In the office there was quite a discussion of the probabilities, and I was listening to the younger people. Criticism and "my own opinion" are the main sicknesses. Perhaps the private initiative used to be so hardly oppressed, that it comes out at present in excess.
Why should lawyers be convinced, that their profession gives them the right, primo genio to be statesmen? I should suggest an archeologist, or a man in charge of a lighthouse.
4.
We all went to the "Farce," Maroossia and F., myself and Misha. Afterwards we had supper. At the next table to us were the M's., Alexander Ivanitsky and the Baroness B. Since her return she certainly looks much better. At first I did not see her, then before all she reprimanded me in her usual kind manner. She had grown a little thinner and has more jewelry I should say, and is as fascinating as before. When she speaks one can see that she thinks of far distant things.
"We all are busy these days," she said, when I asked her whether she came here from England just for curiosity to see all of us under the Provisional Government. "You did not change at all." Misha, who did not know B. before, did not like her very much,—in fact, they all think she is suspicious. Aren't these youngsters peculiar? Especially Misha who is so grouchy lately—all seems dangerous to him. I never think that a woman can be anything but pretty or hideous. There is no middle, and no suspicion about them. If a woman is, what they perhaps would call "suspicious"—then there is a man's influence behind her—so find the man (and it is easy) and she is as plain as a card on the table. Baroness B. is pretty. And if she likes to talk like a Pythia,—that's her way of making people interested in her.
Maroossia complained of a headache, so we left early. Baroness is in the Hotel d'Europe—she is so sorry that "her Astoria" became such a hole. Well—not only her Astoria.
5.
It certainly would be a wonder to expect anything but confusion from the men who recently became the leaders of 180 millions. The leaders are sure they can make wonders.
Prince Lvov! This old squeaking carriage, as Polenov says, is a man from whom I would not expect anything. It is enough to look at his beard, with remnants of yesterday's dinner on it, at his small blue foxy eyes always reddish and always dropping tears. Miliukov! Minister of Foreign Affairs! All his experience consists of a continuous chain of political breaks and a series of moderately paid, superficial articles on Balkan questions in a provincial newspaper. And, Monsieur Kerensky,—la fine fleur—the Minister of Justice, a little man with a single kidney and a double ambition. Insects!
These people would not be able to administer a small country community, and here they are confronted with three immense propositions: the Great War, the building up of a new state, and the fighting of an organized propaganda directed against the war, and against order.