He suddenly became thoughtful and said:

"If we could only get hold of some kind of automobile, even as old as can be. I have a tremendous district. When I have to go some place on party business, I go out on the road and raise my thumb. A thumb is all the means that has been allotted to me for transportation. It wouldn't be bad if American communists had only one-millionth part of that Moscow gold about which Hearst writes in his papers every day."

He began to talk about the thirty dollars which are needed in order to begin the fight against the medieval exploitation of Mexicans and Filipinos on onion plantations. But he couldn't get hold of that thirty dollars. And he had to get that money.

Certain party workers live on two dollars a week. A funny figure for a country of millionaires. But what could you do about it? With their pathetic little bit they manfully began a fight with the Morgans and are succeeding. The Morgans, who have billions, in spite of their powerful press, are afraid of them and detest them.

Mrs. Adams and the wife of our host had long ago gone somewhere and only now returned with bread and sausage. While we were finishing our conversation, they were making sandwiches on a shaky little table. Here was a spectacle of the kind we know only from museum pictures which portray the life of Russian revolutionists on the eve of 1905.

"Yes, Mr. Ilf and Mr. Petrov, I see you recall those good people," continued Mr. Adams. "Americans know how to be carried away by ideals. And since in general they are business people and know how to work, they are just as efficient in the revolutionary movement, when they also attend to business and not to a lot of talk. You saw the secretary. He is a very businesslike young man. I advise you, gentlemen, to stop in Carmel. You will see there even more interesting people. In Carmel lives Lincoln Steffens. He is one of the best people in America."

The road now came close to the ocean, now drifted away from it. At times we passed through long lanes of tall palms. At other times we drove up small hills in green orchards and summer resort houses. In the small quiet town of Carmel we lunched in a restaurant on the walls of which were hung autographed photographs of famous motion-picture actors. Here was already the odour of Hollywood, although it was still about two hundred miles away.

The streets of Carmel, overgrown with greensward, descend to the very shore of the ocean. Here, as in Santa Fe and in Taos, live many famous painters and writers.

Albert Rhys Williams, the American writer and friend of John Reed, who had travelled with him through Russia during the Revolution, a large grey-haired man with a young face and good-natured squinting eyes,, met us in the yard of his little old house which he rents by the ] month. His house looked like all other American houses only in that it had a fireplace. Nothing else in it looked like the rest of them. Here was a Bohemian couch covered with a rug, many books, on a table lay pamphlets and newspapers. At once one thing struck the eye—in this house people actually read. In his workroom Williams opened a large reed basket and a trunk. They were full of manuscripts and newspaper clippings.

"Here," said Williams, "is the material for my book about the Soviet Union, which I am now finishing. I have several other baskets and trunks filled with material. I want my book to be completely exhaustive, and I want it to give the American reader a full and precise idea of how life is organized in the Soviet Union."

Williams has been several times in our country, and on one of his journeys lived a whole year in a village.

With Williams and with his wife, the scenario writer, Lucita Squier, we went to call on Lincoln Steffens. Lucita Squier wore a homespun linen Mordovian dress with cross-stitch embroidery.

"I am wearing this in remembrance of Russia," she said. We were walking along the shore of the ocean and did not tire of admiring it.

"The Black Sea is better," remarked Lucita Squier.

We praised Carmel, its houses, its trees, its tranquillity.

"I like Moscow better," remarked Lucita Squier dryly. "Don't listen to her," said Williams. "She is simply frantic. She is always thinking of Moscow. She doesn't like anything in the world except Moscow. After being there for a while she has come to prefer everything Russian. You have heard her speak! She said that the Black Sea is more beautiful than the Pacific Ocean. She is even capable of saying that the Black Sea is bigger than the Pacific Ocean, only because the Black Sea is Soviet."

"Yes," said Lucita stubbornly. "I say it and I shall continue to say it. I want to go to Moscow! We should not stay here another minute!"

Conversing thus, we walked up to the home of Lincoln Steffens, which was not visible from the street because of its thick greenery.

Steffens is a famous American writer. His autobiography in two volumes has become a classical work in America.

Heart disease would not let him get out of bed. We went into his room, where a white iron bedstead stood with its head against the window. On this bed, resting against pillows, reclined an old man in gold spectacles. A little lower than his chest, on the comforter, stood a low bench on which was a portable typewriter. Steffens was finishing an article.

Steffens's illness was incurable. But like all doomed people, even those who understand their situation, he dreamed of the future, talked about it. made plans. As a matter of fact, he had only one plan for himself- to go to Moscow, so as to see before his death the land of socialism and to die there.

"I can no longer remain here," he said quietly, turning his head to the window, as if the free and easy nature of California were choking him. "I cannot bear to hear any longer this idiotic optimistic laughter."

This was said by a man who all his life had believed in American democracy, supporting it with his talents as writer, journalist, and orator. All his life he reckoned that the social structure of the United States was ideal and might secure for the people freedom and happiness. And no matter what blows he received on the way, he remained ever true to it. He was wont to say: "The whole point is that in our administration there are not enough honest people. Our social system is good, what we need is honest people."

But now he said to us:

"I wanted to write a book for my son, in which I would tell the whole truth about myself. And on the very first page I had to ..."

Suddenly we heard curt, dismal sobs. It was Lincoln Steffens weeping. With his hands he covered his thin and nervous face, the face of a scholar.

His wife raised his head and gave him a handkerchief. But, no longer embarrassed by his tears, he continued:

"I had to disclose to my son how difficult it is to regard yourself all your life as an honest man, when as a matter of fact you have been a bribetaker. Yes, without realizing it, I had been bribed by bourgeois society. I did not understand that the fame and respect with which I was rewarded were only a bribe for the support I gave to this iniquitous organization of life."

For a long time we discussed how best to transport Steffens to the Soviet Union. He could not go by train, because his weak heart would not allow that. Could he go by boat from California by way of the Panama Canal to New York, and from there through the Mediterranean to the Black Sea coast? While we were making these plans, Steffens, exhausted by the conversation, lay in bed, his hands resting on the typewriter. Having calmed down now, in his white shirt with its sailor collar, thin, with his little beard and his thin neck, he looked like the dying Don Quixote.