d Victory, and the vision is too
much for me. I must either work or be chloroformed till that time comes.

_9 November._--I think there is only one thing I dislike more than
sitting in an hotel bedroom and learning a new language, and that is
sitting in an hotel bedroom and nursing a cold in my head. Lately I have
been learning Russian--and now I am sniffing. My own fault. I would
sleep with my window open in this unhealthiest of cities, and smells and
marsh produced a feverish cold.

Out in the square the soldiers drill all the time in the snow, lying in
it, standing in it, and dressed for the most part in cotton clothing.
Wool can't be bought, so a close cotton web is made, with the inside
teased out like flannelette, and this is all they have. The necessaries
of life are being "cornered" right and left, mostly by the commercial
houses and the banks. The other day 163 railway trucks of sugar were
discovered in a siding, where the owners had placed it to wait for a
rise. Meanwhile, sugar has been almost unprocurable.

Everyone from the front describes the condition of the refugees as being
most wretched. They are camping in the snow by the thousand, and are
still tramping from Poland.

And here we are in the Astoria Hotel, and there is one pane of glass
between us and the weather; one pane of glass between us and the
peasants of Poland; one pane of glass dividing us from poverty, and
keeping us in the horrid atmosphere of this place, with its evil women
and its squeaky band! How I hate money!

I hope soon to join a train going to Dvinsk with food and supplies.

_13 November._--I have felt very brainless since I came here. It is the
result, I believe, of the Petrograd climate. Nearly everyone feels it. I
had a little book in my head which I thought I could "dash off," and
that writing it would fill up these waiting days, but I can't write a
word.

The war news is not good, but the more territory that Germany takes, the
more the British rub their hands and cry victory. Their courage and
optimism are wonderful.

To-day I spent with the Maxwells, and met a nurse, newly returned from
Galicia, who had interesting tales to tell. One about some Russian
airmen touched me. There had been a fierce fight overhead, when suddenly
the German aeroplane began to wheel round and round like a leaf, when it
was found that the machine was on fire. One of the airmen had been shot
and the other burnt to death. The Russians refused t