving a hand contemptously towards the scene before us, he said:
“_C’est du théâtre, Madame_--that is all it amounts to.” I ventured to
say that a theatrical display was not much use unless there were
spectators. In England, I assured him, we had our military pageants for
the benefit of the people, but what was the use of this if we were not
allowed anywhere near? He replied that it was a necessary precaution for
the protection of Trotsky. I laughed: “We are three gunshots away, at
least.” Then to my amazement the man began to discuss and criticise, and
talk what seemed to me pure Counter-Revolutionary stuff. From all one
has ever heard about Russian conditions (Tsarist as well as
Revolutionary) it seemed to me that he was strangely indiscreet, and I
asked him: “Are you not mad to talk like this in a crowd? Anyone may
understand French.” He shrugged his shoulders: “One has lived so long
now side by side with death that one has grown callous.” He then asked
if I would care to go for a walk. I felt rather selfconscious of walking
away in front of the crowd with a man whom they had seen me so obviously
“pick-up.” However, in Russia there are no conventions, it was only my
bourgeois blood rushing to the surface again that made it seem peculiar.
We went down to the river and leaned against the railing and talked for
a long time. He was certainly very interesting and amazingly indiscreet.
Happily I have nothing with which to reproach myself. I adopted a
perfectly good Bolshevik point of view, and argued in my usual way about
wars and blockades, and urged him to have imagination and to look
further ahead than to-day and to-morrow. We talked about idealists,
reviewed a few Tsarist items, and made comparisons, but everything I
said provoked him to further extreme utterances. He wished finally that
he might have an opportunity of showing me “the other side.” He invited
me to go to a factory with him. I asked what use that would be as I
cannot speak a word of Russian. He said he would like to present to me
his father and his uncle, but as they were both “known” he would have to
be very careful. Finally we exchanged my name and address for his
telephone number. He said that if I would telephone him to-morrow,
Sunday night, he would meet me outside my front gate at 11 on Monday
morning, but he would not dare to come into the house.
At 1 o’clock a.m. (I have adopted the Russian habit of not going to bed)
I saw Michael Markovitch, when he returned from the Commissariat, and
told him about it. He said that he must be the queerest sort of
Counter-Revolutionary he had ever heard of, and advised me to leave him
alone.