could not therefore go to my beloved Dick,[4] but I sent him a crocodile by Peter, to compensate for my absence.
Dined with Aunt Jennie,[5] she has laryngitis, and looked very ill. She asked me what new work I was engaged on, but I took good care not to mention either Russians or Russia.
In the course of conversation, she told me that I was being criticised as having too much freedom. I chuckled over this, as I visualised to myself the great band of people who grudge one that freedom, because they have not got it, and because they know that freedom counts above rubies.
I said to Aunt Jennie, “And how is that grave condition of things, that dangerous “Liberty” going to be rectified? I am a widow, and earn my living, how is it to be otherwise ordered?”
She had no suggestion, it would have been obviously out of place to suggest re-marriage, which in fact is the only way of ending it, of ending everything, liberty, work, and my happiness, which is dependent on my work.
August 28th.
I left the studio in a state of chaos, Smith being in the midst of casting the busts of Kameneff and Krassin. I felt a wonderful sensation of relief at these being finished, and the Victory also. Everything for the moment is finished, until I begin something new. And who will that be, I wonder?
Kameneff picked me up at 12.15 and we caught the 12.50 from Waterloo to Portsmouth. Sydney met us at the harbour and escorted us to his house on the Isle of Wight, near Newport. A very attractive journey across, as it was warm and calm weather. A motor met us at Ryde and took us to his house, seven miles. On arrival we flung ourselves down in the sun on the grass of the tennis-court. And after tea, as we lay full length on rugs, our heads leaning on the grassy bank behind us, and the sun gradually sinking lower and lower, Kameneff for over an hour told us the history of the Russian Revolution.
He told it to us haltingly, stumbling along in his bad French, wrestling with words and phrases, but always conveying his meaning and above all conjuring up the most graphic pictures, making us see with his eyes, live over the days with him, and know all the people concerned. He is amazingly forceful and eloquent.