on the Black Sea,’ Ugrimov’s ‘Capture of Kazan’ and ‘Election of Michael Romanov,’ in which the artist reaches the heights of Oriental splendor in color, composition and design....  There is a FORTUNE going to the devil in this room!...  This house is L-shaped.  The garden in the rear faces a pretentious two-story dwelling surrounded by a wall, like a Governor General’s mansion in its yellow-pinkish coat.  Tall poplar trees wave in front and the classic columns running up to the entablature give the place an official sort of front.  There is a drug store on the corner across the way doing business under the name of Torkiani.  To the right, at the end of the street, is a girls’ college; to the left, about 800 feet away, in the center of the street, is the Alexander Nevsky Church, if I’m not very much mistaken.  This city must have been a wonder before the war....”  Then this entry:  “Something is about to happen!...  My sentry seems very excited over the desertion ’on Ekaterine Street’ and swears quite often at the failure of some one to appear ‘along the Levashov.’”

16.  This entry may explain the difficulty: 

“There is an Army Corps approaching from the southwest....  The air is surcharged with electricity and puts one’s nerves on edge....  There is an ominous roar overhead that grows more nerve-racking every second....  Zip, zip, zip, bl-r-r-r-r-oo-ow!...  A flock of Foelkers heading east like wild ducks toward a few faint specks zigzagging in the firmament away to the northeast....  Now there are a number of specks from the south speedily joining these and ALL seem to be flitting higher and higher out of sight....  Now the Foelkers are circling rapidly upward....  The tramp and rattle of an Army can be heard coming up the road behind my villa....  Ah! here comes a daring plane like a streak of lightning over the Alex Nevsky Church directly toward this prison!...  I’m between the Devil and the Deep Sea!...  Whoever gets me, that flyer or those noisy and unseen dogs of war back yonder, means nothing but plain HELL to ME!...”

17.  The next entry is interesting: 

“Well, I’m not DEAD yet!...  A trip through the clouds is NOT the most delightful of experiences for one in summer togs....  Especially when one is gagged and blindfolded and roped down like a rebellious steer....  So here I am cooped up again in a log cabin in the center of an undulating plain where there might have been unending wheat fields once upon a time....  Not a solitary animal is in sight....  The road out yonder looks much the worse for wear.  It seems ground into a pumice stone by the hoofs of horses and the swift movement of heavy wheels.  Every gust of wind sends a cloud of fine dust pyramiding its way across the fields and through the crevices of this suffocating den furnished with a few wooden chairs, a hand-carved bedstead, a small picture of the ‘Virgin of the Partridges’ and a brass crucifix above the bed....  I greatly SUSPECT my present whereabouts....  I am as much mystified as ever why that veiled Metropole Circe continues to dog my FLIGHTS....  It was she who was the daring flyer and she beat the whole army getting to my retreat in that neglected villa and spiriting me away....”