I said I thought it would be wonderful to do this work within sound of the guns. Kameneff promised to ring me up at 9 o’clock to tell me if I was to start at 10. Alas! It turned out to be a troop train, and not possible for a woman.
October 9th.
Started off in a motor with Mr. Vanderlip and someone from the Foreign Office. We went to a textile factory, a huge place, and pronounced by Mr. Vanderlip to have the best and latest machinery, but there were 240 workers where there had been 2,500, and there were acres of machinery lying idle, the reason being lack of fuel. Mr. Vanderlip, with that unfailing American “spread-eagle,” said that 50 experienced American workers could have done the work of those 240. It is true there was a good deal of idling going on. This may have been due either to lack of sufficient work, or to the Communist system by which each man or woman is as good as another, and there is none to oversee the work. But what had been done was well done.
From there we went to one of the big fur stores which before the Revolution belonged to a private firm, but to-day is the property of the Government. There were rooms full of huge hampers packed with sable skins for export, and of course, as I was the only woman present, they dangled bunches of sable skins before me. Now sables don’t say much to me if they are not made up, but silver foxes are different, and they cruelly put round my neck some silver foxes.
October 10th.
Kameneff came at midday to say good-bye to me; he is off to the front to-morrow for an indefinite time. He brought with him a young man with close-cropped hair and clear-cut features, calling himself Alexandre. Kameneff thinks Alexandre may be able to take care of me during his absence. I certainly need someone, as Michael Borodin goes to Madrid on Tuesday, and then I do not know what will become of me. Kameneff discussed with me about the Government buying the Russian copyright of my heads. He then asked me to make a list of things I wanted, and that he could do for me before he goes. I had several wants: for one thing, I am extremely cold. The coat I arrived in is only cloth—now there is snow on the ground, and the river begins to freeze. I have to wrap my rug round my shoulders when I go out. The peasants are far better off, they have all appeared in sheepskin coats, the fur they wear inside, and the leather, which is usually stained deep orange or rust colour, is a very decorative exterior. The bourgeois women have brought out their former remains of splendour, and although they may have only felt or canvas shoes on their feet, and a shawl over their heads, some of them wear coats that one would turn round to look at in Bond Street. I headed my list of requirements with the request for a coat—as well as caviare, Trotsky, and a soldier of the Red Army whom I want to model. Trotsky is expected back from the front in a few days. It is a bore that Kameneff is going away, but Alexandre promised to arrange sittings for me.
October 11th.
In the morning I accompanied Michael Borodin to the headquarters of the Third International. It is a beautiful house, formerly the German Embassy, and where Mirbach was murdered.
I came away in a car with Madame Balabanoff, of whom I had often heard. She is small, past middle age, with a crumpled-up face, but intelligent. I did not find her any too amiable on our way to the Kremlin, where she dropped me.
She told me that it was absurd that any bust