I was left to say only that it was undoubtedly a railroad presenting a great many opportunities, upon which time his secretary came to the door and our impromptu meeting was at an end.

What did you think he meant by that gesture, placing his hand on the globe in that fashion?

Well, I might have thought all kinds of things, but assumptions were not the order of the day. I had only set foot in Mogilev that morning, and was still gathering information. Gathering it and testing it. To my good fortune, I returned to my hotel room to find a note from John Hanbury-Williams, the British general, suggesting we take a drink together that evening.

There was a bar adjacent to the lobby of the hotel, and he was waiting at a table in civilian clothes when I arrived. His Russian servant, Missi, was standing by the table but, upon seeing me, he ended their conversation and released her for the night. He had a novel in front of him, by Pushkin, but it remained unopened while I was with him. It was a mark of the man and his sincere intent to understand the Russian mind. He was always at work on that.

He ordered us some wine. Moldavian, I believe it was, as he said French wine was difficult to come by in Mogilev due to the war. He described the wine as an acquired taste, but I have never had much of a palate for wine, so I took his word for it and drank a polite amount.

The first thing he told me was not to believe a word of any briefing on Russia that I had received outside Petrograd or Mogilev, and to be appropriately sceptical of any heard in those two places. ‘You will soon learn,’ he said, ‘that much here that might elsewhere be settled is fluid, and that nuance is an important aspect of the Russian condition that seems to travel poorly to head office.’

But for the bartender, the two of us were alone in the bar, though there were wineglasses on another table, suggesting it had recently been vacated. There was a portrait of the Emperor on the wall, in a dress uniform with a scarlet coat, and there were lamps casting a low light about the scene.

The general asked about my meeting with HIM, which I learned was the British shortened way of referring to His Imperial Majesty, and I told him I had found the Emperor most courteous. He appeared to be waiting for me to say more, and I told him it had not been a long meeting, for the Emperor had been called away.