He said it was such nonsense that he felt a great desire to start immediately, so as to show me the truth, and so that I might come back and prove to all and sundry how ignorant they are of real conditions.
He considered that no matter what line the Government adopted here (and he was prepared for Lloyd George to do anything at any moment), it would not affect me. I should be regarded purely as an artist, international and non-political.
Then laughing, he said that he would have me put against a wall, arms crossed on breast (not blindfolded, that was a convention of the aristocrats), with a firing party before me, and then he would save me at the last moment. Then I should have lived through every thrill, and my friends would not be disappointed.
He told me, incidentally, that Wrangel is defeated and discredited. (X——, having just told me that Wrangel had won the peasants over to him, and that he had a scheme of moderate Government, and was likely to rouse a counter-Revolution and depose the present lot).
So I said to Kameneff: “Where is truth?”
And he answered: “There is no truth in the world, the only truth is in one’s own heart.”
September 9th.
My birthday, and the most hectic day of my life!
In the morning I worked more or less calmly. The “Victory” was just being finished, Smith was chipping away the last remains of mould. Rigamonti, under my direction was punching the block of Princess Pat., so that marble chips flew like shrapnel in all directions. Meanwhile, Hart came to get my last orders about marble pedestals for unfinished bronzes, and on top of all Fiorini turned up.
He was terribly hurt because I have given the heads of Kameneff and Krassin to Parlanti to cast. He had dreamed of doing them—he had a Bolshevik workman in his foundry, who asked every day when those heads were coming. He would have cast them, he said, for nothing, just for the honour and glory of doing them. I felt terribly badly about it. The little Italian man is such an enthusiast, and he met Kameneff here, who shook hands with him, and Fiorini felt about it as most other people would about their King.