valuable work which I possess only in French.




III

LENIN, TROTSKY AND GORKY


Soon after my arrival in Moscow I had an hour's conversation with
Lenin in English, which he speaks fairly well. An interpreter was
present, but his services were scarcely required. Lenin's room is very
bare; it contains a big desk, some maps on the walls, two book-cases,
and one comfortable chair for visitors in addition to two or three
hard chairs. It is obvious that he has no love of luxury or even
comfort. He is very friendly, and apparently simple, entirely without
a trace of _hauteur_. If one met him without knowing who he was, one
would not guess that he is possessed of great power or even that he is
in any way eminent. I have never met a personage so destitute of
self-importance. He looks at his visitors very closely, and screws up
one eye, which seems to increase alarmingly the penetrating power of
the other. He laughs a great deal; at first his laugh seems merely
friendly and jolly, but gradually I came to feel it rather grim. He
is dictatorial, calm, incapable of fear, extraordinarily devoid of
self-seeking, an embodied theory. The materialist conception of
history, one feels, is his life-blood. He resembles a professor in his
desire to have the theory understood and in his fury with those who
misunderstand or disagree, as also in his love of expounding, I got
the impression that he despises a great many people and is an