the muzzle of an eighteen-inch gun. The only signs of
preparations for defence that remain are the pair of light
field guns which, rather the worse for weather, still stand
under the pillars of the portico which they would probably
shake to pieces if ever they should be fired. Inside the
routine was as it used to be, and when I turned down the
passage to get my permit to go upstairs, I could hardly
believe that I had been away for so long. The place is
emptier than it was. There is not the same eager crowd of
country delegates pressing up and down the corridors and
collecting literature from the stalls that I used to see in the
old days when the serious little workman from the Viborg
side stood guard over Trotsky's door, and from the alcove
with its window looking down into the great hall, the endless
noise of debate rose from the Petrograd Soviet that met
below.


Litvinov invited me to have dinner with the Petrograd
Commissars, which I was very glad to do, partly because I
was hungry and partly because I thought it would be better
to meet Zinoviev thus than in any other manner,
remembering how sourly he had looked upon me earlier
in the revolution. Zinoviev is a Jew, with a lot of hair, a
round smooth face, and a very abrupt manner. He was
against the November Revolution, but when it had been
accomplished returned to his old allegiance to Lenin and,
becoming President of the Northern Commune, remained in
Petrograd when the Government moved to Moscow. He is
neither an original thinker nor a good orator except in