Napoleon faded away from his face, and before me was again Monsieur Kerensky, a little lawyer with whom I had once made a trip from Moscow to Petrograd.  A little lawyer who tried to please me and looked for my sympathy.

“That’s the appreciation of our work!...  Poor Russia!  She is deserted!  Here I am all alone to carry this burden”—­and Kerensky showed with a circular movement of disorder on his desk,—­“But you,” he continued, after a pause,—­“you!  Why should you be disgusted, and why should you leave us at this strenuous moment?  Don’t you see that the building up of the state needs the full co-operation of every element of Russia,—­the new ones, as well as the old?”

I said that I did not think I was more of an old element than he, but repeated my categoric decision.

As if wounded right in the heart, with a theatrical sigh, Kerensky looked out of the window, then smiled bitterly, and took the paper from me.  “I grant you your request.  I know what disgusted you,—­and, and—­I understand.  I hope you will not regret this step.”

He sat down thus politely indicating the end of the audience.  Here, on his desk, I noticed one of the last numbers of the “L’Illustration” with a large picture of himself on it, which he was studying while I was waiting for his interview.

How easy I feel!  Left to my own affairs, to my own business, all to my very own self!  Thank God!  I never felt this way before.

And our national Tartarin of Tarrascon—­at his desk in the palace, with his people, always meeting polite and covetous eyes,—­will continue his hard work.  Under every smile and every bow, he will see—­up to the grave, the veiled appreciation:  “By God, what a small thing you are.”  On the pages of history his name will forever remain and look like the trace of a malicious and sick fly.

17.

How glad I am that Maroossia went away!  I feel more at ease though the housekeeping is up to me.

There was more shooting and more of revolution, than heretofore, during all of these days,—­one more evidence that the building of the new state is in full progress.  Of course,—­these days brought Kerensky as high up as he only can go.  Next will be his precipitated downfall,—­much speedier than his elevation.  Why do the Allies make this mistake of letting a worm like Kerensky endanger the cause—­it is a mystery ... though “there are no mysteries in this plainest of planets.”

Nahkamkes and Trotzky—­found! and in jail, for the moment being,—­perhaps like the Baroness, or even easier!  But the man, the real German hound of Petrograd, Monsieur Ulianov-Lenin,—­could not be found. Could not be found is true.  He has not been looked for, as any ass knows where he is.  They send him meals from Felicien, or Ernest.

Away from here!  I must be going as soon as I get the things straightened.

Have wired to Maroossia that I am still alive, otherwise she is liable to appear again.  Elisabeth wrote a letter from Moscow and said that “here—­everybody is well and things look satisfactory.  Food supplies in abundance.  All active in building up the state.”  Is she sick?  Who is building the state?  We destroy.