the same paper would purchase an abundance of Commune-sponsored vanilla ice cream, which his family therefore consumed for breakfast, lunch and dinner. He mentions this curiosity, he remarks, “because it was typical of the happy-go-lucky, dilettantish, and even surrealistic ways in which the Commune was run.” It was, Koestler thought, “all rather endearing—at least when compared to the lunacy and savagery which was to descend upon Europe in years to come.”412
