They were difficult--those Russians; difficult as dreamers and children always are. They lashed us with their scorn. They impugned our motives. They “swept into the ash-barrel of history” our secret treaties and dismissed us as capitalists and imperialists. The German autocracy, arch-enemy of all democracy, had succeeded in its gigantic scheme to drive a wedge between Russia and her Allies--had trapped Russia into the belief that the German people wanted nothing but an honest democratic peace, and that only the Allies stood between them and their desire. In their minds, our aloofness gave color to the declaration of their leaders: “Our Revolution will be crushed by the imperialism of the western democracies.” Germany proposed new peace terms. The Russian delegates did not even stop to examine them. They said they knew they must sign whatever the terms might be. They signed a peace that was not a peace--a peace that Germany disregarded more flagrantly each passing hour--a peace that will never be a peace. “It is our peace of Tilsit [1810],” Lenin said; “but we will finally attain our peace of 1814. Probably we shall not have to wait so long, because history is moving faster in these days.” Truly, the Commissary of Commissaries was right: “their knees are upon our chests.” A MESSAGE TO MARS We were five in the little blue room in the War Hotel that night. It was one of my last in Petrograd. The electric lights, fickle at best, had failed entirely. The tiny sputtering flame of the olive-green candle disclosed distant vistas in the eyes of Zamiatin. Zamiatin was one of the younger of the Russian writers--a deep, quiet, imaginative chap, who talked in fables, with long spaces of silence between. The Bolsheviki were the subject of our discussion. We argued breathlessly, with flushed faces and shining eyes, as one always argued in Russia during the hectic nights and days of the red Russian year. Zamiatin put down his glass of tea, and with his forefinger began to trace the crimson pattern on the Bokhara table-cover. “When I was a boy,” he said, “a little fellow about thirteen or fourteen, I read a book--I have forgotten the name--a Russian version of something like ‘A Romance of Two Worlds.’ It set strange imaginings whirling in my brain. I told my comrades about it, and they became as excited as I. “Off there in the big black sky above the silver birches was a planet called Mars, peopled like ours with human beings. We made up our minds to get into communication with those other people. We thought of many plans. Finally we conceived the idea of building a great letter ‘A’ and setting it on fire. We believed Mars would see and answer us, and in a very short time we would arrange an alphabet and carry on long conversations. Perhaps it would revolutionize the whole universe--who knew? We were on fire with the idea.