"... I saw Tatiana (don't ask me questions, if you please!) and the girl said that there are only two acceptable ways: to be released by the will of the people, or taken against their will, a kidnapping staged. Other methods will meet with a refusal. That is why the Emperor refused a formal foreign intervention, for it would place them in a position of parasites with the "ex" title. After everything is through--all of your Kerenskys--a parasite could not be popular and desirable.... Well, she got up,--"goodby! Kiss Maroossia for me. And here is a friendly warning: don't talk. _It is dangerous._ Don't trust. _It is silly_. Write to Sophie's house in Paris--it will reach me. So sorry we cannot be together!" She left me. 15. Saw a real picture of the time: General S-sky in the Renault with Joffe! Smiles and hand-shakes. Red arm-bands. The tall Dolivo-Dobrovolsky from the Foreign Office was with this couple. In January, when S-sky got his car he said: "I'd rather sell the car than let a Jew ride in it," when Gunzburg asked to use the automobile. Madame D's apartment was robbed. Nobody knows "how it happened." The house guard keeps silent on the subject. Paul sent her a wire to Kursk, very laconic: "home emptied everything stolen." Now he received a reply: "Sublet unfurnished." She is a darling. Never saw such energy. I wonder whether she is trying to get the Emperor out too?... 16. My interview with his Excellency is worthy of description. Since my graduation from the Lyceum up to the present time--I have seen many men of power; when young--they usually knocked me down by their aureole of magnificence; with age I learned how to distinguish almost unmistakably in the splendor of that scenery an idiot from a crook. This one--was quite peculiar. Kerensky made me wait for about one hour during which I had enough time to ascertain that since the new régime the rooms had not been dusted. So what Kerensky said to some foreigner: "Regenerated Russia will not have recourse to the shameful methods utilized by the old régime"--were untruthful words. The dust evidently was old régime's.