He said: “It is not abusing, but there are ways of criticising even without abuse. It is easy enough here to be blinded _par les saletés et les souffrances_ and to see no further than that, and people are apt to forget that there is no birth without suffering and horror, and Russia is in the throes of a great _accouchement_.” He talks well, he is full of imagery and his voice is beautiful. We paused for tea, and I talked to him of things I had heard about the schools. In reply he said he had heard no adverse reports of the co-education scheme for boys and girls. There might be an individual case of failure, though even of such a case he had not heard. He then compared the present system with that of boy colleges of his own day, and he said that his own boy of fourteen had nicer ideas about girls, and far less cynicism, than he had at the same age. The boy apparently confides in his mother, so he knows something about it. To-night he sent me home alone in his car; he excused himself, saying it was the only time it was possible for him to walk. He kissed my dirty hand and said that he would always preserve a memory of “_une femme avec une auréole de cheveux et des mains très sales_.” OCTOBER 22ND. Finished! I worked until half after midnight. I think it is a success. He said so; but it has been such a struggle. About half way through the evening, the electric lights went out. A secretary lit four candles. On the telephone Trotsky learnt that the lights had gone out all over the town. I asked him hopefully if it could possibly be the outburst of a counter-Revolution. He laughed and asked if that was what I wanted. I said that I thought it would break the monotony. Until the lights went on I read the leading article on Bolshevism in _The Times_ of, I think, October 4th. He had several English papers on his desk and we read together with much amusement that he (Trotsky) had been wounded, and that General Budienny had been court-martialled. There were even descriptions of barricades in the streets of Moscow: someone must have mistaken the stacks of fuel that the tramcars are bringing in and unloading every day. When the lights went on I worked hectically until half after midnight, with the desperation of knowing it was the last sitting.