I have lost all track of time. Storms forced our little boat to anchor
under the shelter of an Aland isle for two days and a night.
On our arrival late at night at Stockholm we were met by Professor
Lomonosoff’s representative with a car, and after we had all been
submitted to a search, not for arms, but for insects, and declared fit
to step on to Swedish soil, I was whirled off to the Hotel Anglais.
I had fully expected to be lost and forgotten on leaving Moscow, but
here I am being taken care of in the third country away. If the
Stockholm experiences foreshadow my coming reception in England, it
promises to be hectic. I am not allowed breathing space, nor eating
space.
Reporters besiege me. They even walk up to my room without being
announced. I am so ignorant of the papers they represent that I say all
the wrong things. One paper, a Conservative one, says that I declared
Trotsky to be a perfect gentleman. This, if it gets back to Moscow, is
most embarrassing. Never in my wildest moments would I use so mediocre a
description to apply to Trotsky. I might say he was a genius, a
superman, or a devil. Anyway, in Russia we talk of men and women and not
of ladies and gentlemen. I dare say that the editor meant well, and that
things get distorted in translation.
The experience of returning through Stockholm is rather unique. Because
we have both come out of Russia together, Mr. Vanderlip and I have been
entertained at the same parties, but for me Frederick Ström and the
Russian Bolsheviks are invited and for Vanderlip the leading Swedish
bankers. It is a queer amalgamation, but it works well.
The first evening I talked to Socialist Ström and a Conservative banker
for an hour and a half in flowing but execrable German. They did not
laugh at my grammar, but listened and spurred me on with questions. The
German of my childhood slightly practised in Moscow has returned to me
with a rush.
I have been invited to do a monument for a public square in Stockholm
representing Peace uniting the workers of the Right and Left Wings. The
money has been subscribed in kroner by the workpeople. It is an
international thing, and they would be pleased if I would do it. It is a
subject which rather lends itself to allegorical treatment and appeals
to the imagination.
I am now in the night train for Göteborg. Before I left I went to tea
with the children at the Palace. The Crown Prince unfortunately was in
Rome. The children seemed lonely, but well. Princess Ingred looked sad,
big-eyed and rather pale. The baby, Johnny, is adorable. He is a thing
so sweet to woman, so much to be appreciated. One feels the maternal
spirit-arms round him.
I also went to see the Comptroller of the Queen’s household, an artist
and an old friend of many years. Here the impression I received of
prejudice against my Russian friends was overwhelming, but I suppose, in
Court circles, this is to be expected.