"Look what I brought, Alex! Here are canned goods, and chocolate and coffee, and ham, and ..." and she threw package after package on the bed. On one of them I read "Army and Navy Calcutta," but said nothing and looked away. I'm getting sly. She noticed it too, the little devil! She sent me out to see whether or not the gate was closed, and when I came back the label was scratched out. 34 (_Sixth letter to M. Goroshkin_) "There are, virtually, three--or perhaps more--organizations, members of which have decided to save the Emperor from imprisonment. They all realize the danger of letting things go on by themselves, or of relying upon German promises. The latter are well known here and in Tobolsk from Bolshevik sources. When during the Brest-Litovsk _pourparlers_ the Russian Delegates were waiting for the Germans, the latter entered the room of conference, and found it filthy with smoke; the Bolsheviki were extremely hilarious, and laughed and joked among themselves. To show his independence Monsieur Trotsky was sitting on the table; others were without collars and in the most unrespectable state of humor. When the German delegation entered they did not move; the leader of the Germans, an old general, stopped for a moment, looked at them in disgust, and then suddenly shouted: "Stand! Attention! Get up, you, Kameraden!" Electrified--they all got up, Trotsky first, although with the remark "For why"? The General continued: "By order of His Majesty the King and Emperor, I declare that there is at Tobolsk in your hands the relative of my August Master,--Her Imperial Majesty the Empress of Russia with her consort and children. Until this is arranged--we shall not proceed with this conference of ours. We demand your guarantees that 1st--you vouch for their perfect safety; 2d--you immediately will take steps to deliver the prisoners abroad. Now, at rest! Sit down!" I was told that the delegates from the soviets had the authority to vouch for them in this regard, for they say unofficially that the matter had been previously taken up by Russian and German diplomacy. So a telegram was sent by Joffe to Lenine, who answered, "measures taken." Then the Brest-Litovsk sale commenced.