He answered: “I have already sent him a message through the Delegation,
and he answered it not directly, but through a bitter newspaper
[Illustration: SPASSKY ENTRANCE TO THE KREMLIN.
_p. 99._]
article, in which he said I was a most horrible creature, and that our
army was an army of _puces_. How you say _puces_ in English? You know
the French _puces_? Yes, that is it, an army of fleas. I did not mind
what he said; I was glad. It showed that my message to him had angered
him.”
“When will Peace come to Russia? Will a General Election bring it?” I
asked.
He said: “There is no further news of a General Election, but if Lloyd
George asks for an Election it will be on anti-Bolshevism, and he may
win. The Capitalists, the Court, and the Military, all are behind him
and Churchill.”
I asked him if he were not mistaken in his estimate of the power and
popularity of Winston, and the importance and influence of the Court.
He got fiery. “It is an intellectual bourgeois pose to say that the King
does not count. He counts very much. He is the head of the Army. He is
the bourgeois figurehead, and he represents a great deal, and Churchill
is backed by him.” He was so insistent, so assured, so fierce about it,
that I gave up the argument.
Presently, he said to me: “What does your husband think of your coming
to Russia?”