ABSTRACT
I could hardly believe how much he had changed in two or three years. When I had last seen him, in 1945, he was still lively, quick-witted, and had a pointed sense of humour. But that was during the war and it had been, it would seem, Stalin’s last effort and had taken him to his limit. Now he laughed at inanities and shallow jokes. On one occasion he not only failed to get the political point of an anecdote I told him about how he had got the better of Churchill and Roosevelt, but he even seemed to be offended, as old men sometimes are. I perceived an embarrassed astonishment on the faces of the rest of the party.
