February 10, 1921.
Lunched with Mr. and Mrs. Whigham. He is the editor of Town and Country and is a Scotchman. It was one of the nicest parties I’ve been to, absolutely after my own heart. I sat next to Jo Davidson, whom I’d wanted to meet, Mrs. Whitney was there, and McEvoy and Mr. Harrison Rhodes and Guardiabassé, the singer and painter. All were people who do things.
Mr. Davidson astonished me. I had expected someone very American, but he looks like a black-bearded Bolshevik, speaks French like a Frenchman, and speaks it preferably, and has lived for years in Moscow. He is just a typical international. He has a keen sense of humor, cosmopolitan manners, and the American quick grasp of things. I found myself talking to him as if we had known each other all our lives. He said laughingly that he had read my diary in the Times and had hated me from that moment. Hated me for having done this thing! He said of course he would have done it if the chance had come his way, but we agreed that it was a woman’s chance. Trotzky never would have been good with anyone but me! We think we’ll go back there together, hand in hand.
I went away with McEvoy, and on the way down in the lift he said, “What a nice party that was, quite like England!” I agreed, and the half suppressed giggle of the lift boy roused me to add for his benefit that we meant it as a compliment. I wonder if the lift boy by any chance was Irish!
February 11, 1921.
I had a Christian Herald reporter at eleven, and two American Hebrew reporters at twelve. They were all of them intelligent. Then Hugo K. turned up in the middle of it all, and I just abandoned the Hebrews. I took H. to lunch with Mr. Liveright and two gentlemen of the film industry. I believe they wanted to see my face. I do not believe it lends itself to filming and I am much too big, but still it was interesting to meet them and one got a new point of view.
I dined with the Misses Cooper Hewitt, daughters of Abram Hewitt, once Mayor of New York, quite a different atmosphere from any other in New York. Real old world, and most of the people I met talked to me about my family, remembered my grandfather and seemed to have loved my aunts.
February 12, 1921.
Finished my introduction for “Mayfair to Moscow” at one o’clock while Mr. Liveright’s messenger waited in the hall for it.
At eight I dined with Mr. Wiley, and found my own photograph framed between Lenin’s and Trotzky’s. A delicate compliment which I appreciated and no one else noticed! The party consisted of the Gerards, Col. and Mrs. House, the Walter Rosens, Arthur Pollen, the English naval expert, and some others. Pollen held the table for some time on the subject of disarmament and the attitude of England, and was rather dogmatic. It was impossible to argue as he raised his voice and seemed to resent controversy. I sat next to Mr. Gerard and felt he was still the distinguished conspicuous U. S. Ambassador to Berlin of 1916—but he is like a war book—one has lost interest. He told us, however, that Mr. Harding had told him that he means to invite the European premiers to Washington to confer on peace. Everyone seemed agreed that it was a grand idea; everyone seemed agreed also that it was madness to have so utterly destroyed the Central Powers. There was a general “down” on France.
Mr. Pollen was right about the crumbling Europe and the necessity for peace and agreement all round.
After dinner I had a little talk with Col. House whom I found very sane-minded about Russia.
He agreed with me that I was right not to be drawn into political arguments, as he said it would do no good, and I would be misunderstood.
February 13, 1921.
I lunched with “The Kingfisher” as we call Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt in London! I was rather disappointed with her Fifth Avenue Palazzo, it does not compare with the Otto Kahns and has not the atmosphere. There was a beautiful Turner in one of the drawing rooms, and a gallery full of Corots and Millets, but they were not very interesting or decorative, or else there were too many of them. I sat next to my host whose trim beard and uncommunicative, rather unsmiling countenance reminded me of a Bolshevik type that I used to see at the Kremlin table d’hôte. He only needed shabby clothes and his beard a little less trim. It made me think how good looking some of the Bolsheviks would be if they were millionaires.
After lunch when the women left the dining room some one hazarded a remark to the effect that the big rooms were pleasant with nobody in them. Our hostess said that was not an idea with which she was in sympathy, that she thought a big house should be full of people and as many enjoy it as possible, “whatever I have I want to share,” she said, and then turning to me, “Please tell that to the Bolsheviks—” I asked her why I should convey any such message—she evidently mistook me for a messenger of the gods. Then suddenly, conversation drifted onto me and my plans. I was asked if when I returned I was going to live in Ireland, hadn’t my father got a place there? I answered that I lived where there was work, and, therefore, I might remain where I was, or go to Russia. Mrs. Vanderbilt looked rather surprised, and asked whether Russia paid better than any other country. That I did not know, but certain it is that any country pays more than England! This subject of payment seemed suddenly to excite her—, in a tremulously querulous voice, whilst the other women sat silently, I stood up in front of the fireplace and was cross-questioned, and nagged as to that payment. Who had paid me? Had Lenin and Trotzky paid me? What did I call government money? Whose money was it and where did it come from? I said I did not know, indeed I felt a great longing to be able to explain as she seemed so keen—but how could I tell where the money came from for which I had to give a receipt to the “All Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets …” for a cheque signed Litvinoff, (whose bust I had not done) for payment through at Stockholm bank?
Mrs. Vanderbilt thought it was dreadful, and said that I upset her very much. She said that Mr. Wilson’s government did not and could not do things like that! It occurred to me that probably there is very little similarity between the methods of Mr. Wilson’s government and those of the Russian Soviet, but who can prove that the Wilson form of government is right anyway?
Altogether it was rather unpleasant, and I left as soon as I could, and wondering, as I walked home, why she had asked me to her house.
I fear I must have irritated her from the start, because when she asked me to lunch there was no address on her card, and no telephone number in the book; so when I answered I addressed it as best I could to: Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt, New York, adding a little message: “Please, postman, deliver this somewhere in Fifth Avenue.”
February 14, 1921. William Penn Hotel,
Pittsburgh
Ruth Djirloff, my secretary, waked me up by telephoning to me that it was twenty of seven. I do dislike that Americanism “of” especially when I am not awake and I have to make a special effort to remember if “of” means before or after. Having roused myself to the realization that it was twenty to seven, I waked Louise, who got some breakfast for me. I did not wake Dick and was rather glad that his sleeping gave me an excuse not to say goodbye to him. It is easier so. I have left them all alone in the flat, just those two. If Louise died in the night how would anybody know, and how would Dick get out or make anyone hear? These are not things to think of. Providence will, I know, take care of me to the end.
We drove to a railway station that was like an opera house and heated. What civilization—! I should think the poor would come in there to get out of the cold. Perhaps they’re not allowed; or perhaps like me, they prefer air. We caught the 8:05 train to Pittsburgh. A ten hour journey. The train was very comfortable and I slept most of the way and ate nothing, being thankful for the rest from food. I read most of “Men and Steel” by Mary Heaton Vorse, published by my publisher. It is very powerful, and conveys its force through its great simplicity and crispness
