January 11, 1919

While, as he admitted frankly, differing from him on a number of important questions, and far from approving many of his plans for the future, Beneš sent General Stefanik to see me this morning and I took him out to a quiet place for lunch. He is just back from Siberia and has been preceded by a number of romantic stories as to his exploits, some of which are true. Apparently at no time was he a prisoner of war, as were most of the legionaries, but he did command them at a difficult moment when he, with his Czechoslovaks, had to face the Germans on one flank and the Bolsheviks on the other. He is a slight man of about forty, and his pale complexion and sunken burning eyes would seem to indicate that he is not long for this world in which he has played such a notable role.

Beneš had told me that in civil life Stefanik was an astronomer, and Stefanik explained to me how he had risen from a shepherd boy in Slovakia to become a famous stargazer in Paris, a story which I fear interested me more than some of his more recent and rather complicated adventures.

“A barefooted boy of twelve, thirty years ago, I left my village and walked to Paris. I wanted to learn all about the stars and the constellations that I watched at night as I guarded my uncle’s sheep. I had heard there was a great observatory there, and there I would learn the secrets of the heavens. When I reached the observatory, I put on my shoes (I had carried them on my back during the journey), it was my court dress as it were, and I waited on the steps all night though several people tried to shoo me away. In the morning the great M. Flammarion arrived, and through an interpreter I told him that I had determined to follow in his footsteps. He was amused, but seeing that I was half starved he gave me a little money and put me to work sweeping out his office. A few weeks later I had picked up some French, and the first sentence I framed was fired at my benefactor. “M. Flammarion,” I said, “in fifteen years I shall be your assistant.” He laughed heartily but he helped me a lot. I was a little better than my promise. I worked hard because I loved the work, and in twelve years I was his first assistant, his fellow traveler through the celestial regions.

“But when the war came, I too came down to earth, and I have worked for Slovakia and for the peace of the world ever since.” And now this remarkable man became diffuse. He was hard to follow and seemed to suffer from a Niagara of ideas and a lack of planning. I suppose the explanation is that he is a man of genius and that I am merely an ordinary fellow with a weakness for practical solutions. Suddenly he asked me if he could speak frankly with me, and I assured him that this was my wish. That in no other way could he help us or his own people.