in and after
quite a few adventures I managed to return to Petrograd. I brought
back with me 75 cases of what the British call 'Iron Rations,' a
mixture of all kinds of food to be used in emergencies.

Food was more than scarce by that time and I was given a couple of
cases. It was a God send for all of us. We all subsisted on it.

But the Bolsheviks were getting bolder by the day and were raiding
houses, arresting former officers and executing them every night.

One evening about ten, a knock came on the door. I opened. Three men
with rifles came in with a commissar. They asked for me by name and
said they had an order to search the place. They asked if I had any
arms and I said I had a service revolver, which had been given to me
by the British. I also had another revolver of mine which lay on the
mantelpiece. Nelka, who was there in the room, did at that moment a
most risky thing. Unobtrusively she slipped my revolver into the
pocket of her dress. I noticed this, but the men did not. I produced
the other gun which they dutifully registered and took. They then
proceeded to search the place and after examining my papers,
announced that I would not be arrested in view of my service with the
British. Upon that they left. Nelka had done a most risky thing, for
had the pistol been discovered in her pocket, it probably would have
been the end of all of us.

However, things were getting very acute and very dangerous. It was
obvious that a similar raid might happen again any day and might not
finish as well. Should I be arrested and taken away the chances would
be of my being shot. So far my service with the British had served as
a protection, but with the relations with the foreigners fast getting
worse, this could mean just the opposite for me and the connection
would be detrimental instead of helpful. So it soon proved to be.

We all had a general consultation and decided to try and get out of
the country if only possible. My father went to Moscow where he knew
a prominent Jew who was procuring exit permits, for a price, and was
helping that way people to get abroad. Then we all began to move
about trying to stay in different places, different nights.

In the midst of all this, I declared my love to Nelka and asked her
to marry me. She refused because she said she did not think it was
fair to me on account of our age difference. I was then twenty-one
and she was forty. I kept insisting. She admitted that she loved me