Mr. Tchicherin is a bachelor; women manifestly have no place in his dreams of a millennium. How this came to be is a secret which perhaps will never out. I am not presuming that there never was any romance in Mr. Tchicherin’s life. Just to illustrate how wrong I should be if I did, I recall an incident which occurred in a fashionable Berlin café. Some Americans were discussing Tchicherin. One remarked that she often regretted that there is no room for chivalry in a Socialist State; that equality does not recognize gallantry. Another claimed that while Lenin seems to have a way of treating women no better and no worse than men, Tchicherin simply overlooks the whole feminine sex; if he is conscious of women at all, it is only through a slight annoyance. Now, when the company had finally arrived at these conclusions, they suddenly became aware of a very aristocratic and beautiful old lady at the next table who was regarding them disdainfully through a gold lorgnette. Presently she exclaimed in Russian, “How absurd you are! Mr. Tchicherin was an old sweetheart of mine.” So saying, she arose and swept grandly away, rustling in her lavender silks, as delicate as a Dresden china doll. So life repeats itself; there is always an Elaine for every Launcelot. And Launcelot inevitably deserts his lady for some vague “Light” beyond the stars. Tchicherin is a many-sided character. When one sees him on the street of an afternoon blinking and confused, with an old umbrella under his arm, rain or shine, he appears pitiful and frail and incapable.... But if one sees him also, as I once saw him, in an ancient, resurrected dress-suit, at the head of a long conference table in a gold and white hall, under glittering candelabra, speaking in flowery and perfect French to the suave Turkish delegates, one gets quite another idea; he appears fine, selfless, determined. And it is like him to admire Secretary of State Hughes, and call him a “fine, high-minded man” without realizing that Hughes’ high-mindedness is that of a stern, religious brother who refuses to admit again into the family of nations the erring and prodigal Soviet Republic; that it was Hughes who stood out alone against the Genoa conference until he stampeded other members of the Cabinet and even overpowered the President. Hughes regards Communism as immoral as Tchicherin regards capitalism. Both men possess that unbending, cold objectiveness, that unattractive righteousness of attitude towards those who disagree with them, which we know in America as Puritanism. Both would have made excellent bishops. One evening last spring I happened to be present when Tchicherin was nearly assassinated. A man flourishing a revolver appeared in the reception room and called out for the Foreign Minister. This roused a Red soldier half asleep in a comfortable chair near the door leading to Tchicherin’s private office. A scuffle ensued and the soldier succeeded in getting the pistol before any harm was done.