I never knew that a wireless apparatus for a range of more than one hundred miles could be such a small thing.  Really this war has brought about some wonders, and it is clear to me this particular station, that was delivered yesterday, is a military outfit.  I remember little about wireless telegraphy; only few explanations given to me by Capt.  Volkhovsky, and after the very solemn inauguration of the “Spark-Radio” we had a gala-performance.  It is but a superficial study indeed.

I cannot understand this strange silence of Goroshkin.  Is he dead?  If he is dead—­what happened to Marchenko?  Are they both dead?  Now since the Ls are gone and Pasha has become some Bolshevik’s property (poor little thing!) I have no idea what to do.  Shall I consider myself in the game, or did the whole organization end; shall I continue on my own behalf?  I have been thinking, and thinking about it, and have decided that I must continue my informative functions, and must wait as I have been told.  They said I shall be on my post—­and I must remain.  The absence of letters does not mean much:  they can be in a terrible situation in Moscow now—­we know nothing.  If my letters have not reached Goroshkin—­they have reached somebody else; in the latter case I would have been hanged long ago, or shot, or something similar, if the letters did not reach friends.

Lucie?  Well if she is not the crookedest woman!  I do not think I could get rid of her now even if I would.  Schmelin knows of my going out of town, it is clear.  Of course he closes his eyes,—­but I never can doubt that he will be the first to “put me on a clear water” as soon as he apprehends that the other commissaries know of my wanderings and trading with the Letts, and of what is now under our bed.

Something new:  Lucie received a rubber bath, so I have to warm up the water and then wait....

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...  She would come back, as soon as I shall be ready putting the wires instead of the ropes in the yard for drying the linen.  I was glad to know it.  Certainly.  Personally I am very glad to see her around:  she is a nice little woman when she does not plot.  It is agreeable to have tea at five and then everything looks so clean and neat since she came.  Good God, should she be simply a nice little Lucie!  How agreeable everything could become—­as if there were no Revolution, no Bolsheviki, no Emperor....  But no; Fate has to put a drop of tar in a barrel of honey.  However, perhaps I would have hated to see a cook around here:  as soon as a woman gets too domestic—­she infallibly becomes unattractive.  As for Lucie—­enclosed in a cage as we are—­I never saw her unwashed, uncombed, frivolous or unladylike.  So let her be a plotter.  I must be grateful as we never quarrel....  She sends me away when....

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32

(Fifth letter to M. Goroshkin)