Nachman invited me to a dinner. Later Dutzman came and brought a smirking girl with him. Nothing very interesting. A girl. She sang gypsy songs accompanied by a guitar. Good voice—and bad manners. We had champagne, caviar and cigars,—real Uppman.
"Eh," he said, "After all—this life is good! Much better even than when I was secretary of the 'Courier of Moscow.' Of course, it is transitory…. Won't you take some more, please?… and we all will be out. Perhaps those of us who will not, by that time, hang, will have already some money put aside. Not I—I am a spender. I can't keep this money."
He was happy and therefore talkative and sincere.
He continued…. "You ask how we get this money? Easily, comrad, very easily, indeed. Besides what we receive from Petrograd, we have other incomes. For instance, here, take this case of the Emperor. Why do you think we intend to send him to Ekaterinburg? Why should we send him towards the approaching Czechs?"
"Everything has been taken by them; they threaten to crush us if the Allies will assist them, even in the slightest way. Still we send. It is a question of two hundred thousand rubles,—but nobody knows that I, Nachman, a scabby Jew, got about fifty thousand out of them. Now another thing: who got the pay for the heavy trucks, and for the benzine, and for the tents, and for the … oh, many other things!… who got it? This very Nachman, yes, comrad … have some more, please, it's good!…"
45
"Quod forti placuit legis habet valorem."
Sailor Khokhriakov—the special envoy of the Sovnarkom—and his band.
Here is the real danger, but only in case Colonel Kobylinsky and his
Detachment of Special Destination would consent to join the Soviets.
They all hesitate, not the Colonel, however.
The meeting of the Peoples' Commissaries from Petrograd (Khokhriakov) and Kaganitsky (from Ural, I guess) is certainly worthy of description. I went there, leaving for that reason my Mansion duties—(simply by saying to Pashinsky "tell them I am not coming to the Mansion as I have to attend the meeting"); nowadays military service is really a pleasure.
We all were sitting in the recreation room, about sixty or seventy of us in all. Khokhriakov presided. His neck is like a bull's, but rougher—and red. He started the meeting by a thunderous "Shut up, you over there!" and "Somebody open the window; who in hell is smoking such … tobacco (I omit the adjective, though correct and strikingly expressive, but profane)?"