d, for the Ministers of the constructive
governments or their substitutes to come into contact with the slayers
of their kindred; they would occupy different wings of the hotel at
Prinkipo, and never meet their adversaries. The delegates would see to
that. "Then why should we go there at all if discussion be superfluous?"
asked the Russians. "Because the Allied governments desire to ascertain
the condition of Russia and your conception of the measures that would
contribute to ameliorate it," was the reply. "Prince's Islands is not
the right place to study the Russian situation, nor is it reasonable to
expect us to journey thither in order to tell subordinates, who have no
knowledge of our country, what we can tell them and their principals in
Paris in greater detail and with confirmatory documents. Moreover, the
delegates you have appointed have no qualification to judge of Russia's
plight and potentialities. They know neither the country nor its
language nor its people nor its politics, yet you want us to travel all
the way to Turkey to tell them what we think, in order that they should
return from Turkey to Paris and report to your Ministers what we said
and what we could have unfolded directly to the Ministers themselves
long ago and are ready to propound to them to-day or to-morrow.

"The project is puerile and your tactics are baleful. Your Ministers
branded the Bolshevists as criminals, and the French government publicly
announced that it would enter into no relations with them. In spite of
that, all the Allied governments have now offered to enter into
relations with them. Now you admit that you made a slip, and you promise
to correct it if only we consent to save your face and go on a
wild-goose chase to Prinkipo. But for us that journey would be a
recantation of our principles. That is why we are unable to make it."

The Prinkipo incident, which began in the region of high politics, ended
in comedy. A number of more or less witty epigrams were coined at the
expense of the plenipotentiaries, the scheme, set in a stronger light
than it was meant to endure, assumed a grotesque shape, and its
promoters strove to consign it as best they could to oblivion. But the
Sphinx question of Russia's future remained, and the penalties for
failure to solve it aright waxed more and more deterrent. The supreme
arbiters had cognizance of them, had, in fact, enumerated them when
proclaiming the impossibility of establishing a dura