After the Ballet “Sadko,” I walked home with Michael Borodin. We had supper together of cabbage-soup and tepid rice, and talked until 2 a.m. Michael always says that the food is eatable, even if it is not. He never complains, he just pretends to eat it, sometimes I see his pretence. This evening he talked to me about my work. He wants me to think about a statue interpreting the Soviet idea, and told me a good deal about the Third International, as representing a world brotherhood of workers. The plan of the Third International is very fine: “Workmen of the world unite.” If they did unite they could hold the peace of the world for ever. But unity is hard to attain; I wonder if it is not unattainable. Everything that one hears and sees here stirs the imagination--my mind is seething with allegories with which to express them, but they are so big that I should have to settle for life on the side of a mountain, and hew out my allegories from the mountain side. To-night, in his big Gothic room, I paced back and forth, my arm through Michael’s, talking abstractedly, until his calmness calmed me. He knows that I have been going through a period of waiting, not unmixed with despair and anxiety. I understand so little about the Russian temperament, and hear such conflicting reports, that it is difficult to know what to expect. He has encouraged and cheered and tolerated me. He reminds me sometimes of Munthe,[6] in his adhesion to his convictions, and his demand that one should live up to one’s idealism. OCTOBER 6TH. Spent the morning darning my stockings and reading Rupert Brooke. I was depressed to the point of resignation. It is always blackest before dawn: at 2 o’clock the Commandant of the house walked in with a telephone message: “Greetings from Comrade Kameneff, and all is prepared for you to go and do Lenin in his room to-morrow, from 11 till 4 o’clock.” It was marvellous news. I went directly to the Kremlin, and with the help of someone from the Foreign Office, got my stands and clay moved from my studio to Lenin’s room. I happily had him built up, ready to work on as soon as the order should come. OCTOBER 7TH. Borodin accompanied me to the Kremlin. On the way he said to me: “Just remember that you are going to do the best bit of work to-day that you have ever done.” I was anxious, rather, about the conditions of the room and the light. We went in by a special door, guarded by a sentry, and on the third floor we went through several doors and passages, each guarded. As I was expected, the sentries had received orders to let me pass. Finally, we went through two rooms full of women secretaries. The last room contained about five women at five tables, and they all looked at me curiously, but they knew my errand. Here Michael handed me over to a little hunchback, Lenin’s private secretary, and left me. She pointed to a white baize door, and I went through. It did not latch, but merely swung behind me.