In defence I can only say that this was not written for publication. I have always kept a diary, in monotonous as in eventful days. In publishing a record of my stay in Moscow I am submitting to pressure without which I would not venture upon such a line. Mine is not the business of writing, nor are politics my concern: I went to Moscow where some portrait work was offered me.
There are people in England who are indignant at my doing Lenin and Trotsky. There were people in Moscow who were horrified because I had done Churchill, and expressed a desire to do d’Annunzio, but as a portraitist I have nothing to do with politics; it is humanity that interests me, humanity with its force and its weakness, its ambitions and fears, its honesty and lack of scruples, its perfection and deformities.
There are of course people who are pleasanter to work for than others, people in whose environment one feels happier and more at ease.
In this diary are written freely the impressions of a guest among people who have been much talked about.
From this point of view, and without any political pretentions, I offer it to whomsoever it may interest.
RUSSIAN PORTRAITS
August 14th, 1920. London.
According to Mr. Fisher’s instructions, I called on Mr. M—at his office at 10.30 and introduced myself.