Litvinoff was most kind and helped me to move my clay and stand from the Kremlin to the Foreign Office. I would have liked a snapshot of our procession--the moulder carrying the clay block, Litvinoff, in his fur-lined coat and sealskin cap armed with the modelling stand, and I following with the bucket of clay and cloths. On arrival at the Foreign Office we were greeted by the Chinese General in uniform and all his staff. Litvinoff, who is likely to be the Soviet representative in China, was rather taken aback by this _rencontre_ but the Chinese were enormously amused. Later, at 9 p.m. I returned with Litvinoff to Tchicherin’s office to begin work. While Litvinoff went inside I waited in the secretary’s room, and while I was waiting a man hurried through the office. He was a little man in brown trousers and a coat which did not match. With small steps he shuffled hastily along. It might have been a night watchman; it was Tchicherin. Still I waited, and the length of my wait began to annoy me, and then I began to feel that [Illustration: SENTRY OUTSIDE THE GUEST-HOUSE. _p. 161._] something was wrong. Presently Litvinoff called me, but I got no further than the doorway. There Tchicherin confronted me, and in hurried and confused tones said: “To-night it is impossible, quite, quite impossible,” and disappeared. He had not even allowed me to cross his threshold. Litvinoff and I looked at each other and walked out. We went upstairs to Litvinoff’s office. He was obviously upset and at a perfect loss to explain or excuse. I sat and talked until the car arrived to take me home, and from what Litvinoff said and from what I had seen in that flash, I have learned something of the personality of Tchicherin. He is an abnormal man, living month after month in that Foreign Office with closed windows and never going out. He insists on having a bedroom there, as he says he has not time to go home to sleep. He works all night, and if a telegram comes in the day he has to be awakened. His nights are days and his days are not entirely nights. He has no idea of time and does not realise that other people live differently. He will ring up a Comrade on the telephone at 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning for the most trivial information. He does all his own work, and will not ring for a secretary or messenger, but runs himself with papers to other departments. He lives on his nerves and the slightest thing throws him off his pivot.