Conversation between the two was mostly in Russian. I am beginning to cultivate a detached feeling, and I do not expect to understand much during the next few weeks, except through my eyes.
While we were breakfasting the Grand Hotel telephoned to place a suite of rooms at our disposal, so we returned there, and the hotel authorities were most civil.
From that moment there ensued a hectic period. Series of newspaper reporters arrived, and had to be given interviews. Comrades came, and stayed—there seemed to be people revolving perpetually. Some of them only understood German, others struggled in bad English, yet others in French; the whole conversation was mixed up with Swedish and Russian, so that one’s head reeled.
Among all these people, one figure stands out more clearly than the rest. This is Rjasanoff, a man about seventy, with a Greek profile, a beard that sticks out defiantly and hawk’s eyes. He has a dominating personality. He has done five years of solitary confinement in a cell for the cause. He was charming to me, and his expression lost some of its battle and became even kindly when he looked at me.
Another man who stands out in my mind is a Communist poet called Torré Norman, who has translated Rupert Brooke.
Mr. Ström accompanied me to the Esthonian Consulate to get my Reval visa. There were, as I expected, endless difficulties, and nothing was
LITVINOFF AND HIS SON MISHA AT KRISTIANIA.