Part 7

Alexandre said he could only stay ten minutes, but he left at midnight. He talked Communism the whole time. Now Borodin unfurled his Communist spirit to me slowly, because he knew me, and to what I belonged, and he realised that the thing hurled at me in a crude mass would stagger me. He led me up to it with great caution. Alexandre, on the other hand, with no understanding or sympathy, took all my inborn prejudices and just broke them, stamped on them, metaphorically spat on them, and gave me a big feed of unadulterated Communism. He is a fanatic, and left me breathless and wondering. All was well until we got to the children part: he said that his wife had to work, so their baby, who is six weeks old, has to go by day to the Crèche.

“Are you satisfied with the care it gets at the Crèche?” I asked him. He shrugged his shoulders, said that collectively they could not receive the same attention as they would if they were cared for individually. He then volunteered the information that of course the baby was more liable to get ill and even die if it was in the Crèche, but that it was a chance, and after all his wife’s life was not going to be reduced to feeding, washing, and dressing a baby. That was no sort of existence, and so, what alternative was there except the Crèche?

It was the cold, dispassionate way in which he said it that gave me the creeps.

“What is your wife’s work?” I said.

“Politics, same as mine,” he said.

“Are you fond of your baby?”

“Yes.”

“Is your wife fond of it?”

“Yes.”

I thought to myself that she has not had to pray for a baby, and weep because the months went by. She has not had to wait, and wait--it is not infinitely precious to her, her baby.

He then counter-questioned me:

“What did you do with your children when you became a widow and had no home?”

“My parents took them.”

“And if you had had no parents who could take them? How could you have worked?”

It is true that there must be thousands of women who earn their living and have no family in the background on whom to plant the baby. What happens in a country where there is no paternal State? In Russia the State will clothe, feed and educate them from birth until fourteen years of age. They may go to the Crèche for the day or permanently. Children may go to the State school for the half day, whole day, or to board. Their parents may see them, or give them up for ever, as they choose, and there is no difference made between the legitimate and

the illegitimate child. Moreover, according to the labour laws, no woman may work for eight weeks before the baby is born, nor for eight weeks after birth. She is sent away to a resthouse in the country, always of course at the State’s expense. On application she is given the necessary layette for the new born. It is difficult to preserve one’s maternal sentimentality in the face of this Communistic generosity.

OCTOBER 17TH.

I stayed in bed all day as I felt ill, and there was nothing better to do. Litvinoff came in to see me in the afternoon and was surprised that I had not begun to work on Trotsky. I explained to him that, through Comrade Alexandre, Trotsky had flatly refused to let me do him. Litvinoff could not understand this, but said he had seen Trotsky last night. It was then decided that Litvinoff would see Trotsky again during the day, and telephone to me what arrangements he could make. He then left me, to come back again in a few minutes bringing something preciously in both hands. It was a hen’s egg. As I have not seen one since I have been in Moscow, I stifled my instinctive aversion to accepting valuable presents from men and had the egg fried for dinner.

OCTOBER 18TH.

Trotsky’s car came for me punctually at 11.30 a.m. (usually the cars that are ordered are an hour late, and people keep their appointments two hours late. Trotsky and Lenin are, I hear, the only two exceptions to the rule). I made Litvinoff come and tell the chauffeur that he was first to go to the Kremlin with me to fetch my things. When we got to the big round building in the Kremlin in which I have my studio, I took the chauffeur to the pass office and explained by signs by showing my own pass that I required one for the chauffeur. This was done. It is satisfactory to have arrived at the stage when I get the pass for someone else, instead of someone else getting it for me. Kameneff told me the other day that I walk into the Kremlin with the air of one who belonged to it.

Trotsky’s chauffeur, myself, and the plaster moulder who was there working, carried the things down to the car, and I was driven to a place some way off, the War Ministry, I think. Getting in was not easy, as I had no pass, and there was an altercation with the sentry. I understood the chauffeur explaining: “Yes, yes, it’s the English sculptor,” but the sentry was adamant. He shrugged his shoulders, said he didn’t care, and made a blank face. I had to wait until a secretary came to fetch me. He took me upstairs, through two rooms of soldier-secretaries. In the end room there was a door guarded by a sentry, and next to that door a big writing table from which someone telephoned through into the next room to know if I could come in. Unlike Lenin’s, not even his secretaries go in to see Trotsky without telephoning first for permission. It was not without some trepidation, having heard how very intractable he is, and knowing his sister,[7] that I was ushered in--I and my modelling stand and my clay together.

I had instantly the pleasurable sensation of a room that is sympathetic, big, well-proportioned and simple.

From behind an enormous writing table in one corner near the window came forth Trotsky. He shook hands with me welcomingly, though without a smile, and asked if I talked French.

He offered courteously to assist me in moving my stand into the right place, and even to have his mammoth table moved into some other position if the light was not right.

The light from the two windows was certainly very bad, but although he said: “Move anything and do just whatever you like,” there was nothing one could do that would help. The room, which would have made a beautiful ballroom, loomed large and dark. There were huge white columns which got in my way and hampered the light. My heart sank at the difficulties of the situation. I looked at my man, who was bending down, writing at his desk. Impossible to see his face. I looked at him and then at my clay, in despair. Then I went and knelt in front of the writing table opposite him, with my chin on his papers. He looked up from his writing and stared back, a perfectly steady, unabashed stare. His look was a solemn, analytical one, perhaps mine was too. After a few seconds, realising the absurdity of our attitudes, I had to laugh, and said: “I hope you don’t mind being looked at.” “I don’t mind,” he said. “I have my _revanche_ in looking at you, and it is I who gain.”

He then ordered a fire to be lit because he thought it was cold for me. It was not cold, it was overheated, but the sound and sight of the fire were nice. A matronly peasant-woman with a handkerchief tied round her head came and lit it. He said he liked her because she walked softly, and had a musical voice. Curious that he should admire in another what is so characteristic of himself; his voice is unusually melodious.

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.

“But Kameneff is at the front.”

“Yes.”

“Then you are alone? H’m, that is very dangerous in a revolutionary country. Do you know Karahan, Tchicherin’s secretary?”

“Yes; he is living in our house, so is Litvinoff.”

“Ah, Litvinoff, I will ring him up.”

He did ring him up, but what he said I could not understand. Litvinoff told me later that Trotsky had asked him if I was all right, and if it would be indiscreet or not to show me the front. Litvinoff gave me a good character.

At 4 o’clock he ordered tea, and had some with me. He talked to me about himself, and of his wanderings in exile during the war, and how, finally, at the outbreak of the Revolution, he sailed on a neutral ship from the United States to return to Russia; how the British arrested him and took him to a Canadian concentration camp. He was detained a few months, until the Russian Government succeeded in obtaining his release.

He was particularly incensed at the British interfering with the movements of a man who was not going to Britain, nor from a British colony, nor by a British ship: “But I had a good time in that camp,” he said. “There were a lot of German sailors there, and I did some propaganda work. By the time I left they were all good revolutionaries, and I still get letters from some of them.”

At 5 I prepared to leave. He said that I looked tired. I said I was tired from battling with my work in such a bad light. He suggested trying by electric light, and we agreed on 7 o’clock the next evening. He sent me home in his car.

OCTOBER 19TH.

Trotsky’s car came at 6.30. Nicholas Andrev had been having tea with me, and I offered to give him a lift, as he lives somewhere near the War Ministry. It was snowing hard and there was a driving wind, which lifted up the frozen snow and blew it about like white smoke. The car had a hood, but no sides. In the Red Square we punctured. For some time we sat patiently watching the passers-by falling down on the slippery pavement, and the horse-carts struggling up the hill. Winter has come very suddenly and one month too soon. The horses have not yet been shod for the slippery roads, consequently they can hardly stand up. This morning I counted four down all at the same moment. In London a fallen horse attracts a good deal of attention, and a crowd collects, but here no one even turns his head to look. I have been much laughed at because I stop to watch, but the method of getting the horse up amuses me. The driver (man or woman, as the case may be) gets behind and pushes the cart. The horse, so weak that he has no resisting power, impelled forward by the shafts, struggles to his feet in spite of himself. No unharnessing is necessary. This evening, when I became too cold to be interested any longer by the passers-by falling in the square, I asked the chauffeur if he had nearly finished. He answered “_Sichas_” which literally translated is “immediately,” but in practice means to-morrow, or next week! So I pulled up the fur collar of my inadequate cloth coat, put my feet up lengthways on the seat, and let Andrev sit on them to keep them warm. I arrived at Trotsky’s at 7.30. He looked at me and then at the clock. I explained what had happened. “So that is the reason of your inexactitude,” he said; an inexactitude which could not in the least inconvenience him as he did not have to wait for me. He kissed my frozen hand, and put two chairs for me by the fire, one for me and one for my feet. When I had melted and turned on all the lights of the crystal candelabra he said: “We will have an agreement, quite businesslike; I shall come and stand by the side of your work for five minutes every half hour.” Of course the five minutes got very enlarged, and we talked and worked and lost all track of time. When the telephone rang he asked: “Have I your permission?” His manners are charming. I said to him: “I cannot get over it, how amiable and courteous you are. I understood you were a very disagreeable man. What am I to say to people in England when they ask me: ‘What sort of a monster is Trotsky?’” With a mischievous look he said: “Tell them in England, tell them----” (but I cannot tell them!) I said to him: “You are not a bit like your sister.” The shadow of a smile crossed his face, but he did not answer.

I showed him photographs of my work and he kept the ones of the “Victory.” Among the portraits he liked “Asquith” best, and said that that one was worked with more feeling and care than any of the others. He took for granted that Asquith must like me, which is not necessarily the case, and said half-laughingly: “You have given me an idea--if Asquith comes back into office _soon_ (there is a rumour that he might bring in a Coalition with Labour, and recognise Russia) I will hold you as a hostage until England makes peace with us.” I laughed: “What you are saying humorously is what a British official told me seriously, only he said it à propos of Winston. As a matter of fact, I’d be proud if I could be of any use in the cause of Peace. But if you said you would shoot me, Winston would only say ‘shoot,’”--which is, to my mind, the right spirit, and exactly the spirit that prevails among the Bolsheviks. They would not hesitate to shoot me (some of them have told me so) if it were necessary, even if they liked me as a woman. Winston is the only man I know in England who is made of the stuff that Bolsheviks are made of. He has fight, force and fanaticism.

Towards the end of the evening, as Trotsky said nothing more about the project of my going to the front, I asked him if he had decided to take me or not. He said: “It is for you to decide if you wish to come--but I shall not start for three or four days.” It was getting late and he looked very tired. He was standing in front of the clay with his back to it, so that I had the two profiles exactly in line. His eyes were shut and he swayed. For a moment I feared he was going to faint. One does not think of Trotsky as a man who faints, but anything may happen to a man who works as he does. My thought was of my work, and I said to him: “Do not fall backward, or you fall on my work.” He answered quickly: “_Je tombe toujours en avant!_” I asked him to order the motor, having realised that unless he sends for it I have to wait outside in the cold or look for it in the garage. While the car was coming round he sent for a reproduction of a portrait of himself by an artist friend of his, to show me that the same difficulties that I am having with his jaw and chin, were experienced also by the draughtsman who only succeeded in this, the last of a great many sketches. It is evidently one that Trotsky likes, for it is reproduced in colour in almost every office one goes into. I told him I wanted it and he wrote upon it “Tovarisch,” which means Comrade “Clare Sheridan,” and signed it. This has its effect on the Bolsheviks who have been into my room and seen it.

OCTOBER 20TH.

Comrade Alexandre telephoned that he would fetch me at 1 o’clock to go to the fur store. I suppose the intense cold had at last moved either his pity or his anxiety for me. Before I left Vanderlip said that if there were any choice, and I was fool enough not to choose a sable coat, he would never speak to me again. The threat left me unmoved. It is only on occasions of necessity, when we exchange valuable presents (say a new tooth brush for a box of pills), that we have an armistice. On the way to the fur store Alexandre picked up another man, unknown but very nice, with whom I talked a mixture of English and German. We went to one of the biggest store-houses in Moscow, which, like all the rest, had been a private firm, but has been requisitioned by the Government. It was a cave-like building, dark and stone cold. We went up in a cage lift to what seemed to be the attic. It was low and long and dark, and an arc-light barely lit up the corner. Coats hung from the ceiling like so many hundred Bluebeard wives.

I took off mine to try on. An old man who looked like Moses and spoke German showed me the best and told me to make my choice. Alexandre looked on with a grim smile, and asked if I were the proverbial woman, or whether I would make my choice within reasonable limits of time. It was not easy. The coats dated back three years, and some were even too old-fashioned for Moscow. I liked a brown Siberian pony lined with ermine, but the moth had got into the pony. I liked a broadtail, but it was thin as cloth; they offered to have it fur-lined for me, but my need was immediate. There was a mink, but it had an old-fashioned flounce. There were astrachans, but everyone in Moscow has astrachan, it seemed too ordinary. I felt bewildered. My attention then wandered to a row of shubas: big sleeveless cloaks of velvet, that wrap around one, and descend to one’s feet. There was a dream lined with blue fox, and another with white. My friends put one round my shoulders, it was lined with sable: light as a feather, and warm as a nest. I despairingly voiced the fact that I could not walk about the streets of Moscow in a wine coloured velvet and sable cape. They said I could, but then they were wrong. “I look much too bourgeoise, I shall be shot!”

“You won’t be shot, and sable is good enough for a good worker.” I showed a sable stole to Alexandre and told him it was the blackest and most beautiful bit of sable one could find. He shrugged his shoulders with perfect indifference, and said he knew nothing about it. Finally I walked out in a very practical black Siberian pony lined with grey squirrel, divinely warm, though rather heavy, and Alexandre said to me: “Now you can say that you have shared in the Government distribution of bourgeois property to the people.”

At 7.30 pm. Trotsky sent his car for me, but a soldier stopped us before we even reached the block where the War Ministry is. The whole bit of road was being especially guarded. The reason for this is that foreign papers have announced an impending counter-Revolution, but if there is any such plot their warning has been given most obligingly in time, and steps have been taken to deal with it. The town is placarded with notices that inhabitants must not be out after midnight. It gave one just a small thrill, and there have been none so far. This evening when I arrived Trotsky stood by the fire while I was warming, and I asked him for news. He says that the German workers have voted in favour of joining the Moscow International which is very important. “England is our only real and dangerous enemy,” he said. “Not France?” I asked. “No, France is just a noisy, hysterical woman, making scenes: but England--that is different altogether.” He talked about the persistence of the foreign Press in decrying the stability of the Soviet Government. All the governments of Europe, he said, had undergone changes in the last three years, he pointed to France, Italy, the Central Powers, Turkey, and finally Poland. The British Government was holding out longer than any other, but that was pretty rocky, and its ministers were constantly changing their posts. The Soviet Government was the oldest government in Europe, and the only one in which the ministers retained their posts and displayed any unity, and this is spite of every effort on the part of the world to dislodge them.

He then busied himself at his table with papers. I worked for an hour and we never spoke, but he never disregarded me as Lenin did. I could walk round Lenin and look at him from all sides, he remained absorbed in his reading, and apparently oblivious of my presence. Whenever I go near Trotsky he looks up from his work sharply with piercing eyes and I forget which part of his face I was intent upon. Towards the end of the evening, when even my tiptoe stalking had aroused him, he asked me: “_Avez vous besoin de moi_.” I replied yes, as always. He came and stood by the clay, but he is very critical, and watches it and me all the time, and makes me nervous. I undid and did over again a good deal. The room was hot, and the clay got dry, it was uphill work. Never have I done anyone so difficult. He is subtle and irregular. At one moment the bust looked like Scipio Africanus, and I could see he was dissatisfied, then when I had altered it and asked him what he thought he stood for some time in silence with a suppressed smile before he let himself go: “It looks like a French bon bourgeois, who admires the woman who is doing him, but he has no connection with Communism.”

Happily the peasant woman came in with tea, and I sat down wearily with my head in my hands, utterly dispirited and discouraged. Only the fierce determination to make it come right roused me and I went at it again. He said, as he watched me: “When your teeth are clenched and you are fighting with your work, _vous êtes encore femme_.” I asked him to take off his pince-nez, as they hampered me. He hates doing this, he says he feels _désarmé_ and absolutely lost without them. It seemed akin to physical pain taking them off--they have become part of him and the loss of them completely changes his individuality. It is a pity, as they rather spoil an otherwise classical head.

While he was standing there helplessly with half-closed eyes, he remarked on my name being

spelt in the same way as that of the playwright. I explained that I had married a direct descendant. He was interested and said, “The School for Scandal” and “The Rivals,” had been translated and were occasionally acted here in Russian. He then got on to Shakespeare. I wish I could recall the words in which he described his appreciation, exclaiming finally: “If England had never produced anything else, she would have justified her existence.” We disagreed as to Byron and Shelley. He, like others I have met here, preferred Byron, and insisted in spite of my assertions to the contrary that Byron was the greater Revolutionary of the two. He was surprised that I loved Swinburne. He said he would have thought me too much of this world to love the spirituality of Swinburne. I said: “One has one’s dreams.” He gave a sigh. “Yes,” he said, “we all have our dreams----”

When, at the end of the evening, I was dissatisfied with my work and feeling suicidal I asked him:

“May I come back and work to-morrow night?”