Happily the peasant woman came in with tea, and I sat down wearily with my head in my hands, utterly dispirited and discouraged. Only the fierce determination to make it come right roused me and I went at it again. He said, as he watched me: “When your teeth are clenched and you are fighting with your work, _vous êtes encore femme_.” I asked him to take off his pince-nez, as they hampered me. He hates doing this, he says he feels _désarmé_ and absolutely lost without them. It seemed akin to physical pain taking them off--they have become part of him and the loss of them completely changes his individuality. It is a pity, as they rather spoil an otherwise classical head. While he was standing there helplessly with half-closed eyes, he remarked on my name being [Illustration: TROTSKY AT THE FRONT.] spelt in the same way as that of the playwright. I explained that I had married a direct descendant. He was interested and said, “The School for Scandal” and “The Rivals,” had been translated and were occasionally acted here in Russian. He then got on to Shakespeare. I wish I could recall the words in which he described his appreciation, exclaiming finally: “If England had never produced anything else, she would have justified her existence.” We disagreed as to Byron and Shelley. He, like others I have met here, preferred Byron, and insisted in spite of my assertions to the contrary that Byron was the greater Revolutionary of the two. He was surprised that I loved Swinburne. He said he would have thought me too much of this world to love the spirituality of Swinburne. I said: “One has one’s dreams.” He gave a sigh. “Yes,” he said, “we all have our dreams----” When, at the end of the evening, I was dissatisfied with my work and feeling suicidal I asked him: “May I come back and work to-morrow night?”