personal telegram to President Wilson. He then weighed, in
no very hopeful spirit, the possibilities of this last Note to all
the Allies having any serious result. He estimated the
opposing tendencies for and against war with Russia in each
of the principal countries concerned. The growth of
revolutionary feeling abroad made imperialistic governments
even more aggressive towards the Workers' and Peasants'
Republic than they would otherwise be. It was now making
their intervention difficult, but no more. It was impossible to
say that the collapse of Imperialism had gone so far that it
had lost its teeth. Chicherin speaks as if he were a dead man
or a ventriloquist's lay figure. And indeed he is half-dead.
He has never learnt the art of releasing himself from
drudgery by handing it over to his subordinates. He is
permanently tired out. You feel it is almost cruel to say
"Good morning" to him when you meet him, because of the
appeal to be left alone that comes unconsciously into his
eyes. Partly in order to avoid people, partly because he is
himself accustomed to work at night, his section of the
foreign office keeps extraordinary hours, is not to be found
till about five in the afternoon and works till four in the
morning. The actual material of his report was interesting,
but there was nothing in its manner to rouse enthusiasm
of any kind. The audience listened with attention, but only
woke into real animation when with a shout of laughter it
heard an address sent to Cl=82menceau by the emigr=82
financiers, aristocrats and bankrupt politicians of the Russian
colony in Stockholm, protesting against any sort of
agreement with the Bolsheviks.