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By Root 2406 0

at his capacity to change so quickly to a light tone. It was the same old Jack, with his zest for the adventures of life. I longed to join in his gay mood, but my heart was heavy. Jack’s appearance had brought back memories of my recent life, my people, Helena and those dear to me. Not a word from anyone had reached me in two months. Uncertainty about them added to my depression and restlessness. Sasha’s letter, suggesting that I come to Moscow, put new energy into me. Moscow was much more alive than Petrograd, he wrote, and there were interesting people to meet. A few weeks in the capital might help to clarify the revolutionary situation to me. I wanted to go immediately. I had already learned, however, that in Soviet Russia one does not just buy a ticket and board a train. I had seen people standing in queues for days and nights to obtain a permit for their journey and then again wait in long lines to purchase their tickets. Even with the helpful co-operation of Zorin it required ten days before I could leave. He had arranged for me to be in the party of Soviet officials going to Moscow, he informed me. Demyan Bedny, the official poet, would be there and he would place me in the Hotel National. Zorin was as obliging as ever, though somewhat distant.

Arrived at the station, I found myself in distinguished company. Karl Radek, who had escaped the fate of Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg, and Landauer, was there.11 Chiperovich, head of the Petrograd labour unions, Maxim Gorki, and several lesser lights were also in the same car with me.

Gorki had previously replied to my letter and had asked me to call for a talk. I did, but there was no talk. I found him suffering from a heavy cold and constantly coughing, while four women were fluttering about him, ministering to his needs. When he saw me in the car, he said we could have our postponed talk en route; he would come to my compartment later. I waited eagerly the largest part of the day. Gorki did not appear, nor anyone else except the porter with sandwiches and tea for the Soviet party. Radek, in the next compartment, was evidently holding court. In true Russian fashion everybody talked at once. But the little, nervous Radek managed to outstrip the others. For hours he rattled on. My brain grew weary and I dozed off.

I was roused from my sleep by a gaunt and lanky figure towering above me. Maxim Gorki stood before me, his peasant face deeply lined with pain. I asked him to sit down beside me and he crumpled into the seat, a tired and languid man, much older than his fifty years.

I had looked forward with much anticipation to the chance of talking to Gorki, yet now I did not know how to begin. “Gorki knows nothing about me,” I was saying to myself.... “He may think me merely a reformer, opposed to the Revolution as such. Or he may even get the impression that I am just fault-finding on account of personal grievances or because I could not have ‘buttered toast and grape-fruit for breakfast’ or other material American blessings.” [ ... ]

At last I began by saying that I should first have to introduce myself before I could talk to him about the things that were distressing me. “Hardly necessary,” Gorki interrupted; “I know a good deal about your activities in the United States. But even if I knew nothing about you, the fact that you were deported for your ideas would be proof enough of your revolutionary integrity. I need nothing more.” “That is most kind of you,” I replied, “yet I must insist on a little preliminary.” Gorki nodded, and I proceeded to tell him of my faith in the Bolsheviki from the very beginning of the October Revolution, and my defence of them and of Soviet Russia at a time when even very few radicals dared speak up for Lenin and his comrades. I had even turned from Catherine Breshkovskaya, who had been our torch for a generation. It had been no easy task to cry in the wilderness of fury and hate in defence of people who in point of theory had always been my political opponents. But who could think of such differences when the life of the Revolution was at stake?