no privileges which would save her from the hardships of
the population. But the younger members of the party,
together with Litvinov, found their spirits irrepressibly rising
in spite of having no dinner. They walked about the village,
played with the children, and sang, not revolutionary songs,
but just jolly songs, any songs that came into their heads.
When at last the train came to take us into Petrograd, and we
found that the carriages were unheated, somebody got out a
mandoline and we kept ourselves warm by dancing. At the
same time I was sorry for the five children who were with
us, knowing that a country simultaneously suffering war,
blockade and revolution is not a good place for childhood.
But they had caught the mood of their parents,
revolutionaries going home to their revolution, and trotted
excitedly up and down the carriage or anchored themselves
momentarily, first on one person's knee and then on
another's.


It was dusk when we reached Petrograd. The Finland
Station, of course, was nearly deserted, but here there
were four porters, who charged two hundred and fifty
roubles for shifting the luggage of the party from one end of
the platform to the other. We ourselves loaded it into the
motor lorry sent to meet us, as at Bieloostrov we had loaded
it into the van. There was a long time to wait while rooms
were being allotted to us in various hotels, and with several
others I walked outside the station to question people about
the mutiny and the bombardment of which we had heard in
Finland. Nobody knew anything about it. As soon as the