He seemed somehow to belong to our environment, we should have missed him if he hadn’t been there. Just occasionally he said things about England that roused opposition in me. I feel about England as most people do about their relations, that I may abuse my own, but no one else may. I realised, when I got to know him better, that his attitude was not so much one of hostility to England as of intense pride in Russia, and so I forgave him. During my first days in Moscow, Rothstein unfailingly cross-questioned me at supper as to how I had spent my day, where I had lunched, whom I had seen, and what time I had come home. At last I said to him: “Don’t ask me, try and find out,” and I chaffed him so that he had to give up asking. I never knew whether there was a motive in his curiosity or not. At all events, he never was anything but a kindly and helpful friend to me. I drove away from No. 14, Sofiskaya Naberezhnaya in an open car in the bright light of a full moon, glittering stars, and hard frost. Litvinoff, observing that I looked back at it rather sentimentally, said: “That is your Moscow home, the next time you come you will bring your children,” and I felt that I did not look upon it for the last time. We drove first to the Commissariat for Foreign Affairs, as he had some packages of papers to pick up there which he had taken away in the morning to have sealed up for me. I waited outside in the car for some time. When he rejoined me he was agitated, my “coffins,” he had just learnt, were still at the Kremlin. Organisation had miscarried, it was “somebody’s” fault. The lorry had waited for them three hours, but the sentry at the building had refused to deliver them up. What could have happened? Everyone was at the big Opera House meeting, so all telephoning efforts to get hold of responsible help had been in vain. We had three-quarters of an hour before the train was due to start. I suggested driving to the Kremlin to see what we could do. Happily I still had my pass on me, so we got in by the sentry. The building, ever before so busy, was now utterly deserted and resonant. I unlocked the door of my studio, and there were the two coffins lying packed and sealed and unmoved. I lifted one end of one, it was far beyond our combined strengths to carry, and the motor could not have taken them. We gave it up in despair. Down in the courtyard our car refused to move, the chauffeur was tinkering at it. It seemed to have a real congested chill. Train time was drawing near. The station was some way off. “Stay,” said Litvinoff. I had visions of staying, perhaps indefinitely, having parted with all except what I stood up in.