NICHOLAS ANDREV.
Seeing that he was prepared to be amiable, I asked him if I could bother him with measurements. “Tout ce que vous voudrez,” he said, and pointed out to me how unsymmetrical his face is. He opened his mouth and snapped his teeth to show me that his underjaw is crooked, and as he did so he reminded me of a snarling wolf. When he talks his face lights up and his eyes flash. Trotsky’s eyes are much talked of in Russia, and he is called “the wolf.” His nose also is crooked and looks as though it had been broken. If it were straight he would have a very fine line from the forehead. Full-face he is Mephisto. His eyebrows go up at an angle, and the lower part of his face tapers into a pointed and defiant beard. As I measured him with calipers, he remarked: “Vous me caressez avec des instruments d’acier.” He talks very rapid, and very fluent French, and could easily be mistaken for a Frenchman. I dragged my modelling stand across the room to try for a better light on the other side. He watched me with a weary look, and said: “Even in clay you make me travel, and I am so tired of travelling.” He explained to me that he is not as desperately busy as usual because there is Peace with Poland, and good news from the South. I told him that I had nearly gone to the Southern front with Kalinin, who wanted to take me, but that Kameneff wouldn’t let me go because it was a troop train. Without hesitating a moment he answered:
“Do you want to go to the front? You can come with me.”
He was thoughtful for awhile, and then asked me: “Are you under the care here of our Foreign Office?”
I said I was not.
“But who are you here with? Who is responsible for you?”
“Kameneff,” I said.