6.

Evening with the Ivanitskys.

After dinner we all went into the library and started as usual to speak of our very bad affairs, the high cost of living, even here, in a private home, reserved, not to be accused of reactionary tastes. The ladies looked at every one who would start to talk, as if he would be _the man_ to solve all of our complicated problems and mishaps.

Baroness B., whom I had seen very much lately, talked to me for a while in a corner, to the ridiculous anger of Maroossia who went to bed tonight without kissing me. She (the Baroness) said that Sophie had already reached London after the stay in Copenhagen and Paris.

"Her mission," she said,--as usual coquettishly and childishly looking around with a fear of being overheard,--"was a failure." In Copenhagen "they would not even listen", to Sophie, and she was told that the solution and the "demarches" must be made, if made, from London, as there people have every means to arrange with Berlin. I asked the Baroness to keep all of this news to herself, and not to drag me, or what would be worse, Maroossia, into any conspiracy. "Be just as you are and don't try to become more serious, it may spoil you"--. Heavens knows what the Baroness has become since her peculiar conduct with the Vassilchikov and her permanent whisperings to Madame Vyrubov and the rest of the gang. But still, there was already a movement about Tsarskoe Selo. If I were not so particular about avoiding silly conversations, I would have asked her what she meant by communicating Sophie's failure to me.

Finally, I am glad, I did not ask her questions. What is the use of the Emperor's release to me? A man who did not know how to pick his advisors, who did not know how to arrange his home affairs, his Alice von Hessen Darmstadt, his monks and his generals, does not deserve to be too much regretted, and certainly does not deserve too particular interest. Baroness B's. actions are strange. Is she paid? By whom?

Cash? Promises?...

(_a page missing_)

... was stopped by me and slightly pursed her red lips, we joined the rest, where a British Major (I never can think of his name) was telling of his experiences in the research work for German propaganda in Petrograd. So sorry he had to speak French with his typical Anglo-Saxon struggles with "D" and "T," that makes French so perfectly ununderstandable in an English mouth. It is horrid that people like the Ivanitskys don't know English well enough, and now, when we all have to be among our British allies, we make ourselves, and the allies as well, simply ridiculous!

So the Major explained that their man was at several meetings of a body, which he called "Le conseil secret du parti bolchevique" (that must have been something very bad indeed), where a man by name Lenine was present, also communists Bronstein, Nakhamkes, Kohan, Schwarz and others, I forget. They all are conspiring. "Be no war with our brethren," "Be peace on earth," "Closer together peasants and soldiers, workingmen and poor," "To hell with the intelligentzia,"

"Long live the International," etc., etc., was all we saw on the banners lately. The queerest thing is that the British agent at the meeting saw amongst the anarchists several men from the police, and a fellow by name of Petrov, the same one that had the accident on the Moscow railway and was asked to leave the Foreign Office a couple of years ago. Now Petrov is with the communists. Again the agent reported the presence of the 1905 blackhundreds. They all are there, and instead the "Boje Tsaria Khrani," they shout the International. They all understand their people (the agent said) and they all are with the Lenine and others, to return to the sweet past by destroying the bitter present. Sir George, the Major continued, knew all about these significant political blocks, and reported them to London, but the Foreign Office and the Conseil de Guerre seem to be either ignorant (I would not be very much surprised), or know more than the Ambassador, so, as yet, our Cabinet has not been warned. Our Cabinet! It sounds majestic.... Since Miliukov left, and the mercantile Monsieur Tereshchenko took his hot seat--everything goes to the devil with our policy abroad. It is strange, for Mr. Tereshchenko must be well posted in foreign relations: both of his French twin mistresses gave him every possibility of becoming "bien verse."

But--oh, shades of Count Nesselrode and Prince Gorchakov! Inspire the newcomer, looking from the walls of the Foreign Office, at his struggles! Your illegitimate son needs your sense and help ...

7.

Since the scandalous discovery of the plot (Mr. Kerensky took personal care to make it scandalous)--perhaps it was not a plot, but just a few letters of the Gr. Duchess M.P., Tsarskoye Selo has become very difficult to reach and to visit. A few days ago Maroossia came home from A. very late and so tired that I thought she was ill. The communication seems completely stopped, and soldiers were looking in the automobile every five minutes. Once she thought they would arrest her. Sentinels not only around the Palace, but in the garden too, with a double chain of Reds on the streets! The General told Maroossia that some one explained to him that these difficulties and impediments were provoked by the successes of the Germans on the Riga front, and that they expect a serious drive on Petrograd, and twice insinuated about her going to Yalta, or Gurzoof, or Gagry,--as things there rapidly were becoming complicated. So said the Admiral too, in his peculiar way: "The rats before a shipwreck usually feel the coming wreck by instinct, and run on the decks." He said that was his impression in Tsarskoye. Every rat is exceedingly nervous and tries to disappear from the Palace under some pretext or other, and the Palace is deserted.

Kerensky is coming there very often, usually with his milk-fed A.D.C.... This man wants to be generous, he wants to be square, in fact,--he wants to be magnificent. He calls the Emperor "Colonel Romanov," or "Nikolai Alexandrovich." Never says, "Your Majesty." He feels sure that he is beloved in Tsarskoye, and that they speak of him with tears of gratitude, admiring his justice and his manners. I hardly think Kerensky realizes that they are simply frightened, and feel with their inborn appreciation of the man, that by playing on his exceedingly well developed self-veneration--they might be saved.

I have been told in the Club that the Government is planning to get rid somehow of the whole family. The foxy old Polenov explained to us after bridge that he would not be surprised if Kerensky would say to the Lenine crowd that the Emperor should be taken somewhere in the country on account of the German advance, and to Buchanan ... on account of the growing strength of Lenine. "Many more people are interested in this affair," he said, "than even Kerensky knows. If he knew, he would have a larger field for bargaining."

Devil knows who is who now! If police officers enlist in the communists,--what is next? Trotzky's going to a high mass?

8.

Dined with Buchanans and the Lazarevs. Ros. was wounded. We all enjoyed this little story:--

A German girl was asked:

"Konnen sie Ibsen?" To which she replied:

"Nein! Wie macht man das?"

9.

I suspected, and feared, that it could or might have happened,--and so it was!

Yesterday Mikhalovsky asked me to come to his office. He looked queer and worried, and when I stepped in, he closed the door and started to reproach me with every sign of excitement, so proper to him; spitting all over my face.

"I never expected that from you! I never expected! How is it? What is it!?..." and so on.

I stopped him and asked him to be more explicit, as I could not grasp all of the meaning of his eloquence. After he lit a cigarette (how many times this little thing has been a salvation!) Mikhalovsky became more comprehensible and told me that Misha phoned at one o'clock in the night and asked him to come immediately to the Intelligence in his private office. Mikhalovsky, who is now taking great care of himself, drinks some waters, takes green pills and goes to bed at nine, became enraged and refused, but Misha said he was an ass, and simply had to dress and go to the headquarters. So the old thing had to dress and appear. Misha showed him a short note from the French Agent which read something like this:--"Baroness B. evidently communicating with Copenhagen through Sharp and Starleit M. General Z. to be approached, also Quart.--General R. In one instance a package carried to Sestroretsk by a lady in a blue tailor suit with white fox fur. Trail lady, arrest Baroness B. Watch Finland Depot, radio to Generals Z. and R." No signature.

My astonishment was very great, and I said that "though I have known Baroness B. quite well since I met her in Paris and Monte Carlo and...."

(_five lines scratched out from manuscript_).... "Quit your damn jokes for a while," he exclaimed. "Do you realize, what you are talking about? The lady with the fox--is Maroossia!"

"Maroossia? Spying?" I said, becoming angry in my turn. "You will have to account for it, Boris Platonovich, as even an old friend and relative must think over those accusations."

Then Mikhalovsky explained that Misha's man followed the lady--up to the house, and that it _was_ Maroossia. Another one "listened in," and understood from Maroossia's and Baroness B's. conversation, that my wife took the package to a certain Madame van der Huchts in Sestroretsk, on being told to do so by the Baroness, and that she did not know what there was in it, and even did not know who Madame van der Huchts was.

"You see, you boneheaded fool," Mikhalovsky continued, "what was the danger? If Misha had not succeeded in having his own man listen in, and do it quietly, all of this detective work, your Maroossia would be gone by this time." "But,"--he continued, "now the case is closed, as far as your wife is concerned, and the only thing I wish to insist upon,--is to get Maroossia out of here right now. Furthermore, you should give her a scolding."

I said it would not be omitted.

10.

Maroossia left for her father's. We certainly had some explanation!

She cried and felt indignant, and finally understood why I was so angry when the evening papers came out with the news of Baroness B's arrest. Then--she understood that she never should do anything that was asked her "without her husband's knowledge." The case, as Mikhalovsky says, is closed.

The last two or three evenings I spent with both Mikhalovskys. They told me strange stories. I simply cannot believe them. First--that the German staff sent Lenine here with a special message to some people now in power. "We know all about it," said Misha, "but the time is not yet ripe to act." Second--that a certain person received a request not to touch Grimm, nor any of the communists. Third--the strangest--to get the Tsar's family out. "All of this news would have been much fuller if only we could decipher some of this,"--and Misha took out of his pocket and presented me with this strange slip of paper....

(_missing_)

...--all of these crossings of the lines are words, or ciphers, or phrases, God knows what, and they _must_ mean something very important for they were taken from members of this web, and stand in direct connection with our present, or rather our future, attitude. But that is about as much as we know of it.

11.

I went to Cubat's for luncheon, as the cook had to go to a meeting,--how do you like that?--and I do not regret it, for I learned much.

When I think of Cubat's, Contant's or the Hotel de France's public before the war, and compare them with the present, I find the difference on the style of people simply enormous. They never were here before,--these types of men with eyes looking for quick money, for instantaneous riches, for some "_affaires du ravitaillement militaire_." Yesterday's poor chaps, that would not know the difference between a cotelette and a jigot are ordering and easily eating things that it would take me some time to think of.