Electrified--they all got up, Trotsky first, although with the remark "For why"? The General continued:

"By order of His Majesty the King and Emperor, I declare that there is at Tobolsk in your hands the relative of my August Master,--Her Imperial Majesty the Empress of Russia with her consort and children.

Until this is arranged--we shall not proceed with this conference of ours. We demand your guarantees that 1st--you vouch for their perfect safety; 2d--you immediately will take steps to deliver the prisoners abroad. Now, at rest! Sit down!"

I was told that the delegates from the soviets had the authority to vouch for them in this regard, for they say unofficially that the matter had been previously taken up by Russian and German diplomacy.

So a telegram was sent by Joffe to Lenine, who answered, "measures taken." Then the Brest-Litovsk sale commenced.

This evidently was not fulfilled, although I have heard that there is certain movement on the part of Germans, especially amongst the war prisoners. I consider it impracticable. At present the military situation is as follows: the Czechs are nearing the Samara-Zlatoust line; in Siberia--there is a very big movement of Czech war prisoners and Russians--to assist the Czechs in their task of reaching the Pacific. Battles are raging on the Volga front. It is evident that the salvation of the Family cannot come from Germany, for there would not be any place and way to take the Emperor out of Tobolsk, but by way of the Trans-Siberian,--a long journey with no possibilities of getting out of this country. The local Bolsheviki are beyond the control of the centers. They want to "govern" themselves--evidently with no orders and particularly confidential (I think this one would be such) would not be executed.

The Ekaterinburg organization is weak as I already wrote you. First because the organization is in Ekaterinburg and the Emperor in Tobolsk.

Who are these people? They want first of all, and altogether, restitution for the sake of getting good positions for valuable services rendered the Family. They all see that the restitution is problematic,--so their desire is not strong. They act weakly, they think lazily, they move with an agony of indifference. All that they have done is certainly known to Kobylinsky and--to the Commissaries.

And if they are not yet all arrested--it is because the sovietists want to know their actions. If the damned lack of organization, that we all are suffering from, can be noticed in our present life--it is ideally clearly seen in the Ekaterinburg circles. The Princess G. and others are of the same sort; dully thinking, believing in and hoping for marvels and miracles, trying to look busy and tired. They gossip about each other, they are ready to sink each other in a spoonful of water. Now what is their plan? They haven't any,--at least, nothing definite. They all say vaguely "we are going to buy out Col.

Kobylinsky and the sentinels and the Bolsheviki." All right. Supposing there were someone among them who would go and try this buying proposition? Supposing they were to buy Kobylinsky, and the sentinels and the Bolsheviki. What will they do with the Emperor? Against them there would be the whole world. There is no way for the Ekaterinburg people to get him out, just as there is no way for the Germans. All is closed for them, except a crazy scheme of taking the Family into the interior, which I do not consider feasible. It is impossible. I was told to watch all that I could in connection with the move in Tumen; I was instructed to watch the Ekaterinburg organization and the Princess. I hope I am not considered a member of this organization as it is a failure, and I hate to participate in deadborn adventures.

Again there is the work that Lucie is doing. I do not know for whom she works, though I can see she is not working by herself. I can see that there is 1st, a certain participation of people with means--she has money and certain buying capacities, a sign of great importance at present: 2d, there is evidently a planned and systematic scheme of work in all the actions around me; 3d, there is an unseen hand directing the whole enterprise, decisive and strong.

What is this plan? I can as now see only one thing: provisions are made, both in food and munitions, and shipped through my home east.

There is an intense wireless communication--I cannot know what it is about. A man in smoked glasses comes every evening and sits--near the apparatus. Sometimes he only listens in; sometimes he gets his "tune"

and talks. In the latter case, Lucie goes down town and leaves me at home. I think she mails the communications or maybe someone waits for her in the post office, or, what is possible....

(_few lines scratched out_)

... Her Russian is not at all good, she hardly speaks it in fact, but she gets along as Lucie de Clive, a French demoiselle. With her, as far as I can see are the following elements: 1st, the British officer,--Stanley, or whatever his name really is; 2d, the silent Russian, with wiry Siberian hat and extremely profane language (I think he swears when praying): 3d, two Letts as she calls them, though there is just as much Lettish in them as in you, or me,--they both speak Russian like Russians; 4th, myself. About the last point I can tell, that lately I am in the traffic business. Lucie asks me very often to take loads to the outskirts of Tumen, near the Freight Depot, which we receive with the Siberian pony, and I take it in my sledge behind the Depot, where I deliver the goods--only in the evenings--to the Letts. Sometimes we speak, but never much.

Usually, "Very cold," or "How snowy," or "Have you a cigarette?" After delivering the goods--altogether I have done it about five times, I return home. The Letts wait to move until I go away; I did not succeed in trailing them--and honestly would not want to very much. I have my private reasons for not getting into Lucie's way. Besides, why should I? I am sure that we all are working for the same purpose, but perhaps from different standpoints. On the other hand, it astonishes me exceedingly, that Lucie....

(_two lines scratched out_)

and he arranged for my protection and undisturbed life here,--so seemingly everything is in perfect accordance. You never answer my letters, but couldn't you manage to acknowledge them? Please do it.

Yours,

Alex. Syv."

35

"I have been here so long!... Isn't it funny, Alex, how the time has passed?"

The night was a windy one as though Winter knew it was its last chance to freeze people to death before Spring would come; the long night seemed slow in coming. All day we had worked very hard in the barn preparing a big load which Lucie had asked me to take to the Letts. After dinner, we had kippered herring and some meat stew a l'Irlandaise, we were sitting near the open oven. "Lent bells! I wonder who is praying?..."

"Yes, six weeks, dear. Six weeks of perfect sincerity and mutual trust,--it is not a little thing."

She accepted my remark without turning her face from the fire near which we were sitting. "Six weeks," she said again.

"Do you remember the man who was playing near me in Monte Carlo the day we met?"

"There were too many of them. Which one do you mean?"

"The tall man, Mr. Osborne--never mind trying, it does not matter, I just happened to think of him."

"Anything identical with our six weeks of life?" I asked, and immediately regretted my bad temper--I am getting impossible.

"Very much," she said sadly. "Very much; only under other circumstances, other climates, other people. Not so inconsiderate."

When I looked at her my heart filled with pity. Who _is_ this woman?

I don't know her. Perhaps she has something in her heart--the very existence of which I had oftentimes doubted. Perhaps, in her life of adventures, she has had more hardships, more of tragedy than I,--with all of my selfish sufferings of a man who used to be rich and prominent, and is now humble and poor? Perhaps she has more of self-control not to show it,--nevertheless the amount of her bitterness of life must be the same, if not deeper, than mine?

We have been here for six weeks.... I have no place to go. So I am here. But she? I am sure she could be somewhere else, in better surroundings, amongst people better than I am. And during these six weeks--we were not friends. We were only plotters, joined under one roof, and secretly hostile to each other--"I am ashamed," I said to her, "honestly I am. You must think that I have never cared to know what is in your mind. We have always been distant and mysterious, always absorbed in our own affairs. Why should I trouble you with my questions? Especially, if I knew beforehand that you wouldn't answer.

Yes, we have been together six weeks--more than that--we live under the same roof, eat the same food, have our life as close as two human beings can,--and yet--here we are,--apart from each other. You are a woman, it's up to you to break this distance and build a bridge over it."

"Well," she said, putting her small hand on mine, "you approach the question evidently from another angle. I am not speaking of our business, which may, and which may not, be the same. Why am I so sad and so blue? It is that I feel I am all alone here. I can tell you and I think that you have already understood it, that I came to Tumen with orders to see a certain Syvorotka. I had to be with him, use his house, use his protection, use his connections. I did not know who this Syvorotka was.

A cave man? An ex-soldier? A sick man? A fat butcher? A sentimental, but dirty druggist? Of all the men in the world,--and while coming here I imagined all possible types,--that I should have met you, Alex!

You have always meant so much to me. I have always liked you. When I saw you last in Petrograd I tried to get you into my affairs. Why? I don't know. You have no ambitions, you have no character,--nothing.

And still, I tried to get you, only to be with you. You refused--for you never cared: perhaps once in Marseilles, when you wanted to kiss me (you see I did not forget)--and even at that time you were drunk.... And here in Tumen--you were the man, with whom as they told me, I had to go as far as was necessary to get his good services...."

"Strange life, this one of mine," she ended her remark and again turned to look into the flames.

"Lucie, you never told me you cared, I thought you were for your own affairs much more than for anything else; now I see it in a different light."

"You do? It _is late_. I am going. I am leaving you--this time for good. A week--or so, and I am far away from here, from you--with all of your good and bad qualities. The time in which we live--does not allow any speculations. One must get what he sees."

What do you mean by 'going away'?"

"Just what I say. I received orders to move to another place. No, I cannot tell you. That's all. You, and this little house, and some hopes I had here,--all, all, must be forgotten. Other people, and other scenery. A radical change again. Heavens knows how soon I can forget this little white cold town...."

"Yes," she continued, looking at me, "yes, this cold town, with you; and you--with your double-crossings, with your reports on me, with your bad behavior, with your treason. Alex--love is a strange thing.

I don't mind it at all! You never knew it. You never loved your poor Maroossia: she was your comfort--that's all. You never thought of Lucie de Clive as such: for you--she was a little girl that possibly might have been in your way, but you let her stay because she comforted you. Now--she is going, and very likely you won't see her any more. In your life--she was a page of a book; now you've read it!..."

She was crying, really crying! Such an actress!

36

I came home at seven from the village--nobody in there! Nobody to give me my tea. All looks empty, abandoned. On the bed pinned to the pillow,--a note: "Good-by." My companion left me--today. And I had so much to say to her....

She did not forget to look in my bag before leaving, as I see. I thought so.

My diary _has been censored:_ many pages are missing and some rough hand-made corrections in the text have been made leaving greasy spots on the paper. Some of my documents are stolen. I don't see the letter from Marchenko to Schmelin, the chart with Mamaev's stations, and a few others. Fortunately, Kerensky's letter to Grimm was not taken, as I had put it under the floor of the barn with my money and watch.