f political breaks and a series of moderately paid, superficial
articles on Balkan questions in a provincial newspaper. And, Monsieur
Kerensky,--_la fine fleur_--the Minister of Justice, a little man with
a single kidney and a double ambition. Insects!

These people would not be able to administer a small country
community, and here they are confronted with three immense
propositions: the Great War, the building up of a new state, and the
fighting of an organized propaganda directed against the war, and
against order.

It was enough for the ladies (and for Maroossia too) to see all of
these people in power, in order to find interesting points, not only
in their political activities, that would not be so bad--but in their
private lives too. They all already know who these people are,
what they eat, when and where they were born, what their wives and
mistresses look like, etc., etc., up to the most intimate deeds and
traits of their characters. The foreign ladies also take a very keen
interest in those little tea-chats. All prefer to listen to them much
rather than to the events at the front.

Vadbolsky wrote me a letter sent through the "Help the Soldiers"
society. Of course he could not say much. They all realize that
discipline is going down with tremendous speed, at least at the
Northern front. The soldiers listen more to what the Council of
Deputies say than to anything else. This treble power--the Council,
the Government and the Army Authorities--must be united, but there is
no one to realize it; and if there were, there would be no possibility
of co-ordinating the different currents.

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, a