Even with chains our car too went into the ditch, and as by this time the rain had slackened, I was delighted to get out and walk, but the road was so slippery that even arm in arm, the Minister and I could hardly stand up. I picked a variety of wild flowers, and watched de la Huerta surrounded by clamoring Indians who wanted pesos for having helped the car out of the ditch--it was rather an attractive scene, and he really does love his Indians! I say “his” Indians, because he has Indian blood in his veins, but he told me also that his grandfather was a Spaniard from Granada and his mother was the daughter of a Polish Jew, born in France. It is a glorious mix-up. I asked him if it would be possible for me to stop and see Villa on my way to California, and if so would he give me a letter of introduction. De la Huerta laughed, he said it would be quite possible and that with a letter from him I would be quite safe.... (Safe--from what?) I told him I mean to leave in about ten days. “Yes,” he said, “if the Mexican government allows you to go!” I told him about the Mexican Consul in New York hesitating to visé my passport, because Mexico did not want any Bolsheviks, and I said how surprised I had felt at Mexico suddenly becoming so respectable. “Do you consider a conservative attitude respectable?” he asked, adding: “I call respectability having a sincere and independent opinion, and having the courage to acknowledge it....” Then with a sudden impulse he plucked at a scarlet flower in my hand, one that I had gathered among the rocks, and half audibly, more to himself than to me, he said: “That represents the life blood of these toiling people....” Later, when we neared home, he remarked: “Ah! if we could only work at ease, without the shadow of that spectre in the North....” We agreed that no country could independently work out its salvation, except Russia, who was not overshadowed. We had got back to Mexico City, and I was nearing my ‘home’ when suddenly he asked: “What is your impression of Trotzky...? I told him I had compromised myself on two continents shouting his praises! “And Lenin...?” I told him. Then came this astonishing final question: “Is Trotzky a good man?” “From what point of view good?” “Morally....” I could not embark at this last moment upon a discussion of what are morals through an interpreter. I thought. I hesitated. I wondered, as I never had wondered before, about Trotzky, and then I admitted that so far as I knew, Trotzky was a moral man! FRIDAY, JULY 29, 1921. _Mexico City._