told, he walked unhappily to and fro in the fortress at Brest
during the second period of the negotiations. I did not think
he would recognize me, but he came up at once, and
reminded me of the packing of the archives at the time when
it seemed likely that the Germans would take Petrograd. He
told me of a mass of material they are publishing about the
origin of the war. He said that England came out of it best
of anybody, but that France and Russia showed in a very
bad light.


Just then, Demian Bledny rolled in, fatter than he used to be
(admirers from the country send him food) with a round
face, shrewd laughing eyes, and cynical mouth, a typical
peasant, and the poet of the revolution. He was passably
shaved, his little yellow moustache was trimmed, he was
wearing new leather breeches, and seemed altogether a more
prosperous poet than the untidy ruffian I first met about a
year or more ago before his satirical poems in Pravda and
other revolutionary papers had reached the heights of
popularity to which they have since attained. In the old days
before the revolution in Petrograd he used to send his poems
to the revolutionary papers. A few were published and
scandalized the more austere and serious-minded
revolutionaries, who held a meeting to decide
whether any more were to be printed. Since the
revolution, he has rapidly come into his own, and is now a
sort of licensed jester, flagellating Communists and
non-Communists alike. Even in this assembly
he had about him a little of the manner of