Comrade Alexandre telephoned that he would fetch me at 1 o’clock to go
to the fur store. I suppose the intense cold had at last moved either
his pity or his anxiety for me. Before I left Vanderlip said that if
there were any choice, and I was fool enough not to choose a sable coat,
he would never speak to me again. The threat left me unmoved. It is only
on occasions of necessity, when we exchange valuable presents (say a new
tooth brush for a box of pills), that we have an armistice. On the way
to the fur store Alexandre picked up another man, unknown but very nice,
with whom I talked a mixture of English and German. We went to one of
the biggest store-houses in Moscow, which, like all the rest, had been a
private firm, but has been requisitioned by the Government. It was a
cave-like building, dark and stone cold. We went up in a cage lift to
what seemed to be the attic. It was low and long and dark, and an
arc-light barely lit up the corner. Coats hung from the ceiling like so
many hundred Bluebeard wives.
I took off mine to try on. An old man who looked like Moses and spoke
German showed me the best and told me to make my choice. Alexandre
looked on with a grim smile, and asked if I were the proverbial woman,
or whether I would make my choice within reasonable limits of time. It
was not easy. The coats dated back three years, and some were even too
old-fashioned for Moscow. I liked a brown Siberian pony lined with
ermine, but the moth had got into the pony. I liked a broadtail, but it
was thin as cloth; they offered to have it fur-lined for me, but my need
was immediate. There was a mink, but it had an old-fashioned flounce.
There were astrachans, but everyone in Moscow has astrachan, it seemed
too ordinary. I felt bewildered. My attention then wandered to a row of
shubas: big sleeveless cloaks of velvet, that wrap around one, and
descend to one’s feet. There was a dream lined with blue fox, and
another with white. My friends put one round my shoulders, it was lined
with sable: light as a feather, and warm as a nest. I despairingly
voiced the fact that I could not walk about the streets of Moscow in a
wine coloured velvet and sable cape. They said I could, but then they
were wrong. “I look much too bourgeoise, I shall be shot!”
“You won’t be shot, and sable is good enough for a good worker.” I
showed a sable stole to Alexandre and told him it was the blackest and
most beautiful bit of sable one could find. He shrugged his shoulders
with perfect indifference, and said he knew nothing about it. Finally I
walked out in a very practical black Siberian pony lined with grey
squirrel, divinely warm, though rather heavy, and Alexandre said to me:
“Now you can say that you have shared in the Government distribution of
bourgeois property to the people.”
At 7.30 pm. Trotsky sent his car for me, but a soldier stopped us before
we even reached the block where the War Ministry is. The whole bit of
road was being especially guarded. The reason for this is that foreign
papers have announced an impending counter-Revolution, but if there is
any such plot their warning has been given most obligingly in time, and
steps have been taken to deal with it. The town is placarded with
notices that inhabitants must not be out after midnight. It gave one
just a small thrill, and there have been none so far. This evening when
I arrived Trotsky stood by the fire while I was warming, and I asked him
for news. He says that the German workers have voted in favour of
joining the Moscow International which is very important. “England is
our only real and dangerous enemy,” he said. “Not France?” I asked. “No,
France is just a noisy, hysterical woman, making scenes: but
England--that is different altogether.” He talked about the persistence
of the foreign Press in decrying the stability of the Soviet
Government. All the governments of Europe, he said, had undergone
changes in the last three years, he pointed to France, Italy, the
Central Powers, Turkey, and finally Poland. The British Government was
holding out longer than any other, but that was pretty rocky, and its
ministers were constantly changing their posts. The Soviet Government
was the oldest government in Europe, and the only one in which the
ministers retained their posts and displayed any unity, and this is
spite of every effort on the part of the world to dislodge them.
He then busied himself at his table with papers. I worked for an hour
and we never spoke, but he never disregarded me as Lenin did. I could
walk round Lenin and look at him from all sides, he remained absorbed in
his reading, and apparently oblivious of my presence. Whenever I go near
Trotsky he looks up from his work sharply with piercing eyes and I
forget which part of his face I was intent upon. Towards the end of the
evening, when even my tiptoe stalking had aroused him, he asked me:
“_Avez vous besoin de moi_.” I replied yes, as always. He came and stood
by the clay, but he is very critical, and watches it and me all the
time, and makes me nervous. I undid and did over again a good deal. The
room was hot, and the clay got dry, it was uphill work. Never have I
done anyone so difficult. He is subtle and irregular. At one moment the
bust looked like Scipio Africanus, and I could see he was dissatisfied,
then when I had altered it and asked him what he thought he stood for
some time in silence with a suppressed smile before he let himself go:
“It looks like a French bon bourgeois, who admires the woman who is
doing him, but he has no connection with Communism.”
Happily the peasant woman came in with tea, and I sat down wearily with
my head in my hands, utterly dispirited and discouraged. Only the fierce
determination to make it come right roused me and I went at it again. He
said, as he watched me: “When your teeth are clenched and you are
fighting with your work, _vous êtes encore femme_.” I asked him to take
off his pince-nez, as they hampered me. He hates doing this, he says he
feels _désarmé_ and absolutely lost without them. It seemed akin to
physical pain taking them off--they have become part of him and the loss
of them completely changes his individuality. It is a pity, as they
rather spoil an otherwise classical head.
While he was standing there helplessly with half-closed eyes, he
remarked on my name being
[Illustration: TROTSKY AT THE FRONT.]
spelt in the same way as that of the playwright. I explained that I had
married a direct descendant. He was interested and said, “The School for
Scandal” and “The Rivals,” had been translated and were occasionally
acted here in Russian. He then got on to Shakespeare. I wish I could
recall the words in which he described his appreciation, exclaiming
finally: “If England had never produced anything else, she would have
justified her existence.” We disagreed as to Byron and Shelley. He, like
others I have met here, preferred Byron, and insisted in spite of my
assertions to the contrary that Byron was the greater Revolutionary of
the two. He was surprised that I loved Swinburne. He said he would have
thought me too much of this world to love the spirituality of Swinburne.
I said: “One has one’s dreams.” He gave a sigh. “Yes,” he said, “we all
have our dreams----”
When, at the end of the evening, I was dissatisfied with my work and
feeling suicidal I asked him:
“May I come back and work to-morrow night?”
“And the night after,” he answered, and added laughing, that he would
rig the place up as a studio for me, and that I could do General
Kameneff after I’d finished him. General Kameneff (who is no relation
to Leo Kameneff) is the Commander-in-Chief, and was a very distinguished
Tsarist officer. I hear that he strongly warned the War Ministry against
advancing too far towards Warsaw, and foretold the débâcle that has
since been fulfilled. But he was not listened to, perhaps because of his
Tsarist tradition. Probably his opinion is more respected now. Trotsky
asked me if I would like to do Tchicherin, and I explained that never
before had I worked under such difficult conditions, and that although I
had made efforts for Lenin and himself I did not feel like doing it
again for anyone else. He was quite indignant and said: “What difficulty
have you had in working here?” True it was a perfectly good room and
excellent light, but Tchicherin would not move out of his Commissariat
and that would mean new conditions to adapt oneself to, nor does anyone
understand the difficulties of moving the finished work back to the
Kremlin. Trotsky swept my excuses aside: “Of course you must do
Tchicherin--it is almost a diplomatic obligation on his part to be
done.”
It was a quarter to midnight when I prepared to stop work and looked
desperately at the clock: “What about this order--how am I to be home
[Illustration: BUST OF TROTSKY.
_p. 147._]
at midnight?” I asked. He said, “I will take you myself.” At about half
after midnight we left. A man in uniform joined us and sat next to the
driver. He had in his hands a very big leather holster. We started off
by going in the opposite direction to the right one, and I had to try
and describe the way to them. We turned back, and crossing the bridge we
were stopped by five soldiers. The man with the holster had to show our
papers by the light of the car lamp. It delayed us several minutes. I
said to Trotsky: “Put your head out of the window and say who you are.”
“_Taisez-vous_,” said Trotsky peremptorily. I sat rebuked and silent
until we were able to pass on unrecognised. He explained afterwards that
he did not want them to hear a woman’s voice in the car talking English.
I was talking French as we always do together, and did not see that it
mattered to anyone in this country whether there is a woman in a
Government car or not--but I did not argue.