Russia of yesterday and to-morrow

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OF YESTERDAY

5\ND TO-MORROW

BARONESS SOUINY

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY
AND TO-MORROW

THE FORMER CZAR AND THE CZAREVITCH

O^TLOUV^

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY
AND TO-MORROW

BY

BARONESS SOUINY

ILLUSTRATED WITH
PHOTOGRAPHS

NEW YORK

THE CENTURY CO.

1917

I
Copyright, ^917, by

The Century Co,

Published, June^ 1917

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

TO

AMERICA

THE GREAT DEMOCRACY

IHlKcg

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I Awakening Russia 3

II The Military Party 27

III Unbalanced Policies 57

IV The Russian Court 90

V Aristocratic Women in Russian Life and

Politics 135

VI The End of the Romanoff Dynasty —
The Grand Dukes — Princes with a
Birthright to the Throne . . . 161

VII The German Influence in Russia — The

Baltic Question 185

VIII America and Russia 220

IX Russian Art, Dramatic Literature and

Music 256

X The Peasants — Bureaucracy — Little

Nobility 286

XI Traveling in Russl\ of Yesterday,
Which Will Also Be the Russia of
To-morrow 323

XII Russia of To-morrow 364*

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

The Former Czar and the Czarevitch . Frontispiece

Bloody Sunday, when the Order was given to the
Soldiers to Fire on the People 13

Grand Duke Nicholas 35

A. Braussilow 45

Count and Countess Witte 65

Alexandra, the Former Czarina 105

Gregory Rasputin 123

Military Parade 165

The Former Czar Praying with a Regiment before
its being sent to the Front 191

Sebastopol, Crimea 209

The Blessing of the Water 227

Arsinatschef 261

Father Gapon with the Workmen and Women . . 294

The Duma, with the Picture of the Czar . . . 313

The Taurida Palace, where the Duma Convenes . 337

Moscow 357

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND
TO-MORROW

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY
AND TO-MORROW

CHAPTER I

AWAKENING RUSSIA

The idea of Russia as a mysterious country
was maintained in a century of the telegraph
and essential materialism, in a world accustomed
to an open display of mankind's thoughts, feel-
ings, and actions. This was the real mystery.

To enter Russia one had to cross the famous
and dreaded frontier, which in a way was the
shrewd invention of an imaginative government
to make visitors shudder before its "almighti-
ness." It is worth while to recall this inqui-
sitional institution, now possibly vanished forever,
to those who have crossed the Russian border and
to others who may be interested in the time when
Russia was a country of the past.

From the first crossing of the frontier, the
traveler found that the train crept into the

3

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

station as if the slow turning of the wheels sang:
"Take care! You enter Russia, the holy, the
mysterious ! It is not essential what your trunks
contain ; it is more essential what your mind con-
tains. If you have any thoughts of freedom or
any anti-governmental ideas hidden anywhere in
your head or heart, be sure that they will be dis-
covered by the hawk-like eyes of our pohce."
Everybody who for the first time stepped over
the Russian border has felt the disquieting con-
viction that he must be an anarchist at heart, and
in his excited fancy has seen across the frontier
the flaming sign, Siberia.

The train stopped. The tension grew during
the enforced waiting in locked cars until a smil-
ing friend — sometimes one made such a new
friend and had become confidential with him —
who had traveled in civilian clothes stepped out
of his compartment fully equipped as a Russian
general. He smiled, and winked out of the
window, whereupon the door was suddenly
thrown open, and two soldiers sprang forward
with outstretched rifles. The passenger grew
pale ; the general smiled. It was only the tribute
paid to his power to protect whom he wanted pro-

4

AWAKENING RUSSIA

tected or to arrest whom he wanted arrested.
The protected ones marched between the two
soldiers, just as the arrested ones marched, and
handed out their passports with trembhng fingers.
They were then received by a colonel of the mili-
tary police, who, bowing peaceably and smoking
cigarettes, conducted them to a special waiting-
room for guests of honor, where they fared
sumptuously before they were finally led to the
side of the station where their train stood.
There an assiduous employee placed a carpeted
bridge up to the car-steps, and the conductor
relieved the traveler of all his hand-bags and
settled him * 'paternally" in a large and comfort-
able compartment. The conductor returned
again and again, anticipating every wish, bring-
ing cushions, candlesticks, bed linen sealed in
bags, and finally asked if the barin would like to
drink something "enheartening."

That was for the protected one; but for those
less fortunate it was quite another story. A
gendarme in Cossack uniform, his chest beaded
with cartridges, pierced the luckless traveler with
suspicious eyes as he took his passports and sent
him to the custom-hall. All the poor, traveling

5

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

with their bundles, were huddled together in the
middle of the place, while with trembling fingers
they untied the ropes of their boxes or opened
their willow baskets to display their possessions
to the eagle eyes of the custom-officers. Cring-
ing, and searching for copecks with which to
worm themselves into the good graces of the
officials, the}^ waited like sheep until they were
dismissed with a haughty gesture or with lamen-
tations and protestations were compelled to pay
some duty.

Another complication arose with the reading
of passports. It was the special pleasure of the
police official to complicate the simple duty of
calling the names and handing back the papers.
To the joy of most of the spectators, he pro-
nounced the Jewish names with sneering suspi-
cion. The poor victims advanced, bowing ser-
vilely, and the papers were shown to them, but
withheld tantalizingly while the official con-
ducted an inquisition. The poor Jew, perspir-
ing, finally came to doubt his identity. He was
sent before another official, who made him pay
another ruble to get out of the hall.

The real mystery began with the arrival at the

6

AWAKENING RUSSIA

Russian capital. Hospitable, generous Russia
bestowed unlimited personal and individual free-
dom on everybody. If one did not interfere with
the sanctity of her policy, did not speak too much
about freedom, one received all the freedom ever
dreamed of. There was no bothering, no hurry,
or no limitation. Everything was ready at any
hour of the day, and this lack of system was
neither peculiar nor strange; it was absolutely
understood that everybody did as he pleased.
There was no formality. Politeness existed only
to make life as easy as possible. Most extrava-
gant hospitality was showered on the stranger;
he found himself in the midst of a Russian life so
simple, so informal that he imagined himself as
belonging to the nation, actually one of its chil-
dren. The Russians talk so wonderfully, dis-
course so cleverly on philosophy and art, that
every word seems frank, new, and interesting.
Yet despite this apparent intimacy, despite this
apparent understanding, after months or years
the stranger was no nearer a real knowledge of
the people than on the first day. It might
happen that in an animated discussion a Russian,
suddenly bored by the conventional smoothness

7

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

of the conversation, would feel an unconquerable
desire to utter insult, to spit words on the amazed
stranger — words of cruel truth and disdain that
opened the abyss between the Russian and the
outer world. The Russian is eager to pursue
everything to the end; he drains out the last
drop fro'm the foreigner's psychology. A free-
masonry prevails among Russians, and no out-
sider will ever penetrate their spirit, their music,
or the mysterious splendor of their Byzantine
souls. Mystified, frightened, and enchanted at
the same time, the foreigner remains in a per-
manent tension of mind, waiting for the rising of
the curtain behind which he imagines the "great
Russian truth" to be.

The director of the Russian state stage, the
censor, hesitated many years to lift the curtain.
A narrow opening recently revealed to the
startled spectator the scene of a revolution in one
dramatic act, in which the Romanoff dynasty was
dragged from the throne. The representatives
of the Duma, assembled on a platform around
the empty throne, declared that Russia had
become a democracy. Then the curtain fell, and
the great plot was hidden again in the immensity

8

AWAKENING RUSSIA

of a land with a shuddering setting of coldness,
of solitudes, where a wonder people breathe and
live in unrealized hopes and expectations. Since
the European War has brought the world within
grasping distance of the Russian people — the
good, strong, obedient masses — the idea has pre-
vailed, with a mingling of shyness and hope, that
Russia is awakening, that Russia is the land of
the future.

The Russian people have been awakened by an
event that has brought a new excitement into the
war, which after nearly three years had become
commonplace. That the czar could be dismissed
as if he were a tschinownik, or under-official, that
a few men, indifferent to the people yesterday,
could hold Russia in their hands, were at first
overwhelming thoughts. The masses do not
reflect, and the man who gave the word to hoist
the red flag was looked upon as so miraculous a
hero that the people enthusiastically enjoyed each
revolution-day, although on the next they might
awake to the sober consideration of why they
hoisted the flag of the people.

The "fundamental change," as it is called, is
not so fundamental as it appears. It is still a

9

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

victory of the officials and not of the people.
The men were not at home; they were fighting
at the front for the old regime, which ordered the
Great War. The people were not consulted.
The new order of things was dictated, and the
five heroes who started the revolution at the risk
of their ovni lives depend on the good-will of the
people. No one can imagine just what an
awakening of the Russian people will prove to
be. The millions of illiterates see in this awaken-
ing the wild intoxication of a liberty that could
make short work with their superiors. This lib-
erty could be cataclysmic, a terribly serious thing,
an elemental thing that would shake Russia to its
foundations.

Russian history never has faced facts. It has
told only of tremendous greatness or tremendous
baseness, which has helped to increase the world's
curiosity. History elsewhere has shown with
mathematical sureness the renewing, the develop-
ment, of all the peoples of earth, as well as their
downfall; but it is a most disturbing truth that
history is not applicable to Russia.

Between Russia as it was and Russia as it will
be lies the moral cleft of centuries. That means

10

AWAKENING RUSSIA

not the few men who awoke to a superhuman
courage and activity, — they have always been in
Russia; they have been aHve in the anarchists,
nihihsts, and terrorists, — it means the people, the
Russian masses, who were left in a state of primi-
tiveness of mind and who have been reared with
the poison of superstitious imagination. En-
hghtenment for the people was the lurking
danger for czarism, for the church. Even when
the individual barin was no longer permitted to
lift the whip, the big knout of czarism and the
church always swayed over the Russians. They
did not walk straight and erect as other people
walk; they crept along sleepily, dreamily, and it
was only what they dreamed that was known to
the outer world. Deeds were like the explosion
of compressed forces, the electrical outburst of
friction, occurring sporadically.

Previous upheavals in Russia have never led
to logical evolution toward civilization. Yet out
of the chaos of social, racial, and human problems
had grown this world's colossus, the most menac-
ing power in the European concert of nations.
But the colossus was on a clay pedestal. It was
an immense body whose members did not work

11

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

organically, because the brain had not the capac-
ity to coordinate. Events of the most horrid and
tragic consequences — wars, revolutions — have
convulsed from time to time one side of the bodv
without the other side taking any part in them.
People in the north of Russia have been kept in
darkness about their brothers in the south. They
have only the general ties of Slavism, without any
knowledge of one another ; yet through the whole
enormous body flows one red stream of sacred
Slavic blood. This war aroused this blood,
brought the people together; Pan- Slavism was
their sacred war-cry. Those of the north for the
first time saw their brothers of the south; they
sat side by side in the mud of the trenches, they
learned to know one another, they had the same
idioms, the same longing for home and children,
the same sufferings, and they were dying side by
side. They certainly were dying. By the hun-
dred thousands, ruthlessly, recklessly, they were
thrown into battle. Why not? Russia's human
storehouse is inexhaustible.

Revolution, with its terrible nihilism, has been
antipathetic to the world outside of Russia. It

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AWAKENING RUSSIA

was not the sound earth in which a democracy
could grow. Russia had to wait for a more
optimistic expression through which to make her-
self understood to civilization. Only the war
could bring about the solution of the Russian
problem, the simple adherence of the masses to
one single idea, to death or victory. Those two
words contain the power to awaken a people.
They gave strength to the strongest. The men
facing death gained the courage to bring forth a
new national life.

Nowhere else in the world have revolutions
been of so fantastic a character and of so short
duration as in Russia. The revolutions have told
the most dramatic stories ; they have always been
the revolutions of individual men, the great cries
of pained and suffering men and women who
endured physical tortures to free their brethren
from moral enslavement. They are the stories
of the wildest, the most amazing courage of men
who would fight bears without weapons. The
physical and mental strain which led to the chmax
of the deeds of these martyrs was so terrible that
they collapsed before their tasks were done, and

15

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

all was in vain. Everybody sank back to the old
slavery, and the heroic ones who were not sacri-
ficed took their deception into exile.

Does not it sound like a fairy-tale, the story of
the two young men who went to Kronstadt, the
fortress within five miles of Petrograd, and
organized the disorganized soldiers, who, singing
*'The Marseillaise," marched on a Sunday morn-
ing through the small streets of the fortress to
the casino, where the officers were sitting at Sun-
day dinner? The commandant and his officers
were frightened when they heard the soldiers
singing and saw them marching, led by two men
swinging the red flag. ''Revolution!" was the
paralyzing thought, and before the troops arrived
at the casino, the officers had fled from the for-
tress in boats, to announce to Petrograd the terri-
ble events taking place at Kronstadt. Not one
shot was fired. But the imagination of the
government officials was set on fire. The news-
papers printed details of the most terrifying
revolutionary movement, and nobody dared to
approach the fortress.

In the meantime, while waiting for develop-
ments, the young revolutionists gave the soldiers

16

AWAKENING RUSSIA

a good time. Count Witte, who was then in
power, sent Prince Dolgoruky to the fortress
with a white flag. The two young heroes
received the prince and dictated the conditions:
the czar should proclaim freedom of speech and
press, the people should send representatives to
the imperial council, and the Duma should be
established. The prince, gracefully dismissed by
the youngsters, went back to Petrograd and
remained there a few days, while the most fantas-
tic reports about Kronstadt were spread in the
capital. Meanwhile the people looked with timid
admiration toward the fortress which stood
mysterious and silent on the bank of the Neva.
Again the prince returned to the fortress and
was received by the two revolutionists, to whom
he brought a document, signed by Count Witte,
in which the czar granted all that had been asked.
It was supposed that Kronstadt was full of revo-
lutionists ; and it was not imagined that the two
leaders were absolutely alone in possession of the
fortress, while the soldiers were enjoying their
vacation tremendously. The two leaders kept
Prince Dolgoruky for two days under guard,
while they escaped over Finland to Sweden and

17

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

thence to America, where one is still living.

The five leaders of new Russia, strong and
sincere in their holy zeal, have forgotten the
psychology of the people. The Russia of to-day
is a democracy to the outside world and to the
exiled, but not to the people. And this is the
pessimistic undertone that stifles all joy for the
wonderful change in Russia. In this revolution
the people as a whole were not the inspiring
element. The few at home had their share in it
— the excitement of killing, of threatening to
enter the houses of the nobles, which had been
forbidden sanctuaries to them. They could
arrest ministers, high court officials, the czar him-
self. Finally they raised the red flag on the
historic Winter Palace of the czar, where the
great Catharine, the people's idol, once lived.
Moreover, the holy synod, the great, mysterious
power of the church, was disrobed of its sanctity,
was exposed in its nakedness; its head, the
"Little Father," was disgraced.

Despite the tremendous deed of the five heroes
of new Russia the revolution was not eruptive
enough. It was too hesitating. First, the czar's

18

AWAKENING RUSSIA

abdication was demanded in favor of the
czarevitch, with Michael as regent. Then, when
the czar had also abdicated for his son, Michael
was asked to accept the throne; and after
Michael, who was unwilling to pay the debts of
the dynasty with his head, decline^, the new
rulers wavered in their resolution to have no
throne at all. There was the weak point. They
were not organized. They were resourceful, but
they were not ready to remove all the old
machinery of government. Instead of consign-
ing the royal robe of czarism to a historical
museum and di'aping the young republic with
the ermine of power, crowning it with the fresh
enthusiasm of the people who had helped to
destroy the throne, the leaders made mistakes
they could not help making because they, too, like
the people, were Russians. Their wonderful
mentality, overdeveloped on one side, lacked sys-
tematic training. Unfortunately, it was not a
time for mistakes. In the first few days of hesi-
tation, of vain promises impossible to fulfil, it was
easy to lose what might never be regained. The
Russian people are like children. Take away

19

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

their doll, and they must have another plaything
to replace it, to hold their attention.

The first signal of the new epoch in Russia was
the killing of Rasputin, the peasant. A noble-
man killed him. It had been hammered into the
people's minds that Rasputin was the criminal
who had brought the country to the edge of an
abyss. The peasants hated Rasputin ; they were
never proud of his glory when he lived. He had
no right to hve like a prince in a palace; he was
no better than they. Why should a man who had
tramped through the villages, a sectarian who had
followers among the idle, a man who could neither
read nor write, exercise such power? They
could not imagine that it was the power of all of
them that Rasputin daringly represented as a
contrast to the weakened forces of the nobles.
But Rasputin was dead; murdered by a noble-
man. In their minds it was not the business of
a nobleman to kill a peasant. Rasputin should
have been judged by his own. They would have
killed him, too, if he was guilty of being a traitor
to holy Slavism.

Rasputin is dead, and the people will begin to
defend the peasant, even though, as they said, he

20

AWAKENING RUSSIA

had misled the czar and the czarina and had taken
away vodka in an hour when it was most needed
to help the people in their distress. Rasputin is
dead, and that they do not have vodka they will
finally understand to be a good thing; instead of
vodka they now have money in the savings-banks,
enough to buy food for their families. But food
cannot be bought even with all the money that
their sons fighting at the front have sent home to
them. And the money cannot buy back their
slain children; it cannot restore their crippled.
Rasputin is dead, the Duma has punished even
the czar; but the scarcity of food still prevails,
the sons are not coming home, the enemy is still
on Russia's soil. Where are the promised won-
ders ?

The five leaders of the revolution are the living
torch flaming in the ashes of old Russia's hopes
— the torch which scorched despotism, and must
be kept burning b}^ the breath of the people.
Those who risked their lives as well as the lives
of the soldiers to transform Russia fundamen-
tally have the fault of their race, the sinister fault
of the Slavs — fanaticism, blind, tenacious fanat-
icism. They may exult in this fanaticism, which

21

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

gave the elemental strength of a Hercules or a
Samson, which made them start a revolution; but
they must do great things to sustain the sugges-
tion of invincibihty. They must have the magic
force to change the Tatar into a European, not
giving time to the Tatar to ask the primitive
question: If it was possible to dethrone a czar,
in whose name good and bad were done to the
people, in whose name will things be done now?
And if all will be done in the name of the people,
then every man has the right to make demands.
Like children annoying their parents and teach-
ers, they will ask much and tirelessly. And
what of the church wonders? When the Little
Father, the czar, could be sent away, and no other
czar took his place, can God be sent away, too?
Thousands of illiterates will begin to think, to
move, to ask their rights ; and the wonder-work of
the five who have forgotten how many centuries
it requires to educate a people to the balanced
state of mind for a democracy, is in serious
danger.

Despite all the efforts of the Government of
former Russia, most of the people again and
again refused to obey the imperative command

^2

AWAKENING RUSSIA

to industrialize their energies. They were
artisans or peasants; comparatively few were
working-men in factories. Now they will be
forced into the modern rut ; they will become like
the common people of the other countries, a dis-
gruntled result of industrialism, victims of the
machine. Worse than this, Russians will be a
dull people without the foreigners' mechanical
efficiency, deprived of their own native imagina-
tion, divorced from the mystical shyness of their
rehgion, and in misunderstanding struggle with
their new rulers. Their conception of life and
happiness is so different from that of other
nations that it cannot be understood by an Amer-
ican mind. Their joy partakes of an indolence
which has nothing to do with the dolce far niente
of the children of the sun, nor is it the fateful
nirvana or kismet of Oriental peoples. It is a
bodily and mental indolence coupled with a rest-
less and yearning soul eager for its redemption.
The climate has influenced the Russian. The
long nights and the frightful cold have increased
his dreamy laziness. A warm stove, the family
crowded together in one room, the boiling, com-
forting samovar, an ikon under a Httle burning

23

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

lamp, meditation upon the abstractions of life —
this is all that he has asked from his saints. In
this primitive uniformity his spirit has developed
into one single touching quality — patience.
There is a great power in patience that fast-
living people can hardly understand. It stores
up vast possibilities. Patience has caused the
simple Russian to create wonders of art com-
parable with the masterpieces of Benvenuto
Cellini. The illiterate peasant has been happy
in his own way, and it will be a tragedy for him
when he is forced suddenly to live a life dictated
by the will of others.

It will be the greatest fight for the new rulers
to accustom Russian children to regular school-
work. Parents will revolt at the idea of having
children taught things which are all right for the
masters. And the children who learn how to read
and to write will gi^ow up to revolt against the
world. The patience that the parents had, no
longer existing with the children, will be replaced
in the new generation by the self-destroying urge
of anarchism, which will revenge lost, happy,
primitive conditions by turning on society.

In former Russia the poor felt less poor, less

24

AWAKENING RUSSIA

humiliated than in other countries. True, they
seldom rose, they seldom left their original status.
The Russian people were strongly divided in the
classes which are mentioned by the laws ; nobility,
clergy, burgesses, merchants, artisans, and peas-
ants. And these classes again were strongly
divided in inherited and personal nobility, in
privileged burgesses and burgesses; but in prac-
tice only the nobility and the peasantry had
clearly defined rights and obligations that gave to
these two groups distinct class character.

The peasants confided their rights to the
nobility. This was the original idea of the
foundation of the zemstvos. The peasantry was
the first to have representatives for its interests
in the council. But the number of representa-
tives was fixed by a special law in a manner to
secure predominance for the representatives of
the nobility; in very few district zemstvos have
the peasants had the preponderance. Even in
this strong and broad-minded institution of Rus-
sia that Alexander II founded in 1864 the land-
owning nobles had great power, and the peasants
had to submit to their decisions.

Autocracy was the sun around which every-

25

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

thing circled. Blindly the people accepted it.
It was an established, a tested idea, and the crown
was necessary to this fantastic figure, which
embodied the magnificence of the Slavic imagina-
tion. The conception of the czar was absolutely
inseparable from the Russian picture. The new
rulers must have something great in store to
replace the superstition of majesty that was deep
in the people's soul.

Russia is struggling with her noblest forces out
of the century-old mysticism and nightmare
cruelties to the light of humanity. Five men,
among them one who has been a martyr for free-
dom, will help the country in these trying days.
They will dictate, they will condemn, and they
will judge.

36

CHAPTER II

THE MILITARY PARTY

Three years ago, at one of the resplendent
balls of the Club de la Noblesse, a foreign attache,
overwhelmed by the brilliant coloring, looked
around the vast ball-room, and watched the entrv
of a great grand duke with his suite, together
with numerous little grand dukes, garbed in
scarlet and gold or green and gold, their swelling
chests covered with decorations, and with dia-
mond-glittering orders suspended about their
necks on orange, black, or red ribbons.

Music trumpeted the sharp rhythms of the
polonaise, and the dancers, solely young officers
with their noble young ladies, advanced couple by
couple.

"One would suppose Russia to be a military
state," remarked the attache. * 'Uniforms every-
where. Do they mean merely show or do they
denote a new spirit for greater preparedness?"

Who would ever reply to a diplomat? In

rt

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

Russia variegated uniforms always have been
preferred to dull black-and-white evening
clothes, which do not differentiate a gentleman
from his lackey. In training for the army the
youths of Russia's higher set were following their
sense of patriotic duty, and their love of dis-
tinguishing themselves from the bureaucratic
classes through bravery and elegance. It was
unthinkable that a young aristocrat should be
other than an officer, one of the splendidly trained
bodyguards or one of the highly admired convoys.
It was playing with arms without a deep con-
sciousness of its terrible significance, and the
uniform did not impose so great a degree of
importance as in some countries, notably Ger-
many, where it necessitates on the part of officers
rigid rules and restrictions.

In Russia a uniform is not sacred; it is seen
everywhere, even at night in the gay restaurants
and cabarets, and did not prevent an old general,
with all his decorations on the breast, from being
present in such a place and carrying a beautiful
young girl in his arms like a baby, gaily feeding
her from a bottle not containing milk! On the
contrary, the uniform in Russia protects its

28

THE MILITARY PARTY

wearer from his extravagances, which are indul-
gently tolerated because he is an officer.

Perhaps beneath the surface there was a deep
meaning in this frivolity on the part of Rus-
sia's army men. Perhaps they had a premoni-
tion of the tragedy to come. The play became
bitter reality. Alas! all those who lived and
waltzed in buoyancy and superabundance of
spirits, alert and slim in their regimentals, are
dead! The same trumpets that once blared the
polonaise now play for them the Danse Macabre.

On reflection, it is as if a new military idea was
behind that pomp and glitter; as if a new con-
sciousness was born in the youth of the country,
who felt the responsibility of the debt they owed
their native land — a debt contracted in the Russo-
Japanese War, lost through the ridiculous
arrogance of its leaders.

They went forth arbitrarily, every man a gen-
eral, convinced that the little yellow men of the
little antiquated island would furnish them game
for a hunting-trip, to be brought back like bears.
They even formed regiments independently.
Like ancient highwaymen, getting permission
from the czar, they went down to the River Don,

29

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

where the Cossacks lived, and equipped their men
fantastically, and adventurously started forth.
All the distractions of the capital followed;
Mukden and Port Arthur became a kind of
Coney Island.

Incredible as it seems, even the grandes dames
were allured by the adventure, following with
their servants, building amateur hospitals, and
hampering the Red Cross by good-natured con-
fusion, by their dilettantism and unfitness for the
serious task.

The provisions sent to the front never reached
their destination. The story of the Grand
Duchess Maria Pavlovna, who collected half a
million rubles to buy boots for the soldiers, was
one of the most notorious. The official to whom
the train carrying those longed-for articles was
confided held auction-sales at every big station!
From far and near people came to profit by this
rare occasion to buy cheap boots, till, when the
train finally reached Mukden, the soldiers,
eagerly opening those cars, found only empty
boxes !

Ah! the unpardonable sins of Port Arthur!

Instead of bagging their game, the Russians

30

THE MILITARY PARTY

put their feet into the wolf -traps of efficiency that
the Japanese had set in their strong, mathemati-
cal, modern warfare. Port Arthur was encir-
cled, starved; the hunters took the next Siberian
express home, deserting their men.

Russia's youth learned that the Japanese War
was the blackest spot in the military history of
the nation. They felt that they must wash it
clean when the next occasion arose.

A military spirit haunted the young officers;
the military party was its result, started first by
a few whose ambitions were awakened, and who
had learned that the time was past when other
nations could be frightened by the acrobatic
ability and the wild aspect of the Cossacks. The
military party grew and grew and became
mighty. The Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaie-
vitch headed it. From Bulgaria he brought
Radka Dimitrieff , a general who was his adviser
in the modern training of the army. And as no
party ever was created without becoming hungry
for deeds and losing its sense of proportion, it not
only "prepared," but longingly and fanatically
sought an opportunity for action.

Nicholas's first army act was to gather masses

31

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

of soldiers at the Austrian border, apparently not
for a short manoeuver, but as a permanent insti-
tution. The soldiers irritated and provoked with
their idle observation the Austrian soldiers who
were at the frontier in pursuance of duty.

This was in September, 1913. Critical days
followed. A clash with Austro-Hungary seemed
inevitable, especially in the light of the unsettled
Balkan questions. The news was alarming.

Nicholas passionately worked upon the czar
to declare war against Austria; but the czar,
thanks to the president of the ministry, Kokow-
zow, a peace man, who had not much faith in
Nicholas's organization, and to Rasputin, stood
steadfast. By special messenger the old Em-
peror of Austria sent a letter in his own hand-
writing to the czar imploring him to prevent war
between the two nations.

Every one was convinced that the dangerous
tension was past. Life went daily on its accus-
tomed course; on the surface all seemed serene.
Behind the scenes, however, feverish preparations
began. Nicholas secretly worked his machina-
tions. He paid visits to the Balkans, where his
father-in-law, the King of Montenegro, who was

32

THE MILITARY PARTY

always delighted to fish in troubled waters,
inflamed his ambitions for the Russian throne.
But the Russian crown was not to be gained
by Nicholas even through a cleverly plotted
assassination of the czar. There were other pre-
tenders. The King of Montenegro slyly sug-
gested that the only road to an overpowering
popularity for his son-in-law was to become a war
hero! The secret heart's desire of the grand
duke was fed by Mr. Iswolsky, the Russian am-
bassador in Paris. It was the same Iswolsky
about whom the representatives of other powers
said that it was repugnant to sit at the same
table with him. He longed to revenge a personal
matter that went back to the time when he led the
foreign affairs in Austria. Despite his resist-
ance and the interposed interests of Russia,
Count Berchthold, the former Austrian prime
minister, made a coup d'etat by the annexation of
Bosnia-Herzegovina, which Austria fostered for
more than twenty years. Iswolsky was dis-
missed for the failure of his mission, and made a
vow to revenge this incident and his personal
offended vanity.

He stirred up the fire of continuing and in-

33

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

creasing misunderstandings between the nations
when the Balkan questions were discussed
in Paris, and awoke in every diplomat the
unpleasant dread of a poison spider which is only
waiting for the proper moment to throw the cob-
webs of its miserable intrigues over Europe.
And so it was. How far his personal influence
went in the plot of Serajewo history perhaps will
reveal. Rubbing his hands, with a wide smile on
his broad, unpleasant face, he exclaimed when the
declaration of war was made public in Paris,
^'That's my little war!"

Promenading in the sunshine of Bordeaux,
enjoying life, he proudly entertained whoever
cared to listen with a recitation of the result of
his diplomatic slyness, while his brothers were
slaughtered by the milhon for the trick he played
on Austria.

The earth was prepared ; the seed was planted.
It was easy enough to accelerate events which
would shake Austria to action; to buy subjects in
Serbia, to murder the Crown Prince of Austria.
The first blood was shed, and its odor was as a
contagion, poisoning the excited minds of the
people. War was in the air ; everything breathed

r -

O^

GRAND DUKE NICHOLAS

THE MILITARY PARTY

forth war. Nicholas Nicolaievitch became the
hero of the hour.

He changed the whole system in one day. He,
the general-in-chief of the army, commanded
everything, everywhere. No longer was there
the ministerial power of yesterday; the Duma's
opinion no longer counted. There was only
Nicholas. With him or against him? To be
against him was to be summarily executed. He
commanded the palace of the czar. The czar
himself was considered only a necessary figure-
head. He was locked up in the palace without
being allowed to see one of his old advisers. The
document, the declaration of war, lay on his desk
for him to sign. In his heart's depression he
stipulated with Nicholas to see Prince Schere-
metzeff, his oldest and most sincere friend, after
which he would sign the fateful paper.

On the morning of July 31 he sent for his old
friend, the prince. The czar's message never
reached the prince; that very morning he was
found dead in his bed.

The czar was broken by this news. He saw
not only his power strangled, but his own person.
When the grand duke entered with the ministers

37

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

and the generals of the great staff, the czar stood
erect, deadly pale, and set his name upon the
death-sentence of the people for the second time
during his reign. Nicholas Nicolaievitch had
triumphed. The excitement of the people was
tremendous. Vodka flowed in streams for the
lower classes, and champagne for the higher.
There followed a week-long madness and in-
toxication. The sight of the grand duke
brought about an artificially heightened enthu-
siasm amounting to a paroxysm. The day was
his.

He returned to his palace and summoned the
generals, and they sped in gala attire to pay their
tribute to the victor to be. The entire staff
waited in the imposing reception-room; the sun-
light floated through the high windows, reflecting
prism-like the gold-and-be jeweled uniforms of
those representatives of the high Russian war
council. Imposing in their appearance, con-
vinced of their own greatness and indispensabil-
ity, they stood in rows, expectancy on their faces
and in their hearts, hoping that in the next room a
rich buffet would reward them for their heavy
task.

38

THE MILITARY PARTY

The door flew open, and the grand duke
entered, tall and slim, towering over all others.
He glanced at them with haughtiness, cold reso-
lution in his eyes. He was accompanied by his
private adviser, the Bulgarian general. He
paused in front of the assembled staff and said in
a voice which whistled through the air like a
whip:

"I merely wish to say to you that any one who
steals will be hanged."

Thus he spoke, then turned, and left the room,
the lobster-red generals remaining behind. The
audience was over. Nicholas had in his generals
eighteen bitter enemies the more, who, instead of
being his supporters, were to become his curse.

Why will the Russians never be victorious?
A little incident like this, with its overbearing
impertinence and conceit of the born autocrat,
will forever disturb Russia's path to conquest.
What Nicholas did to his direct subordinates each
does to those beneath him in revenge for his own
humiliation, and to exercise his power over others.
So on down to the lowest soldier, the higher
always uses the whip over the lower, while he
cringes before his own superior.

39

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

It is the eternally vicious circle. Every one
studies the weak points of the man above him,
and plays upon them with bribes of every variety.
With a few exceptions all are selfish egotists, not
working for the national cause, but for their own
aggrandizement.

Nicholas thought that his iron fist could
enforce discipline. He punished pitilessly the
smallest mistakes. His flatterers made capital
out of this, and sought out other men's errors and
reported them to him. Without any distinction
as to rank he punished, whipping with his own
hands generals who had lost battles. And they
lost, lost constantly. He dismissed the serious
ones, putting new, unfit, and inexperienced men
into high positions as leaders. Never did he alter
his own omnipotent ideas, but regarded himself
as a war god, sacrificing to his own stubborn
belief in his infalhbihty the best blood of the
nation.

They were well prepared, the proudest regi-
ments imaginable. The flower of Russian youth
had rushed into the first battles with high enthu-
siasm, and with the determination to show to the
world how the youth of Russia would win the

40

THE MILITARY PARTY

war. All are buried in the swampy lakes of
Masuren, the hope, the pride of their country.

All of the young, trained officers were killed,
and there were no others to replace them. The
officers of the reserve, who had had only one year
of training, were put into places of responsibihty
and sent to the front as leaders. After six
weeks' training students were given rank and
sent to lead the soldiers.

What were the consequences of this military
hodge-podge? Generals were dismissed, and
some of them were sent to Siberia; others com-
mitted suicide, and the grand duke himself was
shot at by two officers. General Sievers shot at
him when he raised his famous whip, but failed.
Another young officer, the adjutant of the gen-
eral who lost the fortress at Brest-Litovski, in
bringing the news to the grand duke was slapped
in his face. Not willing to endure this humilia-
tion, he took his revolver, and wounded the grand
duke in his arm. With a second bullet he killed

himself.

Instead of acknowledging those terrible mis-
takes, Nicholas hissed and with each lost battle
saw only the vanishing of his personal ambition.

41

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

Nevertheless he still remained the war god for
those at home. They dreamed of Russia's
unlimited extension. They had only to cross the
Black Sea to Constantinople, and capture Aus-
tria and Hungary, to open the door to the Bal-
kans from the other side. On the day when the
fortress Przemysl was taken the Russian capital
prepared a celebration for Nicholas, as if the
war's decision had already rung for victorious
Russia.

In the procession after the solemn service at
the cathedral, under the shadow of the conquered
flags, Nicholas marched alone, triumphant. In
front of him marched the slim little czar, who,
serious and worried, glanced at the cheering
people. His poor people! He bent his head,
and let Nicholas have all the credit. He knew
better; he knew the inside history, and at what a
price this single victory had been bought, and he
decided that very day to remove this pitiless,
aspiring figure, his uncle Nicholas Nicolaievitch.

Still unaware, Nicholas returned to head-
quarters. The enemy prepared the great drive
into Poland, chasing the grand duke's soldiers
before them. Nicholas's star grew paler and

THE MILITARY PARTY

paler, and was extinguished forever when the
immense fraud of one of his creatures, Sukhom-
Hnoff, the minister of war, was revealed to the

czar.

In the first year of the war vast stores of
ammunition and equipment were squandered,
and the regiments were deprived of the necessi-
ties for continuing the fighting. In blind rage
Nicholas ordered the unspeakable stratagem of
throwing the weaponless soldiers into the first
firing-line. There is no other war in history in
which such cold-blooded cruelties were commit-
ted as those that the grand duke forced on the
Russian people.

With his medieval conceptions, he built his
false sovereignty on top of the writhing bodies of
men; but it was washed away by the floods of the
shamelessly shed blood and the tears of all the
mothers who sent their sons to fight for the
beloved country.

The czar dismissed Nicholas as the general-in-
chief of all the armies, appointing himself to this
position, and sent Nicholas to the obscurity of the
Caucasus. There he will have time and leisure
to awake from his dream to the consciousness of

43

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

his sins, for which he will have to answer before
the High Judge, not having been sentenced on
earth.

The spy and traitor stories which every war
brings forth are nowhere so exciting, so incredible,
and so tragic as in Russia. Traitors are always
found in high positions, with no other aim than
greed for money. Plans worked out in the Rus-
sian general staff brought one of the greatest vic-
tories to the enemy wholly on the basis of those
plans. This gave to the enemy the greatest
advantage. The investigation was confided to

Colonel D , who was one of the most reliable

men in the whole army. He was for many years
a colonel at the German-Russian frontier, and
was well known and decorated for his tact, his
discipline and his clever knowledge of German
activities. It was he who helped the army cross
the frontier at a point where the Germans never
expected it. It was he who directed the first
little invasions into East Prussia; and it was he
who was also courteously asked by the Germans
not to destroy the kaiser's hunting-lodge, Romin-
ten, where before the war he had often been the
kaiser's guest.

THE MILITARY PARTY

It was amazing; nobody could explain it.
How could the enemy get hold of those plans,
elaborated to the last detail?

It is the eternal psychology of overdoing
cleverness and of sleeping surety. The colonel
felt himself so safe that he neglected prudence;
suspicion turned on him. He was called to head-
quarters, which did not disquiet him, as that
happened often enough, and without the least
presentiment he entered the room of the grand
duke. He was arrested on the spot in so brutal a
manner that he lost his exterior calmness, marvel-
ously guarded for years, and falling on his knees,
he cried for mercy, promising to deliver all the
officers who took part in the immense intrigue
that betrayed the country and caused a great loss
of life.

Grace was promised him, and he named the
young officers, all his subordinates. Thirty were
arrested.

In his trial he protested against his arrest,
because he fooled the enemy in selling antiquated
plans, never practicable for the Russians, because
the Germans had entirely changed the roads, one
of Hindenburg's tricks.

47

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

Nevertheless he was hanged, with his thirty
poor subordinates. All those who have passed
the frontier will remember the elegant, polite
man, liked by every one. The man and the
frontier have disappeared forever.

After the dismissal of Nicholas, the czar
showed a personal activity and an intrepidity
which deeply impressed his people. Recruits
drawn from the remotest parts of Russia, who
had imagined their czar, but never personified
this holiest of their fictions, were presented to him
as his troops, and heard his voice, really a simple
human voice, which spoke fatherly words to them
and blessed them. In such an hour the Russian
people were willing to be cut in two for their
"Little Father."

Despite mismanagement and demoralization
on the part of the leaders, the soldiers have
accomplished wonders in bravery and self-sacri-
fice. Here and there a military light has shone
through the darkness of ignorance and con-
sciencelessness, and thus far conditions have been
far better under the czar's own command. A
fine man like General Brusiloff had been sup-
pressed in the first period of the war. But what

48

THE MILITARY PARTY

can the finest mind achieve in the field when
everything in the background is inefiiciency?
Although the administration started with the
best intentions, as in the other fighting countries,
to organize ammunition plans and offices for
emergencies and investigations, thorough disor-
ganization resulted. The officials were unfit,
lazy, and without any comprehension of the tre-
mendous fact that the big wheel of state must
stop if the least tiny bit of machinery slips a cog.
They always supposed that the loosening of a
small screw would never be noticed, and when
the whole mechanism suddenly stopped no one
could find where the difficulty lay.

The same naivete of perception regarding the
needs of the soldiers was obvious when the word
was given out that the men badly needed under-
wear. A great collection was arranged by the
women, and the articles freely and generously
contributed included innumerable silk, lace-
trimmed nightgowns and underwear — elegant
women's trousseaux!

For years the leaders have prepared minutely
at the green table the most exact plans and maps
for war. They could not fail, for the reckoning

49

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AKD TO-MORROW

was right. Their reigments really were wonder-
fully trained and of wonderful physique; their
military storehouses were filled with the best and
richest war material. All was done in the best
style possible; nowhere were there petty econo-
mies ; whatever modern warfare had invented was
bought up by the Russians ; and they went to the
front a proud train of fully equipped, self-con-
scious, and brave men. The men are artists in
building trenches and fortifications. They are
blindly obedient, they are patient, and they are
sober. They are healthy and can endure hard-
ships.

The decisive moment arrives, and they fail;
the machine does not work. How explain this?
And how is it that when the failure is often
explained and made clear, the mistakes are com-
mitted over and over again?

Imagine the legions of men who were conse-
crated to help make Russia victorious in this cam-
paign! The enemy, when numerically exhausted,
was sometimes forced to yield and withdraw
before this wall of human bodies. All in vain.
In the end they lost their position.

"Misfortune," they sighed in Archangel,

60

THE MILITARY PARTY

**blew up all the ammunition just arrived from
America." In America ''bad luck" blew up the
immense factories that were molding their guns.
Was it also misfortune that in an American fac-
tory fifty million cartridges ordered by a Russian
commissioner after a special design, when virtu-
ally ready for dehvery, were discovered by an-
other Russian inspector to be unfit for Russian
rifles and to be made after a German pattern?
The cartridges would have found their way
over Russia into German rifles if circumstances
had not led to the commissioner's removal.
American genius invented a machine to destroy
the cartridges, and after the necessary delay
caused by the criminal official they were made
over for use by the Russians. The railroad from
Archangel is not yet ready in the third year of
war, and whole trains of ammunition simply dis-
appear en route, never arriving at all. The staff
sit in their headquarters and paint battles on the
maps, while the poor devils of soldiers have to
face the bullets of their adversaries.

Of what use the military spirit, the military
party? Words!

When the drawing-card of the mihtary party

51

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

failed, they spread the idea of a rebirth of the
time of Napoleon, and told to the people that
the enemy had been let into the gates of Russia,
to be caught at the decisive moment, as was
Napoleon's great army before Moscow. When
this moment would arrive naturally no one could
know. After this fiction became outworn, the
fata Morgana of the Dardanelles in the blue dis-
tance, was shown the people ; and, as the piece de
resistance J the Turks would be swallowed by Rus-
sia's immensity.

It was evident that the Russian is a conqueror
and not a soldier, that preparedness and military
parties never will make one of him. The famous
cossack is nowadays a vanquished glory. He is
lost in modern warfare, being used only to bring
about terror and fright among the inhabitants of
occupied places. The Russian's whole nature
struggles against militar}^ discipline; he is a
fanatic, he is courageous, and he is fatalistic, and
he loves to gamble with his life. He invented the
spectacle of the alluring war-play, the daring
races and horseback riding, to tame the wildness
which from time to time boiled in his blood and
cried for an outlet.

5^

THE MILITARY PARTY

The fairy-tale of an inexhaustible supply of
men still prevails, without any reahzation of the
crude truth that mere men, without thoroughly
trained officers, are a phantasmagory ; and that
the more men taken, the fewer are left at
home for providing for those who are in the
field.

The Government of old Russia sat in a terrible
network of inconsistencies, and as the ministers
saw that the people at home, who had given their
strong, healthy youngsters, were awaking from
their dull obedience to the point of asking why
and were beginning to revolt, they hurried the
czar to the conviction that he must make a sep-
arate peace. They used the influence of Ras-
putin, who preached against war, and the czar,
finding himself weakened, grasped the idea and
lent his ear to the propositions which were
brought before him by his own ministers, who
may have been back of the peace appeal of the
kaiser, made known in 1916. But those who are
to-day the leaders of young Russia were in the
opposition and strongly at work, and so strongly
and so cleverly that the main points of the peace
overtures were never discussed before the Duma,

53

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

because of the accusations that the members
hurled at the head of the Government. Bhnded,
the ministers thought first of their own safe re-
treat, and no one was diplomatic enough to dis-
cover what lay behind the military inactivity.

When the czar, arrested, uttered the exclama-
tion that he was betrayed, he spoke the truth.
He was betrayed. The generals who had sur-
rounded him were alUed with the democratic
party, and the warnings of the various grand
dukes had never made any impression on him, be-
cause he knew that each of them would have
taken the opportunity to become the autocrat of
all the Russias. The czar was a Romanoff and
knew all about the Romanoffs. He was long de-
throned before the actual physical removal. It
did not best serve the outcome of the war that
Russia should suddenly walk her own way toward
peace, and it could not be the moral result of the
war, which has swallowed so much of the best
of all countries, that there could be a separate
understanding, which would be only a latent
danger.

Humanity cried for peace, but humanity had
to save mankind from future disasters. The war

64

THE MILITARY PARTY

had gone too far; it was no longer the question
of a nation. It was a cataclysm that shook the
world, and the end had to be logically annihilat-
ing for one side or the other. It was no longer
the war party; it was no longer Mr. Iswolsky who
held the fate of the Russians in hand. It was the
highest ethical command that had to save Russia
and the world from further medieval enterprises
of ennobled highwaymen. It was autocracy in
every form, which had to be uprooted through the
war, and then all the dead, all the martyrs, all
the greatness of the people's sacrifice, would be
justified.

With young Russia are the iron will and the
good faith that will perhaps take the place of
skill and training. The enemy is on the soil,
deep in Russian territory, and he will make fur-
ther advance; he will threaten the capital. All
this perhaps will happen because the enemy still
believes that the war must end in his own military
victory.

It is to the highest credit of the Russians that
they are not soldiers by nature, and that they will
be the first to help to annihilate a profession which
brings about the destruction of mankind.

65

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

Let them return to the conquests of more
peaceful achievements; let them discover their
own country. What space for the wildest sport,
activity, and self -sacrifice 1

56

CHAPTER III

UNBALANCED POLICIES

The five heroes of new Russia who restored
the country from sickening conditions of state
and court corruption to the sound healthiness of
a clean democracy discharged not only the czar,
the passive cause of all the unhappiness and
misery in Russia, but discharged every man con-
nected with the old regime. They filled the
prisons, from which the political prisoners of
former Russia were released, with ministers and
courtiers whom they regarded as offenders
against the people.

The shadow of Stolypin, the reactionary prime
minister who succeeded Witte, appears as intro-
ducing the last political tragedies which led up
to war and to the victorious entry of young Rus-
sia.

After Stolypin, assassinated, had expired in
his arms in the foyer of the grand opera house in
Kieff, Kokovtsoff, who then was the minister of
finance, took up the labor of prime minister.

57

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

In January, 1914, Kokovtsoff was to celebrate
his tenth anniversary as minister of finance. The
invitations to the banquet were sent out, the com-
memoration medal was ordered, when, without
warning, the prime minister received the ominous
imperial letter, in which the czar gracefully
accepted Kokovtsoff' s resignation, indispensable
to the recovery of his health ! The title of count
was bestowed on him as a little balm for his
wounds, and he was offered three hundred thou-
sand rubles from the imperial treasure, which
Kokovtsoff "gratefully" refused. Kokovtsoff
was petrified, and with him all those who under-
stood the meaning of this indication of a new
undercurrent, the mihtary party. What might
not have been prevented if Kokovtsoff, the fine,
scholarly man, with his sensibihty and kindhness,
with his inflexibility toward all flatterers, and
with his clean record, had retained the leadership
both as premier and minister of finance !

An atmosphere of peace and slow, systematic
progress was about him. There was no disturb-
ance when Kokovtsoff had any matter of business
in his hands; there was a quiet certainty that he
would always drive the state carriage back to its

58

UNBALANCED POLICIES

right track. Russia's often depressing political
anxieties were moored to rest in the calm port of
his conscientiousness. It was simply marvelous
what this man accomplished. His task included,
besides the national finances, which worked like
well-oiled machinery with Davidoff as chief
engineer, the great political burden of being
premier, the crux of all Russian statesmanship,
and the supervision of the department of customs.

During the ten years of his service he improved
the Russian finances to a point of amazing stabil-
ity. He cleared the Augean stable of irregular-
ities, and discarded relentlessly the officials who
had established a flourishing trade in concessions
and claims, which legally only the prime minister
could confer. Most of the high functionaries had
hated Kokovtsoff for his stubborn deafness to the
usual custom of granting opportunities to all
kinds of high-place corruptionists, and his dis-
missal was greeted in certain circles as a relief,
and aroused the hope that the good old times
when the ministers closed one eye, and in excep-
tional cases both, would come again.

Public opinion attributed the minister's down-
fall to his financial system, which was funda-

59

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

mentally wrong. The state's cash-box had been
filled by the abuse of the people's preference for
vodka. The Government held the monopoly of
all the vodka distilleries, so of course the state did
not interfere with the appetites of the people.
As it was sanctioned by the Government, the peo-
ple would not believe that vodka was their curse,
their certain ruin, and the state profited by
the drunkenness of her misled children. Public
opinion forgot that Kokovtsoff , in selling vodka,
did not create a new situation; that he simply
took the monopoly out of the hands of private
persons, who had enriched themselves through
the people's scourge.

This was the reproach and criticism of Ko-
kovtsoff at a time when Rasputin intrigued
against the prime minister. Rasputin never for-
gave Kokovtsoff for energetically protesting
against his meddling in governmental affairs.
On the other hand, Rasputin was the instrument
used by the military party to get rid of Kokovt-
soff, who was determined to preserve peace and
tr maintain friendly relations with Germany.

Kokovtsoff retired to private life, and Russia's
new regime, instead of seeking counsel of the lit-

60

UNBALANCED POLICIES

tie man with the intelligent face and mild expres-
sion on his noble features who had been able to
give the Government a temporary equilibrium,
put him in jail.

The man who had helped to undermine Ko-
kovtsoff's position in 1914 was Count Witte.
He hoped that his hour had again come to re-
place the prime minister or in any case, to pre-
vent the choice of a new man. He was strongly
with the party of the Grand Duke Nicholas;
but he forgot those who at that moment wanted
no minister's influence in the czar's environment.

As a fallen star. Count Witte, thrown from
the sky of political constellations, roamed rest-
less in Russia's politics. The people looked with
a kind of amazed enmity at this ghost of a time
of Russia's rapid development — a development
which had proved to be only a card-house built
by Witte and blown down by the Russo-Japanese
War. Over-anxious to regain the czar's favor,
his unremitting efforts to play the general ad-
viser in actual politics always split on the fact
that he had sold Russia to Germany in those un-
fortunate commercial treaties of 1907. Those
treaties were like an abyss along which all the

61

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY ANB TO-MORROW

ministers trod, afraid to look into its depths,
each of them knowing that it would never be
spanned without victims. The renewal of the
treaties before the outbreak of the war was a
source of ever-present apprehension.

The great national events of the end of July,
1914, the beginning of the war, caused the Rus-
sians to forget old animosities for a while.
Count Witte breathed more freely; again the
time had come when he was heard and his in-
fluence was felt.

After the disaster of Poland, after the failure
of Gallipoli, Witte worked feverishly to bring
about a separate peace, knowing that it was the
secret desire of the czar, who was shaken by the
loss of his best regiments and near relatives.

The military party saw itself in danger, and
decided that Count Witte's earthly existence was
no longer desirable. He died suddenly.

The hfe of Count Witte is a strange story of
justified ambition and back-stairs romance, a
genuine Russian story conceived in the brain of
a woman.

Matilda, later his wife, was first married to a
subordinate oflBicial of the ministry. Her house

6S

UNBALANCED POLICIES

was open not only to the comrades of her hus-
band, but especially to the aristocratic set, which
through family ties and duties was close to the
court. Matilda was equipped with the penetrat-
ing intellect of the Russian Jewess and was the
center of this famous coterie. One simply went
to Matilda. There was a coming and going with-
out formahty; a free intoxication, with no dis-
guise of human weaknesses. There was no se-
cret, no political or court gossip, that was not
brought to her.

Stronger than any man, with an iron will in
a slim, small body, she drank her guests all under
the table, yet never became drunk herself. Her
drinking had a distinct purpose. She was de-
voured by ambition, first for herself, and then for
the man of her heart. Witte, then a small offi-
cial in the ministry, was a daily guest in her
house. He was a dangerous mixture of the Bal-
tic German and the Russian, with an overpower-
ing physical appearance. He was modest in this
circle, where Russia's highest aristocracy felt
wholly at home without any restrictions. He
hstened smilingly to the weaving of intrigues
about the czar. No Duma existed at that time;

63

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

there were only the czar and his imperial brutes,
or his servile creatures good and bad, and the
"almightiness" of the police, with their reign of
terror. It was a time in which it was easy to
rise, a time when a young czar, afraid before his
own country, before his own sovereignty, grasped
at every strong plank to keep him above water.

Matilda brewed Witte's career out of her in-
timate knowledge of politics and society. Dar-
ingly she used all the little and big influences
until Witte, with intellectual superiority and vast
working power, jumped from the position of an
obscure official in the ministry to that of a po-
litical factor who was heard and noticed.

Witte was wise enough to realize that his driv-
ing force was Matilda, that without her he never
could maintain this new position or reach the
heights of their mutual dreams.

She was still the wife of another, to divorce
whom would be to stir up a hornets'-nest of dis-
reputable affairs, exposing her aristocratic pa-
trons and her compromised past. The enemies
of the coming man gladly enough would utilize
the scandal to crush him before he started.

The darkest hour for Witte and Matilda

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H
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UNBALANCED POLICIES

dawned. It was imperative for the realization
of their schemes to get rid of the husband.
Witte's career was in danger, and Matilda was
not willing to forego her own share in the glory
due to her efforts.

Then Matilda suddenly became a widow.
Witte married her, and they remained to the last
an inseparable couple.

Witte rose to the dreamed-of glory. The day
when the "Countess" Witte, the Jewess of the
doubtful and miry past, was admitted among the
ladies presented to the czarina crowned her am-
bitions, and her heart began to tremble for the
stabihty of her great man's happiness. She was
made of the same material as the women of the
Renaissance, who walked cold-bloodedly over
corpses to their magnificence. The shadow of
her under-world life may have been haunting her
when the sun set on the glory of her idol. She,
with her piercing intellect, knew that the logical
end of Witte's career led to his downfall, and
she was prepared for it. To the external world
she played the most interesting role throughout
Witte's hfe. She was the dignified, tactful, and
inspiring companion of the great man; she was

67

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

the tragic, silent Muse when Witte was wrecked.
It was the greatest homage for her that all the
young boys of her former circle, when ripened to
* 'excellencies," retained an admiring remem-
brance of her strong personality, of her kindness
and intelligence.

Count Witte was a statesman by adventure
and not by tradition, and for that reason he could
never be an educator for a young czar. He
feared too much for his own position, sometimes
overstretching his authority, and sometimes yield-
ing in servility to the moods of his sovereign.
The czar had to look up to Witte, to the physical
Witte ; he respected muscles which he himself did
not possess, and Witte's firm fist always imposed
on him in the instability of his own indecisive
character.

Witte loved to be compared with Peter the
Great. He forgot that Peter's greatness was
the sincerity of his barbarism, the most extreme
goodness or the most extreme evil, while Witte
fluctuated unbalanced between both.

Above all parties, but sharply antagonizing
the efforts toward bringing about a separate
peace, the minister of foreign affairs, Sazonoff,

68

UNBALANCED POLICIES

strictly followed his own political course. He
had nothing in common with the fanaticism of
the Pan-Slavists, nothing with the ambitions of
the grand-duke's party. In his red palace on the
Moika, behind the impenetrable quiet of the
foreign ministry, Sazonoff had for many years
been working out logically to an end a scheme
of foreign policy. This policy could not be a
success because it was far too advanced for Rus-
sia. His was the natural mistake of the culti-
vated mind, educated in countries where the
subtle filigree-work of the ancient diplomacy is
perhaps still applicable, to follow the precepts
of other nations. Sazonoff was in love with Eng-
land. He saw through England's eyes, and was
of the sincere conviction that from that side might
come the great salvation, the "awakening" of
Russia. Twice in three years Monsieur Poin-
care, the President of France, made a triumphal
trip to Petrograd to popularize Sazonoff's pol-
icies. England wished to emphasize the idea of
the Triple Alhance for the purpose of frighten-
ing Germany, of keeping in the background the
eternal menace.

Sazonoff's work expressed this menace. He

69

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

harnessed Russia to the interests of England in
the far East, Russia's long-tailed, capricious,
untamed horse to the heavy, well-bred, steady-
going steed of Great Britain. England made
large promises for the coupling of this badly
matched team, whispering into Sazonoff' s willing
ear the alluring word "Dardanelles!"

When the fata Morgana of Constantinople
paled on the horizon of the Allies' military opera-
tions in the Orient, Sazonoff found his pohcy
crippled, and then he joined in the blind fury
against Germany, whose stubborn endurance pre-
vented him from giving to his country the result
of his policy, the long-coveted warm-water port.

Sazonoff, a human enigma, with a head of a
pleasant ugliness, a Slav through and through,
with all the refinement of the Western culture,
with a calculated reserve, a sophisticated spirit,
and analytical mind, would have been a natm^al
diplomat to Louis XIV, but never to a Russian
czar or to a democracy. He was appointed am-
bassador to London.

There was no transparency in Russia's pol-
itics. Behind them was always the man who
made the policies, and he was a Russian; he was

70

UNBALANCED POLICIES

mysterious. He promised, but he never kept
his word, though not because he did not wish to
keep it. It was not his fault; it was yours, for
you should know that he gave his word to be
pleasant to you without realizing that it would
entail an inconvenience to him to-morrow. It
was the psychological mistake of Sazonoff to com-
press the economic interests that Russia had with
her allies into blood treaties. Former Russia
would have deceived her allies sooner or later, not
from wickedness, but simply because she never
could endure the supervision of an outsider or
could be forced to show her books. It would
have meant an absolute contradiction of her own
nature ; it would have delivered too much of Rus-
sia to the cold criticism of the world; or, what
the old regime feared most, it would have put
upon the Government such responsibility as
other governments sustain, and that meant a pro-
found revolution of Russia's self.

To-day the new rulers are trying to destroy
the different arbitrary systems which menaced
the security of the people. Russia had four
prime ministers after the outbreak of the war.
Goremykin temporarily took the portfolio after

71

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

the dismissal of Kokovtsoff, and so it happened
that Russia had in the hour of her fate a substi-
tute leader at the head of a department where the
most extensive efficiency, the most intense state
wisdom, and the most capable mind were de-
manded. Poor old Goremykin always had been
the substitute housekeeper of Russia. This was
the second time that he had been called in. He
was too old, too tired to face the immense task,
the gigantic responsibility, and he had nothing to
say in an hour when the world had its head under
the guillotine of national hostilities, and lost its
head.

The military system wanted him just as he was,
colorless, without any influence on the czar, just
a political marionette. After a year-long war, in
the autumn of 1915, Russian politics were again
in sad confusion. The Government's control, an
utter failure, ended with a clash. The situation
was hopeless in its mismanagement. The most
unspeakable bribes hampered the filling of con-
tracts and the delivering of all kinds of indis-
pensable material. Russia's industries were
crippled through the hurrying away of all Ger-
man directors, technical and mechanical artisans ;

7^

UNBALANCED POLICIES

untrained Russians had to replace them. Amer-
ican commercial representatives who were ready
to accept orders were kept waiting months and
months before their propositions were submitted
to the ministers. As a minister himself never
decided, but appointed the famous "commission,"
consisting of a certain number of other officials,
he escaped all responsibility. For ever}i:hing
that had to be decided a commission was formed,
over which sat another commission to supervise
it; so, if mistakes were made, every man was
saved. Ouv" by one the members of a commission
studied the terms of every contract in minute de-
tail. The official most interested in deriving
profits made the most ridiculous objections,
which inevitably aroused the opposition of the
others; and when the decision was favorable, he
added a foot-note to the report, stating that he
joined the minority. So he never was suspected
by the official higher up. The commission acted
mysteriously. It shut itself behind closed doors,
and nobody was permitted to disturb its secret
meetings. No word penetrated to the outer
world, but every few minutes the man who had
submitted the contract received the telephoned

78

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

result of the pourparlers from some supernatural
spirit, and from the same spirit the report, which
was kept strictly confidential, could be bought for
a hundred dollars as soon as the commission
adjourned.

No wonder that the congestion in ports and
at the frontiers grew into nightmares. The
goods to be transported covered the ground for
miles and miles in the open air, without any pro-
tection against rain and snow. At Vladivostok
and Archangel, on the Siberian and Finnish rail-
roads, affairs were in complete disorder, and no-
body could imagine how this chaos in transpor-
tation ever would be cleared. In the meantime
soldiers and leaders at the front waited in anxiety
for supplies that would enable them to be at
least on the defensive instead of being shot down
like poor animals.

In September, 1915, the czar, more and more
inclined to the peace suggestions floating about
him, let Goremykin change the hard seat of the
prime minister for the restful grandfather's
chair, and Sturmer appeared as a demonstration
of the new system. He also was a substitute, a
figure of indistinguishable political tints, a poli-

74

UNBALANCED POLICIES

tician without any resonance, a puppet with some
power behind him. Thus the statesmen in Rus-
sia drove their personal ambitions in different
directions, neglecting criminally the vital policy
for the country, a clean and good administration.
Nothing was accomplished.

Military operations were completely aban-
doned, and the public looked with painful amaze-
ment and faint revolt on this laissez-aller, laissez-
faire.

Stiirmer had to disappear into the anonymity
whence he emerged, and the new prime minister,
Trepof, sprang up. This man Trepof was an
unfortunate choice. In the eyes of the world
and among the Russian people his name was the
personification of darkest Russia, of the "sys-
tem," of the searching ochrana (the secret serv-
ice), the most frightful terroristic and nihilistic
era. It brought back the martyrs, the hanged
and buried-alive martyrs, and all this in a time
when the people needed to see beams of hope
through their political leaders.

Again and again the world was assured by
printed and spoken words that Trepof had a most
liberal mind, and that he was quite the contrary

75

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

of what his father, the dark governor of St.
Petersburg, had been. All in vain. The curse
stuck to his name, and his removal soon followed.

The czar, tired of selecting ministers, hazard-
ously nominated Prince Golitzin as the fourth
prime minister. Prince Golitzin was a political
blank, and no time was given him to develop.

In the gravity of the situation the czar found
himself isolated. He was frightened by the
weight which pressed upon him. Governmental
errors were exposed by the horrors of the war.
Like enormous wings, gray hopelessness spread
about him. The flattering tongues became
speechless, hesitating, and stammering; the sov-
ereign descended from his throne and attempted
to be a man among men.

The czar sought his people; he sought the
Duma. He opened the assembly for the first
time in its existence, thus at last giving it his
official recognition. The people cheered the czar ;
they embraced one another with tears of joy in
their eyes. The czar, the "Little Father," was
in the midst of those who represented the de-
mands of the country. He would listen, he
would understand. The spoken word would

76

UNBALANCED POLICIES

reach his ears, and never again would be mis-
interpreted by the scoundrelly intermediaries who
always had had their own interests first in mind.

The progressives in the Duma triumphed.
Speaking with new-found fearlessness, they
forged plans for the present and spun dreams for
the future.

At this time the czar, without political sup-
port, without an adviser, desiring one thing, do-
ing another, himself unbalanced, hoped to find
refuge with the Duma. The Duma saw in the
apparent insignificance of Stiirmer, then prime
minister, its great opportunity to choose from
its members the man of the hour.

The Duma was disappointed in its hopeful en-
thusiasm. It was no more than an imperial
mood, a moment of distress or loneliness and
perhaps curiosity, that made the czar drive to
the Tauritzky Palace, where the Duma sits — the
little piece of sugar in the hand of a sovereign to
beguile the men of the people.

The Duma was offended, and split into fac-
tions, distrusting one another, accusing one an-
other. Everywhere mystifications clouded the
political sky, and around live questions again and

77

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

again were spun intrigues of personal influence.

The Duma was still like a child strugghng
through infantile diseases, and found it hard to
grow up in a state family of old prejudices and
bad principles.

It seemed impossible that the century-old in-
dividual power governing Russia could be
scratched out with a pen-stroke. The Duma did
not yet represent for the people the invincible
rock of security. They were not quite famihar
with the idea that a body of men could be united
to benefit them. In this one body were too many
souls, and each of those souls lived in a separate
body and had separate ambitions. The Russian
believes in the individual man, whom he worships
or whom he curses. A whole body, a corpora-
tion, means nothing to his imagination. The
Duma was an eternal contradiction when it be-
came a constitutional foundation in an autocratic
state.

But it was only an official call that the czar
made on the Duma, and all efforts on both sides
never would have developed a mutual understand-
ing, as the czar found no response to his peace
ideas. The Duma could not comprehend that

78

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this idea had always been the real part of him-
self. The czar had not the nature of a con-
queror; he suffered physically under the stress
of battle, and the sight of blood gave him nau-
sea.

The presidents of the Duma were subjected to
the same surprising changes as the ministry.
How many presidents were elected and rejected
after the war began! The Duma and the gov-
ernment of the czar were always quarrelsome
brothers. With crafty efforts the Government
tried to conceal its state affairs, and the Duma
was like a battle-field from which the members
were alwaj^s forced to retreat. The imperial
Government, with its frightful disorder, its ever-
flourishing graft system, was the terrible ob-
stacle in the way of providing for the necessities
of the men at the front and the people at home.
None of the last unhappy ministers should be
held personally responsible for a system that had
lasted more than a century. The imperial Gov-
ernment was an old, crumbling body, and it was
known that firm decision could crush it. That
this decision would come from the men of the
Duma was not doubted.

79

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

In 1916, Russia looked with longing eyes to
Protopopof, who then, as president of the Duma,
seemed to take state affairs away from a rotten
Government. But at that time the Duma itself
was a quarreling, disorganized body, its members
jealous and envious of one another's powers.
When Protopopof was nominated minister of the
interior, it seemed a triumph for the Duma. But
it has been very rare for a man not to lose his
head as minister of Russia. On the one side he
was offered mountains of gold if he would let the
cobweb of protectionism remain untouched; on
the other hand, his political position always was
threatened by a party.

As usual, the ministers — and Protopopof, too
— worked for the party that they hoped would
become the most powerful in Russia. This time
Protopopof was on the wrong side, and blinded
by his influence over the czar, he had not the fore-
sight to suspect, in the Duma's consequent op-
position to everything he proposed, the bigger
forces behind the Duma, which caused its last
adjournment.

Russia is the country where everything has
been begun wonderfully and never has been fin-

80

UNBALANCED POLICIES

ished. The sense of time and economy does not
belong to the Russian character. There is lav-
ishness, a squandering of time, words, and money,
which leads to no practical result. It will re-
quire years to separate the wheat from the chaff.
From the Russian point of view it is not aston-
ishing that a prominent member of the Duma
who attended the sessions for only a few weeks
every year kept a sumptuous apartment in a first-
class hotel of the capital, merely because he could
not decide to pack his trunks. Life is too short
for decision, and his valet was of the same opin-
ion. The room filled with an ever-increasing col-
lection of clothing, boots, and hats. The tables
were covered with bottles, jars, boxes, perfumes,
and medicines, papers and books, cigarettes,
everything, as if a large family were on the point
of moving. Nobody was ever permitted to touch
a thing or to clean up the place, and it was a
puzzle how the occupant ever managed to climb
over all the obstacles and into his bed. During
the sessions he lived in that atmosphere of "com-
fort," where he was able to stretch out his hand
to secure at once whatever he needed. There he
gathered his friends about the ever-ready sam-

81

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

ovar, losing all account of time, arguing until
the new day shone through the windows.

The Russian never knows exactly what he
possesses or what he owes. He is not ashamed
to borrow, because he himself lends freely. His
is in a paradisic state of unconcern; but if this
unconcern is to extend to the vital questions of
politics that involve other races who are exact-
ing about keeping their affairs in order, Russians
must first conquer themselves before conquering
the world.

These characteristics of the individual Russian,
the inconsistencies and contradictions in his na-
ture, make him appear mysterious to more con-
ventional nations. One could look with amazed
interest on the habits of the soft-hearted, easy-
going Russians and on their unbalanced politics
if in the development of those qualities did not
slumber an ever-present danger for the world
outside of Russia — a danger which in new Rus-
sia will pass away, because liberty will give self-
control and self-respect. Russians will cease to
be a servile people, who humble themselves like
slaves, and are kept obedient by the cruelty of
their rulers.

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UNBALANCED POLICIES

The new provisional Government is so fan-
tastically composed that it is imaginable only for
Russia. Five heroes went into this adventure
with wonderful courage — the courage that naive,
strong people have. They are victorious, but
if they are not following a plan clearly outlined
for them by a friendly, experienced ally, no one
can f orsee how they will make the enormous body
of Russia move organically.

Prince Lvoff, the president of the ministry, is
the only one who has the repose of official tradi-
tion. The honor came to him not because he
forced the czar to abdicate ; the honor was alwavs
his. He had worked practically, progressively,
and honestly. He had accomplished wonders in
the zemstvos, which to outsiders always appeared
to be peasant organizations, but which really
were the organizations of the nobility that pro-
tected the interests of the peasants because they
were its own. The peasant depended on the
noble landowner, and to enjoy the blessings of
the zemstvos, he had to submit to the decisions
made by the nobles. That was to a certain ex-
tent profitable for the peasant, who was too child-
like to dispose of his harvests in an advantageous

83

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

way, who had not the money to buy machinery
or to pay laborers, and who was shielded from
exploitation by money-lenders. The zemstvos
freed the peasant from the persecution of scoun-
drelly provincial governors, who before the zemst-
vos existed kept him in a serf-like oppression;
freed him from the district police, who nagged
him and took away his little money for imaginary
misdeeds ; freed him in a certain degree from the
despotic superintendents of the estates of nobles,
who enforced an arbitrary system.

In former years there was a patriarchal system
in the zemstvos. The Russian preferred to have
his own autocrat, whom he could approach per-
sonally, whose voice he could hear; even if he
profited not at all, it was good to speak to the
natschalnik, who was the zemstvo's chief of the
district. Then, too, it was always a change for
the peasant, an excuse for a little journey, for
getting away from the village to bring home new
experiences and prestige.

The natschalnik had to be eliminated because
he had too good an opportunity to rob the peasant
and to conceal conditions which should be re-
vealed; for the natschalnik was not a saint, and

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UNBALANCED POLICIES

wished to make more money than his position
paid him. Then the affairs of the peasants were
confided to the judges of the zemstvos. The re-
lation ceased to be personal, and petitions and
complaints had to be made on proper papers and
in proper writing. This was a new embarrass-
ment for the peasant, who despised documents,
which he could not read, and who was suspicious
when another person read a paper for him. He
was never sure that he was told the right thing.
He thought that it would make hfe simple
to school his children, but the children were not
eager to learn. Why should they study books?
They knew everything about animals and what
grew in the fields from their parents, who had
learned from their parents. The Russian peas-
ant has a wonderful instinct for plants and herbs.
The schools that the zemstvos provided were
hopeless institutions, for the teachers understood
how to adapt themselves more to the good-will
of the peasants than to their own duties. The
teachers waited for the boys to come to school,
but there was always some work to keep the chil-
dren at home. And when the zemstvo sent a
commission to inspect the schools, there was sud-

85

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

den calamity unless the visit had been announced.
Then everything was prepared ; the children were
present and clean, and the parents made a holiday
of the inspection, inviting the commission to eat
and drink. Afterward, parents and commission-
ers, in happy mood, walked to the school. The
report was astonishingly encouraging.

That the zemstvos were not only necessary for
agriculture, but a blessing, was shown by their
attitude at the beginning of the war. Here the
great personal work of Prince Lvoff came in.
He, as a really grand seigniour, devoted all his
powers to the aid of his country. It was not a
mystery how the business of war had always been
managed in Russia. Prince Lvoff, with the aid
of the brave, tireless, and practical zemstvo mem-
bers, started the private purchase of supplies for
the people and the army with the zemstvos'
funds. Without the zemstvos and their work the
war could not have been carried on, and the work
of recruiting in remote Russia would have been
impossible.

After the first year of the war the people in
the south of Russia revolted against recruiting,
against the war. The peasants had to be chained

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UNBALANCED POLICIES

before they could be taken away from their homes.
And they had not even vodka to make their de-
parture more cheerful. Their treatment was so
brutal and so cruel that with cries and screams
they protested against fighting and dying. The
zemstvos regulated conditions, giving generously
to the state, and having a free hand for the peo-
ple in the provinces.

The good practical machinery of the zemstvos,
once regulated, worked marvelously for the war,
and Prince Lvoff could look with satisfaction
upon it, for young Russia is one of its products.
Prince Lvoff became the head of a democracy by
chance, but he was the right man.

Most amazing was the selection of Alexander
Guschkoff as minister of war, or, better to ex-
press it, the minister for providing the soldiers.
Nothing could be less warrior-hke than this min-
ister of war, and it is certain that he had never
been familiar with military strategy. In his
earlier activities he had known much about cotton
and its manufacture, and had some knowledge of
sanitation. The contract for a new system of
waterworks from Lake Ladoga to Petrograd
was awarded through him, but not without oppo-

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

sition from great experts, who thought his ideas
wrong and fought his schemes in the Duma of
1914. He is a great admirer of America and a
Pan-SIavist through and through, which is a con-
tradiction. He is one of the Russians who are
gifted in gathering experiences from which to
form absolute opinions without digesting the ex-
periences. He is a sound money-maker, unfor-
giving when once offended, never able to bear
criticism, and ready to avenge bitterly any griev-
ance from the men who were in power during the
former regime.

Professor Paul Miliukoff, the foreign min-
ister, is a personality, and has a right to be proud
of his achievements; and he is proud. Known,
respected, but not loved, he remembers how ter-
ror looks, and he will realize that to a certain ex-
tent it must reign in Russia. He will have to
use it despite his theoretical point of view of un-
restricted freedom. The triumph of the first
days of the revolution sustained the high tension
in which Miliukoff had lived for years. In for-
tunate circumstances he will be steadfast, but
with the first little mistake, the first sign of dis-
organization, he may lose the beautiful equili-

88

UNBALANCED POLICIES

briuin with which it is necessary to balance the
state affairs of young Russia.

Rodzianko, the last president of the Duma, is
also a personality, physically and mentally. He
is good-natured and not much of a republican.
He knows that Russia must have a figurehead,
and that this figurehead must be crowned; that,
like old Russia, young Russia needs a "Little
Father"; that there is not a great difference be-
tween yesterday and to-morrow; that Russians,
to be contented, must have their distractions, their
jojSf and their fears. He is fanatical enough to
swear fealty to the flag of Pan-Slavism and to
save Russia from all her foster-fathers.

Kerensky, the minister of justice, is popular,
strong, and suggestive. He is a simple, impres-
sive speaker, and he has the most difficult task:
he must be just not only to young Russia, but to
the unhappy supporters of the unbalanced old
regime.

89

CHAPTER IV

THE RUSSIAN COURT

The great Catherine had endured for seven-
teen years the domination of the senile Czarina
Ehzabeth. As the wife of an idiotic husband she
had hved under unspeakable conditions, in a
country where not only nature sleeps most of the
year, but where the people were scarcely awak-
ened to the daylight, in the midst of a court of
most ridiculous intrigues, of little and big cruel-
ties, and of the most barbaric scenes. After the
death of the empress, by the force of her per-
sonality she had broken the chains of an enslaved
czarina, and had shaken off the suspicion and
superstition that the court and the Government
— the people did not count at that time — at-
tached to her. She was proclaimed empress.
With the jubilant cheerings of the people in her
ears, she made her entry into the Winter Palace,
accompanied by one of the three Orloff brothers,
while the others interned her husband the miser-
able Czar Peter in Schliisselburg.

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THE RUSSIAN COURT

Catherine now breathed freely for the first time
in her hfe. The httle incident — the stranghng
of her husband — the hght cloud on her new
glory, soon disappeared, and life became gay
and peaceful about her. Dark Russia lay be-
hind her, a curtain that she kept carefully
closed.

In constant correspondence with the artists
and philosophers of Europe, she dreamed dreams
of beauty, of freedom, and of the happy evolu-
tion of her people. In reality she did not press
her new ideas upon them. She knew the country
of her adoption, and she had learned from Peter
the Great, who, in trying to move the sleepy co-
lossus to a new culture, used the most barbaric
weapons and was true to his motto: "The stick,
though dumb, can teach."

Catherine needed space for her wide lungs,
thirsty for fresh air; she needed the consolation
of art and science for the hunger of her soul ; and
she needed the imperial pomp of her court to
demon^rate her will nower to her primitive sub-
jects.

She completed the Winter Palace and built the
Hermitage, the gallery of art wonders. When

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

one enters through the spacious arch into the im-
mense square, with the Winter Palace in all its
warm tints, in the background, one can imagine
Catherine standing on the balcony overlooking
the parades of her beloved regiments. The front
of this palace faces the Neva, a stream of strongly
flowing water broad enough to make the tear-
bathed fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, on the
distant side of the river, appear as a vision of
hills on the top of which the golden spires of a
church tower reflect the sunbeams. Over this
fortress there is always a fine, consoling fog,
created by the dampness which emerges, like veils,
from the Neva.

In Catharine's time the vast, magnificent rooms
were filled with her spirit and with the joy of
life that she preserved in her sound body. To-
day the Winter Palace is a dead splendor, and
sad with the memories of all the tragedies, crimes,
and terrors that sigh from every corner.

Every historic spot is kept untouched: the
rooms where Nicholas I brooded in deep melan-
choly, in eternal fear of being strangled like his
predecessors; the basement where the czar hid
himself to take the relieving poison; the bottle

92

THE RUSSIAN COURT

which contained the fatal medicine, and even the
spoon.

The apartments of Alexander are left intact,
still breathing an incredible warmth of life from
this amiable sovereign. Here are the pen he
used for the last time, the half-smoked cigarette,
the chair pushed back as he left the room to at-
tend the parade from which he was brought back,
a poor, mutilated body, to expire on a small bed
behind two columns and a portiere.

With the assassination of this most European
of all the czars gaiety and life were extinguished
from the Winter Palace. Gaiety did not mark
the reign of Alexander III. Shadows of pale
fear followed the heavy czar and obscured his life
and that of Maria Feodorovna, the Danish
princess whose warm blood froze in the sad-
ness of the court. Her whole hope was in the
future, and, with the atavism of queens who
mixed poisons for their husbands, she dreamed
of her own autocracy, the unbounded expansion
of herself to the great independence attained by
Catherine. Her sons were frail little boys with
all kinds of inherited diseases. The czarevitch,
the stubborn little Nicholas, who was never ap-

93

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

proachable by reason, was not an obstacle to her.
Perhaps, she thought, she could educate Nicholas,
who was timid and not at all an imperial child, to
renounce the throne in favor of his younger
brother Michael, nearer to her heart. It served
her purpose that Michael, who showed signs of
consumption, had to live out of Russia most of
the year.

With the terrible ambition of ruling Russia in
her mind, the czarina did not prevent her husband
from heavy drinking, though knowing that his
constitution was shaken by alcohol. The giant's
heart was weak, and his days seemed numbered.
Circumstances favored the hopes of Maria
Feodorovna. Secretly she formed her party,
the camarilla of Maria Feodorovna, which
worked feverishly to carry out her purposes.
Her sons became men, and Alexander, notwith-
standing his heart disease, lived longer than the
physicians prophesied. Maria Feodorovna be-
came restless. The czarevitch returned from
his constant journeyings about the world, bring-
ing back only his improved health and an eternal
discontent. He was a poor, lonesome boy. He
was never gay, and his debauches were not the

94

THE RUSSIAN COURT

outlet of an over-sparkling youth, but the result
of the cynicism of a life without deep motive.
He knew the history of his country ; he feared his
future, which was like the condemnation to cer-
tain death. It would not have been difficult to
crush the tiny buds of his modest ambition. Like
all weak natures, Nicholas needed a tremendous
amount of flattery ; he needed tenderness and ad-
miration. With his comrades of the regiment he
was often intoxicated, and in the sober moments
of his life he was extremely bored and melan-
choly.

He created his own little court of sycophants,
and he created the later influences, priests and
courtiers; and as a court is not imaginable with-
out womanly domination, the center of his life
was the ballet-dancer Kreschinskaja. The Kre-
schinskaja was not a simple dancer, but one of
the most clever and beautiful pupils selected from
the best of the imperial ballet school, and institu-
tion where the dancers, taken at a tender age, are
not only trained for dancing, but for accomplish-
ments built up on a firm educational founda-
tion.

The Kreschinskaja was an embodied flame,

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

with eyes like fire in her spirituahzed face. She
was a queen among the aspiring creatures in the
czarevitch's circle. She held Nicholas in her del-
icate fingers, and the day that she presented him
with her first son he promised to make her his
czarina. Why not? There was Peter the Great,
who married, despite his living wife, Eudoxia,
the Finnish laundress, and made her the czarina.
And the Kreschinskaja was far more than a peas-
ant girl. She could help Nicholas reign; she
could be the real intuitive force of his hfe. The
somewhat confused conception of his task as heir
to the throne seemed suddenly to take distinct
form in the czarevitch's mind; it would never be
a burden if the Kreschinskaja could aid him.
She was a child of the people, with the brain of
an empress.

JNIaria Feodorovna smiled contentedly on the
czarevitch's pseudo-court. She let her camarilla
nourish and support his idea of marrying the
dancer. Then, she was sure, his light as czar
would never burn, and Michael, who was sick
and good-natured, woula be only too glad to
leave the reins of the government in the hands of
his mother.

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THE RUSSIAN COURT

All the czarina's schemes developed rapidly.
Alexander's enormous body, underfed by the
heart, which was too weak to circulate the blood,
swelled and swelled. Day and night he sat in
his big arm-chair, tortured by suffocation and
worrying about Nicholas, who was so poor a
czarevitch.

From Gatshina the czar was brought to his
Crimean castle at Yalta. Here the ministers
revealed to him the dangerous ideas of the czar-
evitch and the machinations of Maria Feodor-
ovna's camarilla. The czar had one of his
fits of temper, which, despite his desperate ill-
ness, were the terror of the court. He was still
the czar, though the dying czar. He summoned
Nicholas to Yalta, and forced on him the plan
to marry him to the sister of the Grand Duchess
Sergius, the Princess Ahx of Hesse.

It was an imperial order. Only by accepting
the czar's decree could the czarevitch alter his
father's resolution to send the Kreschinskaja to
Siberia and to kill her brood. The Kreschin-
skaja had to abdicate, but she was permitted to
retain her place in the imperial ballet. Later,
when the czarevitch was omnipotent, he gave a

97

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

fortune to the dancer, built a magnificent palace
for her, and bestowed titles on his sons.

In the white castle at Yalta began the drama
of the life of the czarevitch and the Princess Ahx
of Hesse.

The princess arrived in the Crimea, a sacrifice
to high diplomacy. The cool, white, slender
flower of a highly cultivated country, the young
girl with a sad expression in her eyes, was ter-
rified at being placed on the throne of Russia,
where the assassination of crowned heads was
still an every-day affair. She was presented to
the czarevitch, who made a pitiful impression in
his state of complete breakdown following his
separation from the Kreschinskaja. After they
had exchanged a few conventional words, they
were taken to the sick czar, who, heavily uplift-
ing his enormous stature, gave his blessing to
the couple kneeling before him.

At the head of the bed stood the czarina. The
girl victim raised her eyes, and met a look of
hatred. She nearly fainted, and was led away
by her sister, the Grand Duchess Sergius.

It was springtime. The czarevitch and the
princess walked in the solitude of the Crimean

98

THE RUSSIAN COURT

garden, around the white castle, where the prepa-
rations for their wedding were hurried. The
two young people, drawn together by each
other's heart distresses, tried to find amid the en-
tanglement of unloiown dangers a tie that would
bind them to the duties which they owed to the
circumstance of being born on the heights. In
this icy atmosphere the throbbing heart has no
rights, and they had to surrender their youthful
dreams.

The czar loved his new daughter, and the
young princess passed days with him, understand-
ing the anxieties of this dying colossus, who was
surrounded by the spider system of his wife and
who had no confidence in the capacities of Nicho-
las. With the czar's hands in hers she made a
silent vow to help the czarevitch uphold the bur-
den of a crown. They were married with the
dark wings of the death angel around them. The
Grand Duchess Sergius received her sister in her
arms after the lugubrious ceremonies, and took
off the virginal veil of the young bride. The
two sisters found themselves in tears, united un-
der the weight of their fates, and they accepted
their lots silently.

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

With the increasing weakness of the czar, the
camarilla again showed its gorgon head, and the
bride, unprotected by the apathy of her husband,
shuddered in fear. Alexander III expired.
The pomp of the funeral was over. The czarina
mother took up her residence at the Annitschkof
Palace, the residence of the widows of the czars.

The young czar took the oath of office. Cos-
tumed in the pomp of the imperial ermine, the
heavy crown on his head, he looked like a fright-
ened child who tries on his father's hat, his fa-
ther's coat. The hat shpped over the child's
face, and the frail body disappeared completely
in the coat. This impression remained. The
czar's physical appearance was unfortunate for
a sovereign. Little, thin, with a face that ex-
presses nothing openly, he always gave the idea
that his position must be a very embarrassing
one, and the expression of his eyes was almost
apologetic. He was not a man for publicity,
not a decoration. He was not a czar of all the
Russias. When he appeared, the people were
immediately attracted by the mighty bodies of
the Romanoff grand dukes, the towering, weighty
men behind him. Nobody looked into the czar's

100

THE RUSSIAN COURT

face, nobody noticed the frozen smile, which con-
trasted pathetically with the sad eyes, and nobody
ever imagined that publicity meant for the czar
physical pain.

On the day of the coronation in Moscow thou-
sands were buried under the grandstand erected
for the people who watched the entry of the
czarina. Above the dominant ringing of the
Great Bell, which was answered by hundreds of
other bells, the czarina's ear was struck by the
death-screams of the people who had been wait-
ing for her at the arch of the Kreml ; and the six
horses harnessed to the imperial coach, after a
second of hesitation, sped over bloody bodies.
The czarina's heart shrank ; she grasped in a des-
perate pressure the hand of her husband, who,
deathly-pale, looked out on the fateful scene,
which augured ill for his reign. The czarina's
anxious questioning met furtive glances. No
one would tell her of the sinister omen that gave
tragic significance to the holy day of her corona-
tion as the Empress of all the Russias.

Moscow celebrated despite the mourning of
thousands of her inhabitants. The great ban-
quet-hall in the Kreml was a spectacle unforget-

101

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

able to all who were present. It formed the right
background for the canopy over the throne, for
the colorf ulness and brilliancy of the Russian na-
tional costumes and uniforms, and for the jeweled
and brocaded robes of the holy synod. The
Mayor of Moscow presented to the young
czarina, who sat white and erect on her throne,
the famous bouquet in the handle of which was
the button that, when pressed, flooded Moscow
with millions of electric lights. The czarina, who
was crowned Alexandra Feodorovna, was led
to the balcony, where she stood under the silent
glances of the masses waiting on the plaza. The
Kreml lights were first extinguished, and then the
czarina pressed the button of her bouquet, and
Moscow flamed in an illumination never before
seen. Mute and depressed, the people gazed at
the white figure who, with her first official step
into Russia, had brought death to them. The
young czarina returned white and trembling to
the banquet-hall. From all the German cities
the best artists had been assembled in Moscow for
a most wonderful concert under a conductor from
the home country of the former Princess Ahx.
She hid the tears of homesickness under her long

102

THE RUSSIAN COURT

lashes. The melodies dear to her heart brought
back the memory of her happy maidenhood, and,
shivering in the warmth of the summer night, her
heart was contracted with bitter presentiments.
Then remembering her vow, she raised her head,
and when the irksome days of the coronation cer-
emonies were over, she resolved to live in strict
devotion to her new duties.

The young czar found himself a sovereign
without knowing the men of his father's reign,
trusting nobody, loving nobody, and even a
stranger and timid before his bride, who de-
veloped an unexpected energy and interest in
state affairs. In her veins was the blood of
w^omen who knew their duties, and she had de-
cided to be true to her traditions. The czar
looked up to his young wife, who spoke wisely
and with determination; but she did not speak
his language, the language of his people. She
was a foreigner, and Russia looked at her only as
the czarina who would perpetuate the imperial
race.

The czarina devoted herself ferventlv to the
study of the language, so that she might come
nearer to the heart of the Russians and win her

103

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

husband's confidence. Her hope looked forward
to the child she was expecting. Her first-born
was a princess, and the poor czarina became timid
again before sinister fate. She saw herself and
the czar drifting apart under the influence of the
czarina-mother. She lived in the shy feeling that
the people met her with hostile superstition, and
she sought consolation in religion, in the new
faith of the Greek Church. Her second child,
so anxiously longed for, came. Again a lovely
little girl. The czarina-mother triumphed.
Hers might be the final victory, and her hopes of
seeing the Grand Duke Michael on the throne
grew. She kept the whole police system in her
hands, and the spirit of revolution then flowering
through Russia served her purpose. All that
was not plotted by the anarchists the cruel, fan-
tastic camarilla invented. The little freedoms of
the young sovereigns were under terrible espion-
age. For every theater party, for every enter-
tainment, they provided cleverly arranged and
dramatically discovered assassins. The young
czarina became a silent woman. She suffered
more and more from the misinterpretation of
everything she said and did, and even her

104

'-/i* V.

ALEXANDRA, THE FORMER CZARINA

THE RUSSIAN COURT

thought, her unspoken word, was a source of
eternal suspicion and persecution. Her young
joy of life was slowly tortured to death by the
ever- watching creatures of her mother-in-law.

From time to time the sovereigns longed for
pleasures congenial to their youth, and the court
marshal sent out invitations to court balls. In
the big ball-room of the Winter Palace, under the
soft, warm light of thousands of wax candles,
the waltzing couples appeared languishing and
exotic. The lights deepened the richness of the
brocades, and brought out the wonders of
resplendent diamonds and pearls on the Russian
national costumes.

The czarina was very lovely, with a timid and
yet proud carriage of her fine head and the roses
of youth blossoming on her cheeks. She liked to
dance, and the great court balls always surprised
her into the tense expectation of a young girl.

At one of the balls, in the midst of the sweep-
ing chords of the mazm-ka, the lights suddenly
fluttered as if moved by a mysterious draft; a
cold ah* blew through the room, and the ladies
shivered with fright. A subdued whispering ran
through the assembly, no one knowing anything,

107

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

but every one foreboding. Looking with livid
faces toward the place where the imperial couple
danced, the guests saw only that the czar, grasp-
ing the czarina's hand, left the ball-room as if in
flight. The music ended with a crash. The
next day the rumor filled the capital that the
ball-room in the Winter Palace was undermined,
and that a bomb was discovered just in time to
prevent the explosion that would have blown to
atoms all the guests, among them the imperial
couple.

The ball-room was closed. The camarilla
worked well. Terror crept through the palace,
crept through the doors into the private rooms
of the sovereigns, and in livid fright they fled
from the capital to bury themselves in the solitude
of Tsarsko-Sselo, nowhere sure that plots would
not be forged in their closest entourage. Rest-
lessness grew, a frightful restlessness, and they
had a home nowhere. Then the imperial duty
demanded that they travel through the country,
and on all of their tours accidents were arranged :
rails were loosened, and a number of persons lost
their lives; but the death of the imperial family
was frustrated in time. The Russian people

108

THE RUSSIAN COURT

attributed all misfortune to the young czarina,
and the saying went around that wherever she
walked she would walk over blood. And wher-
ever she went, she met enmity, she who was not
yet taken into the lap of the Russian Church and
who was not blessed with the heir that the land
expected of her. With a tortured spirit the
czarina looked forward to her third child. Again
in the cradle lay a little girl, and the camarilla,
the great spider, had its web around the soul of
the young couple.

The czar faced the disappointment of his hope
for an heir. He gave away to the melancholy of
former years, to the discontent. He drank to
forget his imperial misery. The stories of the
victims of the Ochrana, of the tireless Trepof
hunting anarchists, of Plehve, of Siberian hor-
rors, of executions and torturing of young men
and women, all lost interest for the czar. What
was all this in comparison with the eternal fear
strangling his own throat? He signed death-
sentences mechanically every morning without
any knowledge of the cases. Behind the iron
gate of etiquette and fear lived the crowned
heads. From the hands of the court-torturers,

109

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

called chamberlains, ministers, or priests, they
received their servants, their teachers, their con-
fessors. Their sleep was interrupted to prevent
rest, to prevent f orgetf ulness ; their meals were
poisoned to simulate plots. The windows were
barred to the free and fresh air. They lived
anemically, trembling in the swampy air of
gossip, treason, and baseness. An impenetrable
wall was erected around the imperial prisoners,
and their souls were moved by the wires of a
hundred-years-old system of court mechanism.
They were moved to smile, to be graceful, to be
cruel. In their names all frightful crimes were
committed. The church revived the medieval
inquisition among the Jews, and the pogroms
were red-lined in the calendars of entertainment
of the czar.

And the people stood outside the gates, bitter-
ness in their hearts and curses on their lips for the
czarina, the foreigner who was not even able to
bring forth an heir to the throne. The jailers of
the imperial couple grew into an almighty power,
and the imperial leading actors of this tragedy
shrank to a legendary existence behind their
prison walls. Special automobiles incased in

110

THE RUSSIAN COURT

coats of mail were built to take the czar from
Tsarsko-Sselo to the capital, if his presence was
necessary. The Winter Palace was deserted,
only a small wing being reserved for the members
of the imperial family, and that strongly guarded.
The open gardens were surrounded by a high
gate of wonderful ironwork, and behind the gate
the shrubberies grew dense and tall so that
nobody could ever catch a glimpse into those
enchanted gardens.

For a long time the people whispered that the
czar and the czarina had been assassinated by the
camarilla, and that only dummies were shown to
hide the black deed from avenging Europe.

In deepest seclusion the czarina gave birth to
her fourth daughter, — poor little girl I — and then
the book of interest for her existence seemed com-
pletely closed. She clung to the church. Mys-
ticism developed to the hothouse flower that
intoxicated the czarina's free mind. The church
decided that the power of the death-bringing
ochrana and its executioners had gone too far,
and feared for its own decreasing influence at the
court and among the people. Everything had
paled before the overwhelming terrors of the

111

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

police. There was no room for politics, for the
Government; there was only the police. Noth-
ing progressed. Science and art stagnated.
Like a forest uninhabited by birds, the land was
deserted by its poets. Normal joys were cast out
to give place to the terrible debauches of vice and
drunkenness.

It was now that Pobiedonostsef, the sly high
officer of the holy synod, saved the influence of
the church. He loosened the chains around the
wrists of the imperial couple. They could move
again and travel without the death-clattering
horseman speeding ahead. The czarina could
play with her little daughters and could let them
grow in all possible freedom. Every year when
the Easter bells had sent their last peals through
the capital, when "Christ was risen," the imperial
family went to the Crimean castle, the Russian
Riviera. In the sunshine of this part of Russia,
in the gaiety of the South, the dark shadow of the
camarilla lost its horror; it seemed to disappear,
and the church dominated. First little liberties,
were permitted, and passed undisturbed. Then
excursions were ventured upon, informal motor
trips; again the court had among its members

112

THE RUSSIAN COURT

the younger, gayer set. Under the blue sky and
the spring spell the czarina's heart warmed. She
became young again. With a longing for mysti-
cal wonders, she was ready for the sweetness of
a young girl's romance. Providence had pre-
pared for her this romance, which one day was to
end tragically because she, the heroine, was the
tragic Muse.

With anxious discretion the secrecy of this
romance was guarded by the czarina's friends,
so that it might not be revealed to the hawk-eyes
of the camarilla and the world. The court-
marshal. Baron Freederickoz, again took up the
long-interrupted program of court pleasures.
The Winter Palace was opened for one big ball,
and every one was struck by the charm and the
maidenly beauty of the czarina.

The czarina opened the ball with Count Orloff,
the tall, slender man with the noble face who was
one of the courtiers of the Crimean happy days ;
and when the count bowed deeply before his
empress, her face flushed, and her embarrass-
ment was noticed and discussed; but even evil
tongues did not dare to criticize the unfortunate
woman,

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

The morning came when the sound of all the
bells, followed by the twenty-one-gun salute,
announced to all Russia the birth of an heir.

The czarina became the subject of the coun-
try's blessings. The holy mother, the church,
had finally taken Alexandra Feodorovna into her
special care. A new, fresh hope warmed Russia.
Hymns were sung everywhere, the czar showed
himself to the people, and the holy synod con-
templated triumphantly the miracles of the
church.

The baptism was celebrated with the greatest
pomp. The throng was permitted to gather
around the Kasan Cathedral to watch the pro-
cession.

The czarina-mother, Maria Feodorovna, had
to carry the child, the unwelcome grandson who
annihilated all her efforts and her ambitions for
her son Michael. She held the little bit of
potential manhood in her arms, breathing on the
babe wordless curses. Poor little boy so ardently
longed for, and then persecuted at his entrance
into the world!

The czarina trembled for her new happiness.
Her little treasure had to be watched, and even

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then she was never sure which of all the nurses
or ladies in waiting, bought by the czarina-
mother, might betray her.

The camarilla never hesitated at assassination.
Positively true is the story that one morning when
the czarevitch was put into his bath, the czarina,
in a neighboring room, heard the child utter a
terrible scream, followed by helpless whining.
She rushed into the nursery, to find the boy
lying in his tub, with a blue face, and desperately
struggling to get out of this death-bringing
danger. The czarina snatched her son out of ice
water. The terrible mistake was attributed to
the nurse. Again the liberties of the imperial
couple were curtailed; again the terrors of anar-
chists and revolutionists convulsed the official
class. Political riots took place, cruelties were
committed. Free speech, spiritual freedom were
violently demanded, and apparently the camarilla
supported the revolution of the students. In
Moscow the reign of terror instituted by the
Grand Duke Sergius was avenged in blood. All
remember the terrible death of this autocrat, who
himself knouted the prisoners. The czarina saw
in the tragic lot of her sister her own picture.

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

She suffered terribly under real and imaginary
persecutions, and more and more plunged into the
mysticism of theosophy and the Greek Church.

From time to time the most abominable stories
of the imperial court trickled out to the people.
The diabolic influence of the camarilla was one
of the red-flamed horrors.

These external events served to push the ter-
roristic movements and the machinations of
the czarina-mother into the background. The
Russo-Japanese War broke out. The camarilla
sought another hunting-field. Much depended
on the outcome of this war, which could bring in
its failure the abdication of the czar if a fanatic
could not find the right moment to assassinate
him. Maria Feodorovna sent all her creatures to
the front, forgetting that the Russian always
prefers the sparrow in his hand to the dove on the
roof. Port Arthur's famous highwaymen lived
in opulence, and let the soldiers bleed to death in
the traps of the Japanese.

Before the Baltic fleet was sent out, the czar
arrived in Reval to give it his imperial blessing.
He stood embarrassed and too shy to make a
gesture, glancing only at the proud fleet which

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was to win the victory that the armies could not
achieve. The mechanical words prepared by the
minister of the court came hesitatingly and stam-
meringly from his lips. The people were remote
from him, from his soul, and they looked apathe-
tically at him. Then the czarina, who accom-
panied him and who was never separated from
her little son, had the spontaneous inspiration to
lift the czarevitch in her arms, and, holding the
child, just one year old, high above the czar's
head in radiant maternal pride, showed the
smiling boy to the people. For the first time
they saw the czarina in flesh and blood, noble and
beautiful, not the former czarina, the cursed, pale,
curbed woman avoiding all contact, who, they had
been told, hated all Russians. And there she
stood the embodiment of the Madonna, with her
laughing boy in her arms. Cheers thundered
from men's lungs, echoing over the sea like a cry
of hope.

The czarina herself felt a new life running
through her veins, a new courage to take up the
struggle for her son's sake, for her own redemp-
tion from the dark powers that stretched out their
fangs. A time of hope freed her mind. The

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

czarina then loved the sea, and she passed weeks
on the imperial yacht, the Standard, with only
a small suite, the persons nearest her heart.
Among them was Count Orloff .

The most discouraging war news could not
depress the czarina. She lived on the Standard
with her little girls, her boy, and her romance, and
she lived untroubled, young, and happy. Then
the fleet that she had sent out with her blessings,
and which in thought she accompanied through
all its voyage, met the fleet of Admiral Togo, and
was destroyed.

The czarina was thrown back into deep mel-
ancholy. Even the innocent blessing of the
czarevitch had failed to save the fleet from dis-
aster !

The Russo-Japanese War ended. The czar
was forced to accept the so-called constitutional
government. He himself was hidden behind
Witte, then the mighty premier. The czar was
remote from state affairs, and the next few years
passed in the uncertainty of fears and the nag-
ging threatenings of plots. What happened to
Russia was accidental. As the cards fall in a
game, ministers were chosen and thrown away.

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Despite the moral crumbling of his imperial
hfe the czar longed, in the weariness of his heart,
for something great; and if the backbone of his
principles had not been so terribly injured by
the demorahzation of those around him, he could
have saved the world from its greatest curse — war
among nations. He not only dreamed of disarm-
ament; he spoke of it. Russia's politics let him
speak and apparently supported his moral rise,
his utterly European conception of the world.
Again an amazing episode was staged to make
the nations believe that Russia, despite Siberia,
despite the horrors that were known and the
rumors of corruption that were wide-spread,
made a noble gesture of peace.

As always in Russia grandiose ideas contra-
dict the seriousness of achievements. The czar
had the enlightenment of a supreme duty; it was
the enlightenment of an hour, and the idea was
extinguished in a moment when it should have
been translated into an act. He suddenly
became afraid of the enormous consequences of
his great idea — the revision of Russia herself, the
elimination of the Jewish problem, the education
of the people, the pohtical changes. The min-

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

isters wrung their hands over the czar's sudden
awakening, and the church worked with the
ochrana to put into effect plots for more pohtical
assassinations. The czar's sovereign courage
sank back into letharg}^ and he became again a
supine puppet moved by his creatures.

The disgraceful end of the war with Japan
had crushed the popularity of the czarina-mother.
Maria Feodorovna preferred to live outside of
Russia for a while until the people could forget
all the basenesses which had been committed un-
der the flag of the camarilla. This camarilla had
become very shabby, and in order to clothe it
anew she went to England where she played
Russia's interests into the hands of King Edward
VII, encouraging his scheme for the political
isolation of Germany, undermining and discredit-
ing German influence in Russia.

Court life in Tsarsko-Sselo was reduced to the
interests of the nursery. Despite their unwel-
come entrance into the world, the four little prin-
cesses became sunbeams in the gloomy seclusion
of their parents. Not the slightest shadow ever
rested upon the sweet maidenhood of the girls.
They were kept totally ignorant of the tragedies

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THE RUSSIAN COURT

of the Russian court. The czarina did not wish
her daughters to be erudite; she desired them to
be happy and free, and let them pass their days
in the fresh air of the gardens, in the healthful
pleasures of outdoor sports. As they grew older
they became the faithful companions of their
beloved father whenever he appeared publicly.
It was as if the young, beautiful princesses should
protect the ever-threatened czar, and they did
protect him.

The czarevitch, the child of his mother's heart,
enjoyed his httle life, horseback-riding on his big
nurse, a Cossack of the bodyguard. He was tire-
lessly watched by the giant, who was the only
person who could bend the iron will of the wide-
awake, unusually intelligent child. As time
went on the czarevitch embarrassed his teachers
in arguing with them, as it is difficult to convince
him to the contrary when once he has an idea in
his head. His delicate health was a source of
never-ceasing anxiety to the czarina. What
would become of her if an ever-envious fate again
should strike her? And the envious fate was not
resting.

It was in August, 1912, in Poland, in the hunt-

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

ing-castle of the czar, that the czarevitch, making
a false step, dislocated his hip and caused a severe
rupture. A slight operation would have cured
him in a short time, but a peculiar hereditary
disease, which makes every wound bleed con-
stantly, rendered a surgical incision impossible.
The dislocation developed a tubercular tendency,
and the czarina faced the possibility that her son
would be an invahd for life. Of all her tragic
moments this was the most tragic. That the poor
imperial woman did not lose her mind in this new
trial, which the people again attributed to her
black fate, was due to the consolation of a woman,
of her soul-friend, the last of the intimate group
belonging to the happy days on the yacht
Standard, Count Orloff had died of tuberculosis
in Egypt.

Mme. Anna Wiribouwa had divorced her hus-
band, who was an officer on the Standard. Since
then she had lived in strict privacy in her house in
Tsarsko-Sselo, which was connected with the
czarina's apartments in the imperial castle. Her
influence never touched her sovereign's external
life, and in this perhaps lay her great power.
She never sought the czarina ; the czarina sought

12£

THE RUSSIAN COURT

her. It was Mme. Wiribouwa who brought Ras-
putin to the court. In Russia, where nature,
chmate, and a predisposition to the mystical
work together, psychic forces are often found
among persons of the humble classes. Mme.
Wiribouwa knew of Rasputin tramping as a
simple peasant over the country, comforting the
poor, reheving the sick. Rasputin entered the
gate of the palace.

When the peasant was brought before the
czarina to heal her son she received this humble
man as the redeemer sent to her by the super-
natural powers she believed in. Her faith was
not deceived. Despite the physicians' diagnosis,
the czarevitch improved. The little life in him
was strengthened by the hope he saw in the
glances of his mother. He felt the sound power
of the simple peasant who spoke of things that
other men scarcely dared to think, of likes and
dislikes.

When the peasant appeared, the dark priests
smiled indulgently as on a new hysterical mood
of the czarina, and ridiculed the words of the man
whom they feared in the depths of their black
hearts ; but before they were aware of it, Rasputin

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

aired the murky atmosphere of the imperial
prison. He freed the souls of the jailed imperial
couple; he gave them back their self-confidence.
The sovereigns suddenly moved about as other
human beings moved, fearlessly among their
people. For the first time the Russians shared
in the hopes and anxieties for their beloved little
czarevitch. The whole country took part in this
wonder-healing, and Rasputin was the great man
of the hour; he had brought back the czar to his
people and the people to the czar. His radiant
eyes shone fearlessly through falsehood, and he
saw the rich fatten themselves by the sweat of the
poor. He destroyed the camarilla, and chased
the false priests from the court. No murders
were committed in his name, for he himself loved
life dearly. He lived close to the imperial couple,
because the sovereigns could not live in a hut in
his home village. He was simple and natural
enough to adapt himself to the customs of court
life, and did not accentuate the unwashed appear-
ance of the poor peasant to make his impression
stronger. He changed his linen shirt to the
purple silk of the Russian national costume, and
instead of walking on bare feet, he wore shining

126

THE RUSSIAN COURT

high boots. He even enjoyed the refinements of
life, which did not emasculate him. He hstened
to every one who sought him, and they did seek
him. From far and near people of every class
traveled to see him, and waited for hours in the
hall of the house at the Quai Anglais, where he
lived when he was in Petrograd. Automobiles
and carriages, elegant and humble, stood in line
before the house, and one after another men and
women were received, spoke to Rasputin, and
went away comforted by a few good words and
the unforgetable impression of his face. He did
not know more than the ten commandments
require of men, and he never argued. He made
no compromises, no comments; but he fought
mercilessly courtiers or priests or ministers who
in politics or mysticism circumvented the Biblical
laws.

Rasputin, with the tenacity and force of a
child, attained whatever he had in his mind. He
desired that his brethren might be freed from the
scourge of alcohol. He saw in vodka the black
devil which had the people in its grip, to fog their
spirits and to change the sound forces of the Rus-
sian into vice and slavery which made the people

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

the victims of the sinners above them. He abol-
ished the use of vodka in Russia ; the czar ordered
prohibition. Rasputin wanted peace with the
same tenacity, and he was murdered by those w^ho
made the war.

Rasputin is dead. His death was the only
mysticism in his hf e. He died a martyr ; martyr-
dom was the natural end of his life.

That he found a place in the Russian court is
not mere accident ; it will seem natural when it is
known how the crowned heads longed for all
which was not of the court, not dark. He was
the result of mystical desires, and all desires are
more or less mystical. He brought the earthly
flavor to the court ; he was the hght in contrast to
the darkness that then was in power. He had
the courage of the illiterate; he found words for
thoughts which every one has, but in the entangle-
ment of time and custom simply has lost. He
was a contrast to the ochrana, covering thousands
of crimes committed bv men who lived as cowards
under the shelter of this terrible name; he was a
contrast to the mystical priests who heard the
confessions of the distressed hearts of the sov-
ereigns, to make later a flourishing commerce of

1^8

THE RUSSIAN COURT

those confessions. He walked unafraid through
the world, preaching practical Christianity, which
is the rehgion of children, and he did not pretend
to be sent from God. He was a man with all the
simplicity of a man, with the faults of a man ; and
his influence was greater for this reason.

Many have described Rasputin ; few could ex-
plain him. It was not he who sought influence
in political affairs with the czar. The ministers,
uncertain in their own positions, and insincere in
their ambitions, were responsible for the influence
of Rasputin.

Rasputin lost the sense of proportion, as any
man would have lost it who saw the whole court
circling around him. He could not explain his
wonder force, but he finally believed in it, and
thought that he was sent by a supernatural spirit
to command the world. He abused his power,
and whoever, being of flesh and blood, has not
done so? With his increasing might in the
world, the czarina saw the faith she had in Ras-
putin justified, and so the peasant became om-
nipotent and unshakable. It was no longer the
question what his religion was, and if he had been
a Roman Catholic, he might have been another

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

Richelieu; then his natural force, badly used,
would have been directed.

The czarina could make him understood. She
who was reared and educated in England, the
graduate of a university; she who knew and dis-
cussed all the philosophers and their systems, she
must have found intellectual and religious re-
sources in him. Her gratitude to him when the
little czarevitch improved in health, and her fixed
idea that with Rasputin's removal her son would
be in danger again, were perhaps reasons why
she should protect him for a short time, but not
for years, not after his death, which was shame-
ful and full of horror. It is disquieting that
Rasputin could be assassinated without making
an end of him; he exercises his spell beyond the
grave. He still puzzles the world, and he will
represent in his memory the greatest mystical
idea of his time of former Russia.

In any democracy Rasputin would have been
either a great socialist or a great healer. He
was no more than the illumined figure of a La
Salle or the strong magnet of a Billy Sunday.
The murder of Rasputin, with its frightful
details, leads back to the diabolic spirit of the

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THE RUSSIAN COURT

czarina-mother's creatures. Maria Feodorovna
hated Rasputin for interfering with her cherished
plans; she hated him for having brought peace
and calm to the persecuted souls of the czar and
czarina; and she hated him most for his new
influence in political affairs, and for sustaining
the czar in his peace ideas.

When the war broke out the czarina-mother,
by an irony of fate, found herself in Berlin.
Instead of being interned for all her mis-
chievous deeds, she was treated very cour-
teously, and even in this time of confusion and
excitement a separate car for her and her suite
was attached to the train for the Danish frontier.
That the kaiser ignored her presence at the Hotel
Bristol seemed to her the essence of brutality,
which, once in a place of safety, with the German
frontier at her back, she exaggerated into stories
of infamous treatment. After her arrival in
Petrograd she added fanatically to the persecu-
tions of the German element. She accentuated,
whenever she could, the German descent of the
czarina, and accused her of heading the peace
party at the court as a German agent. Even the
great tragedy of the country, of Europe, did not

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

prevent her evil spirit from inciting the most
extraordinary intrigues. The only man she could
not shake in his firm position was Rasputin, and
when finally it was said that Rasputin had been
murdered by Prince Yusupoff, who is married to
the granddaughter of the czarina-mother, it was
no longer a puzzle as to who had played the lead-
ing hand in this foul game.

There are heavy, solemn times in Russia.
With a great, simple gesture the representatives
of the people dethroned the czar. With pitiless
severity they will judge the men who were around
the czar, not his creatures, but his oppressors, who
made him a constant victim. It was easy for the
world to say that the czar was a nonentity on the
Russian throne. The world did not realize how
much force it required to be even a nonentity on
the Russian throne, to have borne for more than
twenty years a burden that would have crushed
any man. The czar had in his frail body the
quahty of superhuman endurance; he never
lived in the present. How could he? He lived
in the hope of the morrow. His imprisonment
was not a great change in his condition. He
always lived as a man condemned for life to

132

THE RUSSIAN COURT

imprisonment, a man who looked out every day
to catch a ghmpse of the heaven to convince him-
self that heaven still existed. Joys were few in
his imperial Hfe. He had a vast fund of child-
like faith ; he had the passive heroism of a martyr
to endure long years in his imperial jail. Noth-
ing has changed for him. To-day he is the
prisoner of the people, from whom he was remote
through the absolutism of his entourage. The
day when he signed the declaration of war he
dropped his majesty. He slipped out of the
disguise of crown and ermine, which had hidden
his little, modest body and his face, and he put
on the gray coat of the soldier, and was a simple
figure behind the lines. The only sign of courage
that he gave was to talk peace again in a time of
wholesale hatred, and if he had not been unlucky
in the choice of men around him, perhaps the
world w^ould have listened to his plea. As he
lacked ambition and a consciousness of his exalted
place in life, he will be relieved to be a prisoner of
the people instead of the prisoner of the poisoned
system which had threatened his hfe ever since he
took the throne.

These are not the times of boundless passions

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

that put Louis XVI on the scaffold to make him
pay for his weaknesses with his head. The czar
is officially jailed by his people, and that is enough
to abolish forever czarism in Russia.

In the future history of Russia perhaps there
will be no longer a so-called court life. The
people have hoisted the red flag on the Winter
Palace. The long-untouched historic rooms will
be emptied of their musty imperial relics, which
will be sent to a museum. Those fascinating
remnants of barbarism may fall to dust with the
democracy of the new times.

134

CHAPTER V

ARISTOCRATIC WOMEN IN RUSSIAN LIFE

AND POLITICS

Silent, strong, and inspiring, Russian women
always have been the support of their men
in every political and social movement. The
change in Russia's political organization and the
overthrow of the former rulers could not have
been executed if the way had not been prepared
with the tireless help of women.

The Russian woman is wonderful. She is the
source of sparkling life, joy, and hope. She is
also a source of delicate wisdom, of vast tender-
ness, of patience and forgiveness. No other
woman can smile as the Russian smiles, no other
woman has tears so hot and so sincere, and no
other woman can hate so strongly and endure so
silently what she endures for her man.

In former Russia, at the time when every house
throughout the country was undermined by the
passions of anarchism, involving sisters, mothers,

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

and daughters, secret meetings were held in the
palaces of high officials as well as in the poor
dwellings of students. The woman-flower of
the aristocracy, violently inflamed by human
tragedies, threw bombs, was sentenced, and was
tortured the same as the simple girl of the people.

Russian society was then in a paroxysm of
terror and fright. A whole world stared breath-
lessly at the women and their sacrifices, their
fanatical help, their speechless devotion to their
men's cause. To-day, when the cause is perhaps
victorious over that sinister control, the dark
despotism of a secret police, a single leaf out of
the book of woman's martyrdom during that
terrible political era should flutter into the world.

The night of the assassination of one of the
most feared governors of former St. Petersburg
a dinner party was given in the house of a general
in the suite of Czar Nicholas II to honor the
arrival of a new French envoy. The daughter of
the house, young and charming, sat beside the
distinguished guest, and conversed in the wonder-
ful, animated way of Russian women. As the
guests rose the young lady dropped her fan.
The diplomat picked it up, and at that moment

136

RUSSIAN LIFE AND POLITICS

the girl bent to whisper into the surprised gentle-
man's ear that she desired him to wait for her in
his closed coach at the back of the house. Know-
ing something about the strange world in which
he lived, the envoy, greatly agitated, anxiously
watched the moment when he could leave the
house.

The heavily veiled young woman slipped into
his coach, and told him to take her to his private
hotel. The diplomat became a little uneasy when
this daughter of a general in the suite of the czar
asked a rendezvous with him alone. Flattered
by her attention, he had merely thought to take
her to a cabaret where society women never are
seen publicly.

The young woman leaned back silently in her
corner until the carriage turned into a certain
street; then she looked out of the window. She
stopped the carriage, to leave a message with
friends, she said. The diplomat saw her disap-
pear into one of the uniform red-brick houses of
the rather poor quarter. "Returning after a few
moments, she smiled happily. The diplomat
asked her if something specially nice had hap-
pened to her. She nodded, and slipped her cool

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

fingers into the hand of the elderly gentleman as
if to distract his attention from the little incident.
Once in his room, she was gay, witty, amusing.
She smoked, drank champagne, and gracefully
accepted the gallantries of her host. Suddenly
he saw her glancing feverishly at the clock, and
counting absent-mindedly the strokes of the hour.
At the last stroke an explosion was heard, as if
in the distance an automobile tire had blown out.
She covered her face, and after a moment jumped
up, opened the window, and, leaning out, sup-
pressed a cry of jo3\

The diplomat followed excitedly, stood beside
her, and saw a handkerchief swaying in the air
like a little white flag. The girl closed the win-
dow slowly, turned to the elderly gentleman,
kissed him cheerfully on both cheeks, and said
sweetly :

*' Thank you for your hospitality. It is done.
Our man is dead, and you must know that you
saved me from certain death, and perhaps you
saved my country, too." Looking at the per-
plexed diplomat, who unwittingly had helped kill
the man, she smiled charmingly and offered him
her glass of champagne. "Drink this," she said,

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RUSSIAN LIFE AND POLITICS

"and I will drink from your glass. It is the
greatest honor a woman can pay a man in this
comitry." The French cavalier could not refuse
despite his hurt vanity, now understanding per-
fectly well why she had chosen him for the adven-
ture. Thus she established an alibi and made the
French embassy protect her! No other alibi
w^ould have been strong enough to save her from
the searching Ochrana which knew her to be in the
plot. To-day she was safe, but to-morrow she
might be among those taken chained in the
Fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul.

Whose heart does not contract with emotion on
learning that a young girl fourteen years old was
put into prison and left there twenty years for
having hidden her brother's anarchistic doc-
uments? She had no part in his life; she was
too young to be an anarchist. She had only
understood the danger, and had saved him by
sacrificing herself. Later, when she came back
to the daylight, she was an anarchist, and was
hanged in place of her betrothed, who had thrown
a bomb.

The wife of one of the most despotic governors
of this time was kno^\Ti as the angel of the stu-

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

dents about to be executed. When only seven-
teen, to free her father from Siberia, she had been
married to the old tyrant, and crucifj^ing her
young womanhood to buy mercy for his victims,
she endured with the stoicism of a martyr her life
with him.

Young aristocrats left behind them the
splendor and luxury of their life, with its warm
protection, to share the misery and exile of the
anarchists who had won them to the cause.
These women anarchists, students of the univer-
sities of Switzerland and of the Sorbonne in
Paris, many of them princesses by birth, lived
amidst the greatest hardships, doing needlework
or laundering to support themselves and their
male associates. Deserted by their families in
most cases, they starved, too proud, too haughty,
to permit any one to catch a glimpse of their
private lives. Unforgetable was the funeral of
such a silent victim, who, having lived on ten cents
a day, faded away like a poor flower. To these
women, who had no independent influence, but
were a great help to the cause of their men, —
husbands, brothers, sons, — should be erected a
memorial, for. they were no less heroic than the

140

RUSSIAN LIFE AND POLITICS

men who are buried in the swamps of Ma-
suren.

Emotion is the great motive power in the Rus-
sian woman's hfe. Latent or awakened, it is
never to be known whence it will come or whither
it will drive. Nothing has changed. Conditions
have always been the same for women in Russia.
Centuries ago the noble woman, the woman
hoyare, lived in her castle, with all the power of
the original landed aristocrats, in her environ-
ment of warm comfort, and unaware of the sordid
details of life. She had her serfs, her devoted
servants, who feared and adored her as a kind
mother, considerate of her people's joys and sor-
rows. Between the harina and the peasant girls
who have been accustomed humbly to submit
themselves to the debauches of the harm grew a
tolerant, understanding sympathy, and she pro-
tected the women from the brutality and the
drunkenness of their own men.

When the Russian lady of to-day goes "home"
to her estate she drops all the artificial life of
travel and the social duties and restrictions of the
cities. She returns to the primitive sovereignty
of the hoyare woman. She is surrounded by a

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

crowd of servants, male and female, serf-like in
their devotion. She maintains her own church,
in which services are held with great pomp, the
peasants standing in rows, caps in hand, and
bowing deeply to let the harina pass. She loves
her people, but she never takes the initiative in
educating them, although she knows exactly what
would be the right thing to do. She keeps them
illiterate, ignorant, unless her husband is one of
the progressives.

Through the whole womanhood of Russia there
runs the sincere simplicity and concealed force
with which Catharine, the peasant girl who
became the wife of Peter the Great, tamed her
man. He thundered, and she, childlike, hid her
face in her sleeves ; but with a twinkle in her eyes,
soft and devoted, with motherly patience, she
snuggled to the giant, and was absolutely certain
to bring him back to his senses.

The Russian woman is wonderfully womanly.
She is the most passionate lover, the most natural
bride, the most understanding companion, and
above all the best mother imaginable. She is the
real half of her man's life; she is an instrument
and a very powerful one, whether in the rank of

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a low official or among the forceful women who
were near the throne.

It was an open secret that the Countess I ,

with her fearless frankness and her practical
energy, brought many business deals to success-
ful conclusion. The American would say that
she is a very smart business woman to get things
done in Russia. She took neglected affairs out
of the desks of mischievous tchinowniks, where
they would have moldered for decades. She took
them out by force, and because the only force in
former Russia was fear, she used her influential
position with the court. It was often a blessing
that such a sound institution as the countess
existed near the sovereign, and it is to be regret-
ted that she was not made the president of a bank.
This noble woman of refinement and tradition
had the sparkling esprit of the grand dame, and
the Russian is far more a grand dame than all
other women have been, for she uses her intellect,
her eloquence, and despises the cheap and futile
stratagems of the courtezan.

Life is serious in Russia nowadays, and the
time has passed when women, like the lilies of the
field, are nourished and adorned. Perhaps it will

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

be under the Countess I 's constructive power

that women will work in cooperation with men
and not as their competitors. Competition
between the sexes would never do in Russia, but
women could replace men until their little sons
were grown up, and able to take their tasks from
their mother's hands. Any help for the better-
ment of industries or government will be wel-
comed with enthusiasm, even though coming
through the mediation of a grand dame.

And Madame N , being so great an aristo-
crat that she does not need a title, for her ancestor
was the mother of Peter the Great, played
cleverly on the weakest side of the European
man, his vanity and his worship of titles and
decorations. She opened a gay little shop where
pretty titles and buttonhole jewels could be
bought. One can imagine what entertainment
the lady got out of the stupidities and ambitions
of the parvenus. The profits of this business
went to one of the charitable institutions under
the protection of the czarina dowager. Madame

N had in her stock the greatest assortment of

honors and orders, and the choice was merely a
matter of price. It is to be feared that, with the

14f4

RUSSIAN LIFE AND POLITICS

expulsion of the German element, the business
ceased to flourish, as the Russian gets his "Excel-
lency" anyway, and in most cases cheaper.

Near the throne, too, was the Countess K ,

and in the beginning of the war, the news trickled
through the dense tissue the censor had thrown
over Russia that she, one of the most interesting
women of the aristocracy, had been arrested.
Those who knew that she had formerly had the
principal political salon in Petrograd and that in
her white villa on the islands she had gathered the
diplomatic and political world hoped that her
arrest was founded on over-excitement. She was
not the woman to sell her country. In times of
peace everybody spoke about the amusing
intrigues of the white villa and the brilliant
countess, who was not only a perfect conversa-
tionahst, but had the political flair.

The diplomats had their secret wires in the cool,
white little villa. They received information
there, and perhaps sometimes acted on it. The
snake in this amusing and amused Eden was
Ambassador I , a former head of the min-
istry, and the rabbit was the German ambassador.

Everybody watched Ambassador I , who had

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

a great appetite for swallowing the passive Ger-
man, and it was said that the Countess K

prepared the meal. Then she was working for
her own country, and her intrigue, even if justi-
fied, was naturally not very fair, because she
played on her intimate friendship with the Ger-
man ambassador.

However, the news of her imprisonment
sounded very serious, and one day the newspapers
published broadcast the information that the
countess had been court-martialed and shot. For
all those who had passed enchanting hours in her
white villa it seemed to emerge in memory, ghost-
like in the silvery clearness of the Russian early-
summer nights, when the sun set only for a short
misty dawn, to rise again in ardent splendor;
where men and women glided shadowlike over the
narrow paths among shrubberies and the young
birch-trees, which vibrated in the morning air,
and where have been whispered not ancient love-
sonnets, oh, no, but death-breathing state affairs.
And another picture of memory shows the

Countess K in her palace of the Sergev-

skaga, where she opened her doors for magnifi-
cent fetes, like the tales of a thousand-and-one

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RUSSIAN LIFE AND POLITICS

nights, where the young imperial daughters and
the fervent young aristocrats danced to the soft
and warm melodies of Russian music.

The Countess K was not shot. From the

palaces of gaiety now sway the flags of the Red
Cross; the white nurses are the graceful dancers
of a httle while ago, and the poor suffering crip-
ples are their brilliant partners of the fantastic

fetes. The Countess K will never go back

to the old profession of breeding poison bacilli
from little hurt vanities, and developing them
into the frightfulness which now is killing youth
and happiness and beauty. Her participation in
dangerous plots led, under the new regime, to her
arrest from the Chinese embassy, where she was
hiding, and where the infuriated soldiers found
her and dragged her to prison.

Another palace on the Quai de la Noblesse
bears the flag of sadness; it is the home of the
Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, or the Grand
Duchess Vladimir.

She and the grand duke were once regarded as
the most worldly couple of the capital. He was
as beautiful as a young god, and she the most
admired woman, full of the joy of living. Their

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

life was the eternal source of the gayest stories of
the chronique scandaleuse. Unforgetable are the
famous events of the Restaurant Ernest that
banished the grand duchess for one year from
the Russian court. The Troupe frangaise, very
much patronized by the imperial family, had its
season in the Michelsk Theater, and high society,
after the theater, had its supper parties at the
Restaurant Ernest in the historic chambres
separees. On a certain night the grand duke's
party was rather conventional, and the grand
duke himself was bored. The party grew more
and more silent, and involuntarily listened to the
increasing gaiety in the neighboring room. The
maitre d'hotel was asked about the laughing and
joyful party, which turned out to be the French
players. The grand duke ordered the door
opened, and, to the amazement of the actors, the
wide wings slipped aside, and they found them-
selves mingling with court society. The grand
duke, who had decided to enjoy the night, drank
more than court etiquette permitted, and forget-
ting his noble station, he put his arm around the
waist of the leading woman, the respectable wife
of the principal actor, and kissed her. Instantly

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RUSSIAN LIFE AND POLITICS

the actor put his arm around the grand duchess
and kissed her. The somewhat misty eyes of the
grand duke beheld this action, and the aristocratic
blood of his imperial Highness began to boil.
He slapped the actor in the face. This was the
signal for a battle, which ended with broken china,
tables, and chairs, and with the entrance of the
police, who closed the place, thus punishing the
poor manager for his short-sightedness in having
permitted a "mixed" party with those "French
plebeians."

Next morning the grand duke was summoned
before his brother, the Czar Alexander III, who,
looking at the variegated face of Vladimir, which
showed the nicest pattern in green, blue, and
yellow, had to conceal his laughter under his
indignation. He ordered that the grand duchess
should live for a while in the cooler social atmos-
phere outside Russia. Since then the handsome
grand duke has died. Maria Pavlovna has
pleasantly and charmingly headed charity fetes
or favored Paris and Biarritz with her presence,
giving luster to French- American society, and
bringing back to Russia much interesting and
valuable information of a character more com-

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

mercial than diplomatic. It was said that
through the cleverness of the grand duchess the
union of the French plants of Schneider-Creuzot
and the Russian Putilow munition plants were
brought about. It is certain that the grand
duchess now brings by her warm-heartedness
much blessing to the poor soldiers who are nursed
under her roof. She is very Russian, this grand
duchess of German descent.

The activities and ambitions of another char-
acter, the Grand Duchess Anastasia, wife of the
Grand Duke Nicholas Nicolaievitch, ended in the
autumn of 1915 with the dismissal of the grand
duke. She is the daughter of the King of Monte-
negro, a splendid business man, who put into his
daughter's head the idea of becoming czarina.
This, he dreamed, would be the best and the last
coup of his active life. The first year of the
Great War the grand duchess lived in a dream of
ever-growing glory, being surrounded by flat-
terers who paid court to the "czarina-to-be," thus
widening the cleft between the palace in Peterhof
and the marble palace on the Neva. Her fanat-
icism for all that was Slavic set on fire the
imagination of the grand duke, her husband, and

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RUSSIAN LIFE AND POLITICS

started the conflagration of the world. She has
seen her glory broken to pieces, she has faced the
downfall of the grand duke, and it was said that
she would return with her husband, who would
accept his reinstatement to former superiority in
the army from the hands of those who dictated
the abdication of the czar.

The czarina is the great tragic figure in the new
drama where the imperial family have the leading
parts. She is accused of having betrayed Rus-
sia ; she is made the cause for sins committed more
than half a century ago, and she is not Russian.
This is her greatest crime, and she is paying the
debt to her own deceived soul. She tried too hard
to be a Russian, she gradually narcotized her
sound spirit with the incense of the Greek Ortho-
dox Church and its mysticism. She was in a
state in which a human being, desperately
unhappy, intoxicated herself to forget, to live
under the veil of unreality. The reality in the
life of the czarina made everybody shudder who
knew what her life was. Her strength was
broken on the day of her coronation and never
quite recovered. Had she had the self -preserv-
ing energy of the great Catharine, she would have

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

shaken off the weakening influence of the czar,
under which she suffered. The czarina contra-
dicts by her actions what was a reproach to her.
She is not a German; she walked along with the
czar as far as he went, and she never revolted ; she
never struggled to find again her own way to
light and certainty. Her martyred soul was con-
demned to death ; her mind became bhnd, and her
eyes looked into a hopeless emptiness. She
looked for a strong hand that would guide her
and teach her when she had forgotten how to
walk straight. She thought the light must shine
from the people, and she took the hand of the
peasant, humbling herself and believing in the
simple faith of Rasputin. He was not the dark
power for her ; he was her light, and his death had
brought back to her the dark powers which have
strangled her life. The czarina is a legendary
personality, a woman who lost her way in the
density and the mystery of Russia.

She did not belong to the influences in Russia ;
she had the terrible passivity which the czar pos-
sessed, and which was paralyzing to everybody in
his environment who had not the force to resist
or to dominate him. The only salvation would

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RUSSIAN LIFE AND POLITICS

have been for the czarina to separate from the
czar. It is too late now; she has descended the
steps from the throne which she was unable to
hold. By birth she had carried into Russia the
strong will of those women who knew their duties ;
but she became a Russian, and that was her doom.

The strong cruelty and the cold calculation
with which the czarina dowager, Maria Feodo-
rovna, worked, should have been an example for
her. Her tireless, unscrupulous machinations
brought Nicholas to his fall.

Although Maria Feodorovna was heart and
soul in the war enterprise, war between Russia
and Germany, war between the old and new
regimes, she must have been disagreeably sur-
prised when the war led to the revolution de-
throning the Romanoffs. In her mind the new
regime meant her ruling influence through
Michael; the appointment of ministers and in-
terior and foreign pohtics in her own hands. A
second Semiramis of the North she would have
governed Russia in the darkest, reactionary form
without any concern for the people.

Many years ago when a procession headed by
the priest Father Gapon marched to the Winter

153

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

Palace, people from all parts of the city joined
the slow-moving masses that with peace in their
soul sang their sacred old songs and carried their
pleas to the czar. Even the police did not dare
to stop this pilgrimage of faithful men and
women, and let the procession pass through the
arch at the entrance of the court of the palace.
It happened that the czarina-mother, who had at-
tended mass in the chapel of the palace, saw the
procession sweeping toward the square and heard
the monotonous singing. She thought that it
was the first sign of the storming of the palace,
and, before the czar knew the intentions of the
approaching people, she summoned the guards,
and it was she who gave the first order to shoot
among the kneeling men and women who were
prostrating themselves before the Little Father
and who fell dead with their faces in the dust.
Children, anxious to see the parade, had climbed
on lantern-posts, trees, and gates, and were shot
down, falling from their lofty places to the feet
of their parents.

When the czar recognized the terrible error it
was too late. The frightened soldiers who had
fired on their own brethren bent their heads, and

154

RUSSIAN LIFE AND POLITICS

they will never forget what the czarina-mother
made them do. The silence of death covered the
place, from which the soldiers who had drawn
their rifles, helped to lift the bodies to the large
open peasant wagons. With the bloody Sun-
day the name of Maria Feodorovna was fatally
associated.

Nothing could break the force of the czarina
dowager; no priest, no superstition. She loved
life, and she knew that life never lay in the dusky
air of the church. She walked over corpses when
it was necessary to push her plans. Her politi-
cal education was finished in England, where
passions or sentiments were never mixed with
politics. She went home from Germany when
the war broke out. The Germans, not knowing,
let her go back to Russia with her heart full of
hate and contempt for Germany and the unshak-
able resolution to change the Russian system.
She is not Russian at all, and, paradoxical as it
may seem, this makes her strong in Russia.

In the seclusion of her little house in Tsarskoje-
Sselo lived the only woman who has been close to
the czarina, and whose influence was not with
state affairs, but with the little personal happiness

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

that was brought to the czarina in the last years.
It was a spiritual influence toward the supernat-
ural ; and instead of clarifying the czarina's mind,
it was confusing. Anna Wiribouwa, the gen-
uine fanatic, devoted her entire life to redeem-
ing the czarina from the dark powers that sur-
rounded her. With the help of Rasputin she de-
stroyed the pale fear which held the czarina in
an eternal suppression of her own personahty.
She knew why the czarina could not reach the
sympathy of Russians. It was the insincerity
and the uncertainty of the czarina's own feelings.
The Russians are very susceptible to this. They
cannot be deceived. They will not have imita-
tions. The czarina always seemed to be embar-
rassed before Russians because she was anxious
to please them. Anna Wiribouwa was the
woman in whom the czarina confided all her
struggles. Religion did not help any longer
after the despicable intrigues of the court monks.
Anna Wiribouwa decided that the czarina had to
be cured by the psychic forces, and the great mis-
take began with Rasputin.

Anna Wiribouwa's life was bound to that of
the czarina through a deep secret, which is the

156

RUSSIAN LIFE AND POLITICS

secret of the two women, and which never will be
revealed unless Anna Wiribouwa betrays the
great tragedy of an empress. But Anna Wiri-
bouwa is a Russian, who would die a thousand
deaths before delivering a secret buried in her
soul. She is one of the strong even in her errors;
and she is one of the wonderful Russian women
without any ambition. She would have had the
same devotion for the czarina if the sovereign
had been a simple woman, and she will have the
same devotion for her in her exile. Both are of
the same planet, to speak in the terms of Anna
Wiribouwa; their souls united for the earth and
for eternity. Anna Wiribouwa is the great
enigma in this court tragedy, and her strong be-
hef in the czarina will help to transfigure this
pathetic image of a sovereign.

Among these big figures connected with recent
events, are many stories of women who are still
working behind the scenes, and who one day will
be at the head. Others, married to Russians,
were persuaded to barter Russian interests to
foreign powers. One of these is the Countess

N , an American by birth, divorced from her

first husband, a German baron. As the wife of

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

a former military attache in Paris she had
opened years before the war her hospitable home
to would-be society people of rising ambitions.

Count N was removed from Paris to be one

of the leading officers in the general staff of the
Russian army, and the countess was arrested at
the beginning of the war, accused of having sent
information to her first husband, the German
baron, with whom she had remained on friendly
terms. The intermediary, a young attache who
had been rewarded by the countess with her
favor, was shot. The countess, it was said, was
sent to a fortress, but was later released, and is
living under surveillance in the house of her hus-
band. But who ever will know the real dramas
that took place under the secrecy of a court-mar-
tial? Will these veiled human tragedies be re-
vealed some day by those who took part in them ?
The Russian woman is deeply rooted in her
own country. She develops differently in other
conditions. Her personal independence is ab-
solutely harmonious with the Russian life. Fre-
quently her contempt of conventionalities pro-
duces a strange opinion regarding her moral
sense. The mother of the Crown Princess of

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RUSSIAN LIFE AND POLITICS

Germany and the Queen of Denmark, the Grand
Duchess Anastasia of Mecklenburg- Schwerin,
held court in her villa amid the enchanting per-
fumes of the Riviera gardens. It was a court of
the time of the Decameron of Boccaccio, no
more, no less. Yet despite all, — and this is the
point of greatness in the laxities of the uprooted
Russian nature, — she gave her daughters not
through example, but through the sincerity of her
criticized life, the liberty to become what she had
been or to be happy in the strong and simple
duties of family life.

The morganatic wives of the different grand
dukes remain in modest retirement, that is never
observed in other nations. They are far too in-
telligent to be banal or to be rejected by the aris-
tocracy, and they hve outside Russia in the full
happiness of their marriages. They would have
returned if the Grand Duke Michael took the
throne. He himself once gave up the right to
the crown by marrying the divorced wife of one
of the officers of his regiment.

The Russian aristocrat is really the Russian
woman. All the national characteristics are
combined in her and brought to the culmination

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

of refinement. She takes care not only of the
beauty of her body, but first of all and especially
of the beauty of her soul and her spirit.

The Russian man adores his woman. He
listens to her, and conversation is the chief
attraction that women exercise over men.
Women are the warm touch, the reconciling ele-
ment in Russia, the steady element in this coun-
try of contradictions. There slumbers a vast
hope in the heart of a people where women are
so sincere in their greatness and in their sins,
where hypocrisy has not yet impregnated their
souls. A Russian woman's love cannot be
bought. She shares voluntarily the degradation
of her man, and she shares gladly his heights ; but
she will never humiliate herself to a social lie.

160

CHAPTER VI

THE END OF THE ROMANOFF DYNASTY — THE

GRAND DUKES — PRINCES WITH A

BIRTHRIGHT TO THE THRONE

When the little czarevitch was stricken with a
disease that seemed incurable, Russia had to face
the problem of the succession to the throne. The
Romanoffs had to pass in review one by one.

There was, first of all, the czar's brother, the
same Grand Duke Michael who was chosen by
the new democracy as regent for the little czar-
evitch. The holy synod of old Russia would
never have recognized Michael as a possible heir
to the throne, because he had renounced his rights
when he married the divorced wife of one of the
officers of his regiment. He met Mme. de Woul-
fers at Gatshina, at the home of his general,
Baron Girard de Soucanton. The general and
his wife favored the romance of the grand duke
without believing in his serious intention. How-
ever, despite the ambitious intrigues of the czarina

161

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

dowager, he threw away the imperial burden and
married Mme. de Woulfers. Baron Girard was
pensioned for the mere accident of having intro-
duced the beautiful woman to the grand duke,
and Michael's name was erased from the book
of Russia's court, and his disgrace was published
by the czar's declaration in the newspapers that
he would not be responsible for any debts con-
tracted by his brother.

The Russian crown seemed not to be attractive
to the Romanoffs when in competition with the
favor of women. For them the crown jewels lost
their brilliancy when compared with the luster of
beautiful eyes. Of the three sons of the Grand
Duke Vladimir, Cyril, the eldest, a rear admiral
in the Russian navy, gave up his right as heir
presumptive to the throne when he married a
Princess of Coburg, the divorced wife of the
czarina's brother, the Grand Duke of Hesse.
The czar could not object to the pedigree of the
princess, but the rules of the imperial house and
of the Church of Russia did not recognize the
marriage of divorced persons. The grand duke
was banished from the court and dismissed from
the navy, but after a year he was restored to his

162

THE END OF THE ROMANOFF DYNASTY

rank in the service, while still ignored at court.
Boris, the second son, would then have been
heir, but the idea of making the gay Boris a czar
seemed to the world only a joke fit for the opera
comique — Boris, the trotteur of the Parisian
boulevards; Boris, who was the center of all the
chroniques scandaJeuses wherever the great world
dined, supped, and sojourned; Boris, the spurious
imitation of the Prince of Wales, later King
Edward VII. There was this difference between
the two that the Prince of Wales was a grand
viveur, with an exuberance of spirit and temper-
ament, and bored with the conventional and insig-
nificant life to which a crown prince is condemned
in England, where even a king is a grand seignior
of leisure, while Boris had no resources. The
stories of the Prince of Wales were amusing and
witty, but the amusements of Boris were more or
less shocking, and if he had not been a grand
duke of Russia, an excuse for his idle hfe, he
would have been looked on as a negligible quan-
tity of society. The Russians would have re-
volted against the crowning of Boris, though less
for his private life than for the negative heroism
that he showed in the Russo-Japanese War,

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

There was still the third of the brothers,
Alexander, a good-looking officer of the body-
guard who was probably not exposed on the
firing-line of the Great War.

The Grand Duke Paul, brother of Alexander
III, also preferred domestic happiness to the
uncertainty of a Russian throne. He married as
his second wife the Countess Hohenfelsen. By
his first wife, the Princess of Greece, he had two
children, the Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlowitch
and the Grand Duchess Maria, the much criti-
cized, capricious Princess of Sweden, who, bored
by her husband and her life at the Swedish court,
divorced Prince Wilhelm and went back to Rus-
sia.

Dmitri was pointed out as the presumptive
czarevitch not officially, but officiously. After
the death of their mother, Dmitri and his sister,
children of tender ages, passed their youth in
Moscow under the care of the Grand Duchess
Sergius. Despite the curse resting upon the
house of Sergius, the children had a delightful
and happy youth with the angelic grand duchess.
The terrible end of the tyrant made a lasting
impression on the delicate Dmitri, especially

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THE END OF THE ROMANOFF DYNASTY

after he learned that on the first day set for the
assassination the death-bringing bomb had not
been thrown because he accompanied the grand
duke, the revolutionists sparing the hfe of the
little boy.

The idea of being thought of as the future czar
of Russia depressed Dmitri. He had to leave
the care of his beloved aunt and to take posses-
sion of the palace on the Moika, where first of all
he built a big skating-room, his boy's dream.
The preparation for a future czar meant first the
undergoing of the hardship of an extremely
severe mihtary education, to be a perfect horse-
man, to be trained as if for a circus, to become the
best shot and most fearless fighter, whereas the
spiritual quahties of Dmitri were specially devel-
oped. A princely life, with its reckless pleasures
in worthless company, the squandering of health
and moral ideals and frequent intoxication
seemed to be inseparable from the conception of
an heir to the Russian throne. The delicate,
slender Dmitri became a pathetic figure in his
blase youthfulness. Life had no secrets for him,
and his refined, subtle tastes became submerged
beneath brutalities that he thought heroic. Once

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

he offended his superior officer publicly, and
though the military honor apparently was saved
by the arrest of the young grand duke in his own
palace, the incident was not the careless frivohty
of thoughtless youth, but the alarming sign of
the Romanoff inheritance. In military life an
eternal contradiction was forced on the imperial
princes. In one way they were treated as simple
officers in their regiments, being on terms of
cordiahty with their fellow-officers, which is to
say that the princes condescended to their com-
rades, and therefore never got over the selfishness
of the autocratic feehng. An invisible barrier
was erected even by the superiors who always
danced on a glass floor with every little im-
perial highness. Sooner or later, for some certain
purpose, a party was formed around each inexpe-
rienced princely boy, encouraging his self-
importance, which was often the basis of his later
tyranny or viciousness. It was seldom that one
of the grand dukes played a really active part in
Russia's politics. All were more or less figure-
heads of a party, and used by it until it ended
invariably in sensational scandal.

Another Romanoff, who died recently, the

168

THE END OF THE ROMANOFF DYNASTY

Grand Duke Constantin Const antinovitch, the
dreamer and poet among them, himself too
modest, too much of a philosopher to believe in
the blood privilege which gives the right to gov-
ern a people, imagined his splendid boy Oleg to
be the hope of Russia. Oleg was killed in
Poland. He was only seventeen when he took
his commission and went to the front to replace
fallen comrades. Only a week, and he died a real
hero!

No, the Russian throne was not a place longed
for. It was a place with no prospects, with a
sterile hopelessness for everything to which a
man aspired in life. The power of a Russian
czar extended only so far as his creatures per-
mitted; he himself was the most oppressed man
in his country.

The circle around the Romanoffs grew very
thin at last. Even the popularity of Nicholas
Nicolaievitch was a story believed only outside
Russia. Those who exultantly went into the
first battles were killed or wounded, and the sol-
diers whom the grand duke led are gone. The
men now fighting on the Eastern front never saw
Nicholas. This same grand duke who told his

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

generals that he would hang every one of them
who might steal would have also gladly hanged
the five who became the rulers of new Russia, the
men whom he was compelled to obey faute de
mieux.

Long before the will of the people ended the
Romanoff dynasty it was in danger through the
circumstance of the little czarevitch's physical un-
fitness. In this boy slumbered all the qualities
from which to mold a real emperor. He was
morally and physically superior to the models of
grand dukes with which the world is familiar.
His ambitions were not satisfied by the brilliancy
of military spectacles; he had the ambition to
know, to study, to search for the deeper sense of
things. The child was so beautiful that a special
angel should have guarded him for his impending
task.

So much youth, so many talents, and so much
manly force of the Romanoff could have been
mobilized for the sake of Russia if the tendency
to terrible debauches had not been deeply rooted
in this dynasty. There were no moral restric-
tions. The czars never hesitated to be bigamists,

170

THE END OF THE ROMANOFF DYNASTY

to sin against the laws, for the breaking of which
they themselves persecuted their subjects.

There were other princes in Russia called im-
perial highnesses, not quite grand dukes, and it
was not a secret that a party was at work for a
new dynasty. It intrigued for Prince Yusu-
poff, who recently was brought before the eyes
of the pubhc in connection with the murder of
Rasputin. Those who have met the elegant
prince and know of his estheticism and refine-
ment will never believe that he could have spotted
his white, slender fingers with blood. Prince
Yusupoff married the daughter of the Grand
Duchess Xenia, the only sister of the czar, and his
own cousin. He would have brought a new line
without the slightest assurance for the better-
ment of conditions. The prince did not give the
impression of a personality that could bring into
Russia not only new blood for the coming im-
perial race but new ideas, a complete change from
old rules, from autocracy, he himself being a de-
scendant of the Tartars.

He was educated at Oxford, and if he had
been chosen by the czarina-mother to be the first

171

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

of the new dynasty, it would have been a terrible
omen for him. Any complicity in the disappear-
ance of Rasputin, with all its cruel and barbaric
details, would have been a sad beginning for a
promising career. The Russian throne would
have been only the stimulus of an adventure and
not the supreme desire of a noble youth to give
to a beloved country freedom and constitutional
rights. Even if Prince Yusupoff himself is in-
nocent of this murder, the world first learned his
name in this bloody connection, and his house
was virtually used to carry out the plot. With
this entry into the history of Russia he could
never have been accepted either by his own coun-
try or the world.

There are still many princes in Russia, noble-
men of long traditions, some of them dating back
in the origin of their families to the Ruriks, an
older dynasty than the Romanoffs. They have
names known all over the world. Among them
are revolutionists and anarchists, grand seigniors
and scientists, fascinating and alarming in the
combination of highest idealism and lack of con-
science, bringing wherever they go the contradic-
tions of their own natures, and always giving

17^

THE END OF THE ROMANOFF DYNASTY

the impression of the instability of their own
country. Very adaptable to the habits and lan-
guages of other countries, they startle by their
extravagances, their mixture of grand seignior
and brute, stirring curiosity, and leaving behind
them the puzzling idea of something mysterious,
something which the other parts of the European
world never will understand.

It is only a Russian aristocrat who can pene-
trate the most profound thoughts of other na-
tions. He points out all the weak spots with a
Rabelaisian humor; the non-Russian always is
the subject of his polite sarcasm. Laughingly
and seriously he avenges Russia for the miscon-
ceptions of the world, and he takes advantage of
human foibles wherever he meets them. A
wealthy American was the laughing-stock of the
Russian jeunesse doree a few years ago. The
American, traveling with his wife and daughter,
met in Moscow a genuine Russian prince. Fa-
ther, mother, and daughter made the most of this
precious acquaintance, and when the prince sug-
gested that they stay for the season in Moscow,
the American millionaire, desirous of showing
the Russian aristocracy what American money

173

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

could buy, looked for the best palace on the mar-
ket. The Russian Prince saw his opportunity
to get out of some nagging debts, and he drove
with the family to find a suitable residence.
With critical eyes the Americans glanced at the
rather plain dwellings, finding nothing that was
promising until the carriage stopped before a
government building, which, with its closed win-
dows and drawn curtains, gave the impression
of being uninhabited. The American liked the
noble-looking house, and he hked the hilly place
on which the palace is erected. He liked even
the two tiny "shield-houses" on each corner of the
palace, built for the special bodyguard, as the
Prince explained. A bodyguard! That would
be a new experience for the American, and he
asked the prince to help him purchase the palace.
The prince smiled. Even though it was a govern-
ment building, where the president of the min-
istry resided when he came to Moscow, why could
not this house be bought for a few days? There
was no danger of the ministers' coming at that
time, and the prince gave a handsome tip to the
superintendent of the palace, who made no ob-
jection when he led the family through the vast

174*

THE END OF THE ROMANOFF DYNASTY

rooms, which were not wholly satisfactoiy in the
way of furnishing. The American lady decided
to have more rugs on the floors and to add many
draperies. In the big ball-room life-size por-
traits of the czar and the czarina met with favor.
When the treasures of silver were shown, the
millionaire was ready to buy the house, and the
prince not only made the arrangements for the
first payment, but he insisted on giving a dinner
party that night. The superintendent, knowing
the extravagant vagaries of the gay prince and
being silenced by money, helped to prepare for
the banquet. The party was extremely gay.
The prince introduced as his guest his lawyer,
who took charge of the big check given by the
American. After a dehcious Russian dinner,
with vodka and champagne, the family was
driven back to the hotel to pass the last night
before taking possession of the palace. Alas!
the next day the prince had left the city, and a
note expressed his regret that, despite all efforts,
the government building was not available. He
had gone to the Caucasus, where he hoped to find
a castle which would be more worthy of the re-
fined taste of the ladies. Afraid of being laughed

175

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

at, the American kept silent, and Moscow was
greatly amused by the story, which did not do
any harm to the scoundrelly prince.

The richest part of Russia was owned by the
Romanoffs and the high aristocracy. In most
cases the management of the land was left to ir-
responsible superintendents. It was understood
that these men made fortunes out of the prop-
erties confided to them. In only a few cases,
where frauds were too flagrant, were inquiries
made, and then the most unspeakable conditions
affecting land and peasants were exposed to the
daylight.

There are parts of Russia in which many hun-
dred thousand acres of mineral and forest lands
are idle and ruined, because they are too remote
from their owners, who hve somewhere outside
of Russia, and do not take the slightest interest
in the property left to them by their ancestors.
The wealth of these families was unmeasurable,
and as long as a superintendent collected the
rents it was a matter of indifference where he
procured the money or how tenants and peasants
were treated by the rascally employees who filled
their own pockets, jeopardizing the well-being

176

THE END OF THE ROMANOFF DYNASTY

not only of the people, but of their masters.
Often a discharged superintendent left an es-
tate a rich man, and the grand seignior was
ruined.

It was the dream of Tolstoy to bring the high
aristocracy to such a consciousness of their duty
that they would take land matters into their own
hands. His dream has become a realization.
Prince Lvoff , one of the five who rescued Russia,
took the direction not only of the land interests
of the people, but of the nobility.

Outside of Russia Russians always have dis-
cussed their own country with innumerable sighs
and plans to change the politics — ^how to make it
possible to live in Russia. Outside of Russia the
noblemen were the greatest liberals and revision-
ists of Russia, but when they returned they crept
back under the quilt of moral laxity. The home
atmosphere did not agree with the ideas brought
from other countries, and, then, they would have
had to explain, to educate, to begin with the a
b c's of reforms. Changes, they thought, would
disturb the machinery of government, would
trouble the people, and would not help much.
The Russian's ear was deafened by every-day

177

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

complaints, and drastic means were necessary to
shake the whole system.

The spectator outside of Russia is now released
from an eternal tension of wonder about what
will become of the country after the war. The
high-flying ideals of Prince Kropotkin have been
realized. The high aristocracy will no longer be
the beautiful decoration of Russia and other
parts of the world. The grand seigniors will
stay at home, and put into action what they so
beautifully dramatized in words. They will fi-
nally look on the people as human beings, chil-
dren confided to the care of those older and wiser.

It was always the greatest puzzle to the world
that all the representatives of the best of Rus-
sia, living outside of their own country, had ad-
mirable qualities, many talents, an absolute
taste in literature, — they are never dilettantes,
but always artists or philosophers, with the wis-
dom of the ancient Greeks, — and yet at home
they contented themselves with the most terrible
and scoundrelly system, and even took part in it.
The Russian aristocrat is more democratic in Rus-
sia than elsewhere, perhaps because he is the real
aristocrat, the individual man, not the man who

178

THE END OF THE ROMANOFF DYNASTY

must submit to laws made only for the people.
There were always special laws for the aristoc-
racy in Russia, and if the Russian aristocrats had
only lived up to their privileges as the real gen-
tilhommes sans peur et sans reproche, the people
would have been saved.

The Russian aristocrat has not quite under-
stood his great responsibility as a sovereign in
his own realm, — for the large estates are really
little kingdoms, — and if the little kings had had
the ambition to rule their own dominions Russia
could have been an ideal state, different in po-
Htical combinations, but still a model in itself, and
the world would have reckoned with it as it reck-
ons with Oriental countries. Russian culture
was similar to the Russian frontier ; with his first
step across it the foreigner realized that he was
in alien provinces.

The world has known and judged Russia by
the aristocrats and the revolutionists, both arous-
ing the greatest interest and curiosity wherever
they went. And because the world has learned
by these travelers something of the qualities of
Russians, and found them different from other
Europeans, it should tolerate and understand the

179

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

different conceptions of life that the Russians
have had and always will have. They are too
original, too strong in their good and bad char-
acteristics, to be absorbed by a pohtical system
practical in other countries. The innumerable
classes of aristocrats, high and low, are composed
of innumerable little autocrats. They have not
the snobbishness of the younger nations with a
desire to be more than they really are. They are
so utterly convinced that the world consists of
them, and that, therefore, nothing beside them
really counts, that class distinctions have been
carried to such an extreme that no Russian ever
had the false ambition to enter circles to which
he could not belong by birth or social position.
The Russian does not feel honored to be tolerated
in society; he would not go where he did not ac-
tually belong.

Russia for this reason has been the most aristo-
cratic and the most democratic country. Social
questions naturally were solved on the idea that
an elephant never would seek the company of a
fox. Those wonder-people of spirit and talent
and genius will find their happiness in their own
way, and all efforts of the world to conform Rus-

180

THE END OF THE ROMANOFF DYNASTY

sian politics or commercial conditions to its mod-
els must be vain from beginning to end. Rus-
sians belong to the white race, but Russian habits
must be studied as Chinese or Japanese habits
are studied, and even more, because the Russian
is changeable in his loves and his hates. A high
aristocrat, when asked which he preferred, France
or England, answered seriously, "I prefer noth-
ing which is not Russian."

How far the Russian remained Russian in his
own country is illustrated in a little story. A
Russian prince, a graduate of German and Eng-
lish universities, with a profound knowledge of all
that was modern in Europe, was an enthusiastic
representative of the last cry in culture. When
in Russia he lived in his wonderful castle in the
Crimea, where his ancestors had possessed the
richest vineyards. The young prince squandered
a great deal of his forti;ne. He squandered until
he became an old prince, though he still owned
his castle. Outside Russia he was a fanatic, op-
posed to the throne and the Russian Government.
It happened that when the former Imperial
family was passing the springtime in the Crimea,
the czar and the czarina stopped at the prince's

181

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

castle for its famous view. The old prince,
student of Heidelberg and Oxford, the demo-
cratic aristocrat, received his sovereigns with all
the honor due them. He led the empress to the
little hill from which the view is most beautiful,
and when her Majesty, clasping her hands, ex-
claimed that it was a place where she would wish
to live, the old aristocrat answered with a bow:
"Your Majesty, the place is yours."
The next day he made the legal transfer, re-
taining for himself only the small house in which
his superintendent had lived. The prince did
what his Russian grand seignioral generosity
dictated despite his adopted democracy. Would
he ever have turned his castle into an asylum for
tuberculosis workers?

And the Russians adored their princes. They
were diverting; they were the people's fairy-
tales; and the more barbaric they were, the more
they appealed to the imagination of their coun-
trymen. The readjustment of Russia, with
the accompanying circumstances, is likened to
the French Revolution. This is wrong. The
Russian people will not do away with the nobility.
The good old names, which the people worship,

182

THE END OF THE ROMANOFF DYNASTY

are associated with their legends. But the Rus-
sians have parted from the Romanoffs. The
dynasty is ended, and even if one Romanoff
should be different, the name to-day is accursed
in Russia. The people have been abused and op-
pressed by them. The Romanoffs are allied with
the Siberian horrors, and as the Siberian victims
— those who have not been murdered — come back,
the pale and ruined witnesses of the Romanoffs'
government, there can never be a place for this
dynasty.

No, the Russian Revolution is not like the
French Revolution. It is a revolution of a
higher ideal. Intelligence and necessity coolly
dominate, organizing, and not delivering en bloc
the nobility to the wild blood-orgies of the mob.

It is the people's springtime in Russia. The
traditions of an old aristocracy are as politically
dead in Russia as they are in France. The Rus-
sian nobility may retire to its Faubourg St.
Germain, still preserving the refined qualities that
a past splendor has left it ; or, what is even pos-
sible in Russia, it may mingle with the democ-
racy, gaining reputation as a class, which is not
exhausted, not degenerated, which also has suf-

183

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

fered and sighed under the corruption of a Gov-
ernment composed of creatures of the czar.

No one in the world can take away the prestige
of a real nobleman, and the Russian people will
recognize the real noblemen in those who were
the first to join young Russia. It would be a
proof of the inferiority of the high Russian
aristocracy if it showed itself as an aristocracy
only by the grace of the Romanoffs.

184

CHAPTER VII

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA —
THE BALTIC QUESTION

On the Isaacs Plaza, with the Isaacs Church
of malachite in the background, is the building
of the German embassy, once a fine palace, one
of the best buildings in former St. Petersburg.
Then a German architect rebuilt it to show Ger-
many's latest art to the Russians. When the
palace was finished, it had lost the aristocratic
appearance of an ambassador's residence, but
had gained new significance through the artist's
triumphant idea of placing on the roof a gigantic
bronze group, representing two heavy-looking,
unclothed warriors leaning on two enormous
horses, personifying will and strength. The
Russians objected to this muscular expression of
German characteristics, and demanded that the
statue be changed, thus cutting off some of the
power and will. It was a dramatic moment when
the modified bronze group was again carried to

the roof.

185

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

All this happened one year before the outbreak
of the Great War. In their amazement the Rus-
sian people were for the first time made aware
that an embassy needed to demonstrate the char-
acteristics of the people represented. The affair
gave occasion for the most humorous comments,
accompanied by suggestions of ways that other
nations might demonstrate their characteristics.
On Sundays the population of St. Petersburg
wandered to the Isaacs Plaza and looked with
astonished glances up to the roof, while they ex-
pressed their opinions about the mightiness of
the Germans. They suddenly noticed Germany ;
they had never noticed her before. Germans
came to Russia because Russia was a great em-
pire where they found room and were needed,
with other practical things imported into Russia.
The Russians knew what German industries
meant; they personally knew the Germans from
having sometimes worked in the factories with
them ; they knew that they loved work and never
drank vodka; that day by day, morning and
night, they labored silently, seriously, soberly.

The efficiency of the Germans had never both-
ered the Russians. Germans were Germans, and

186

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

did not know better. The German salesman was
a popular figure in the little villages, where he
was always anxiously awaited for the ready-made
articles he carried. He knew exactly what the
people wanted ; he was a good man to deal with ;
he cheated less than the Jews, and gave credit.
It was the same in the big cities, where the Ger-
mans imported French and even American
goods, and it was the same in the industries,
where German technical efficiency worked out
astonishing results from Russian inventive
genius.

Peter the Great employed Germans in his navy
yards when he needed workmen who did not re-
main drunk for a week at a time. Catharine the
Great offered lands on the Dnieper and the Volga
to Germans made destitute by the Seven Years'
War, and Alexander I colonized weavers of
Saxony and Silesia on the Black Sea, in the
Taurida Provinces, to improve the wool industry.
The Germans of the time of Peter the Great be-
came the engineers and contractors of Russia,
and built ports and cities. On the Volga a won-
derful fertility blessed the banks of the river, and
the red-roofed, friendly little houses developed

187

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

into communities, and the communities grew into
villages and towns with model adminstration.

When the fleet of Catharine moved up the
Volga, the empress stopped at those green, blos-
soming borders, enthusiastically cheered by the
people of her native country. The kind, im-
perial woman, who, mother-like, protected and
loved the clean, industrious men and women,
granted them the privilege of retaining their lan-
guage, their customs, and their religious faith.
In the heart of Russia, on the Dnieper, the Men-
nonites, persecuted in their own country, lived
their sober, active lives unmolested, maintaining
their sectarianism. No one saw any harm in the
idyllic life of German colonists, who kept the
privileges of former times, never abusing them,
never taking advantage of the Russians. The
German ants were a curiosity to their Russian
neighbors, who on Sundays used to drive over to
the little villages to look at the spotless streets,
clean houses, and little flower gardens, as chil-
dren look at a picture-book.

In time the Saxons on the Black Sea became
the kings of the steppes, became Russian sub-
jects, and, in the third generation Russians in

188

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

flesh and blood, their model estates and their
names alone recalling their German descent.
One of these landowners could indulge the royal
mood of devoting twenty thousand acres of land
to the purpose of acclimatizing species of animals
that never before had lived in Russia. For
hours and hom's one can drive in these enchanted
gardens over land where twenty years ago grew
only sod for sheep-grazing; now the rarest trees,
shrubs, and flowers spread shade and coolness
and beauty. All kinds of birds fly about in ap-
parent freedom in immense aviaries, the wires of
which are artistically hidden in foliage. Big and
little houses are built to protect the antelopes
and other animals not used to winter weather,
which are of short duration in this semi-tropical
part of Russia.

The owner lives as a Russian patriarch among
the peasants, in the simple house of his ancestors,
where the white wooden floors are scrubbed every
morning, where he shares tschi and bortsch with
his people. Around his dwelling are erected
hundreds of clean little houses for his peasants,
who take care of the grounds and of half a mil-
lion sheep. All of them are the Little Russians

189

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

of the southern provinces, and they lived peace-
fully and gladly under the direction of German
efficiency, which is too deep-rooted in this King
of the Steppes to be subjugated by Russian in-
dolence.

In May, 1914, the czar went to visit the owner
of the gardens, and passed the night in one of
the spotless guest-rooms of the private house ; for
there is a separate dwelling where less intimate
visitors are lodged and received with the largest
hospitality, never intruding on the privacy of the
owner. He has become too much of a Russian
for that. After the czar's visit this King of the
Steppes was ennobled, and he dedicated to the
czarevitch the Acclimatization Gardens, a really
royal present.

Less idyllic in surroundings, but tirelessly in
factories, German directors, managers, and work-
men labored for the Russian state. Wonderful
things were accomplished, and no one had in.
mind that this working hand in hand could grow
into a bad influence, a Germanizing of the Rus-
sians. There was nothing but the serious work
of serious men who labored in common, the Rus-
sians in their lines, the Germans in theirs, and

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THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

neither interfering with the other or creating ill
will. The Germans naturally took up the work
which did not lie in the field of Russian activity.
The Germans living in Russia loved Russia;
their hard home training relaxed in the mild dis-
cipline, and life itself revealed more of its beauty
and enjoyment to them, their sense of duty not
being overstrained, as in Germany. Their lik-
ing for titles and decorations w^as easily satisfied,
and they were the last who would have changed
the situation by mixing in Russian politics. No
one spoke about "influence."

From time to time chauviniste newspapers or
fanatics would start a Panslavistic demonstra-
tion against the Germans. This came and went
sporadically without arousing special attention.
Foreign societies and corporations were required
to change their names into Russian, to have Rus-
sian directors on their boards, and the Germans
gladly conformed to this regulation, never refus-
ing this absolutely just demand.

Around the Russian throne history shows po-
Htical intrigues in which Germans were con-
cerned. The Empress Anna raised her favorite
Byron, secretary to the Polish King Maurice of

193

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

Saxony, to the dukedom of Courland. Peter
II, her successor to the throne, exiled Byron to
Siberia; and after his short reign, the Empress
EHzabeth supported Maria Theresa in her Seven
Years' War against Frederick II of Prussia,
The nephew of Empress EHzabeth, the idiotic
Peter III, protected German interests, and it
was the greatest thought of his wife, the Princess
of Anhalt-Zerbst, later the Great Catharine, that,
despite her own German descent, she conspired
with the Russians against the German intruding
spirit and dethroned her husband. Catharine
the Great did not quarrel with Frederick II, but
she never let his politics interfere with her Rus-
sian policy, only enjoying a bel esprit correspond-
ence with the Voltairean philosopher.

Catharine was dear to the heart of Frederick,
and the court tongues tried to spin a story of her
mother's tender relations with him before Cath-
arine was born. Catharine's mother lived and
intrigued at the court of Frederick whenever she
could, but her daughter never permitted her to
go to Russia.

German princesses married Romanoffs. One
of them, the Grand Duchess Helene, a Princess

194i

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

of Wiirtemburg, gathered German spirit, art,
and music about her, and German diplomacy.
Bismarck was then ambassador at St. Peters-
burg. The pohtical giant had a penchant for
Russia, and understood how to stroke the Rus-
sian bear behind the ears. He wanted the
powerful neighbor to be on most friendly terms
with Germany, knowing how deeply German in-
terests lay in Russian soil. Bismarck's warning
not to provoke Russia might ring in many Ger-
man ears to-day. His policy was repudiated by
the "new course" and his fundamental wisdom by
empty words.

The first of August, 1914, dawned and Rus-
sia was one of the arenas into which alien nations
were thrown before the hberated bestiality of
man. Germans, petrified, looked on the friends
of yesterday, who had become the persecutors of
to-day. The Russian mobs, inflamed by vodka
and bribes to a mad fervor of patriotism, marched
to the German embassy in Petrograd, looted the
palace, killed the last German official, and rushed
to the roof, from which they threw down the enor-
mous bronze group, representing force and will,
dragging it to the Moika, a little river near

195

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

by, into which they flung it with much howHng
and cursing.

Under the blinding and infuriating spirit of
war everything that was German or of German
origin was driven out pitilessly. The high-
placed directors and managers of state plants,
factories, and banks, the master workers, the
laborers, most of them naturalized or Russian
born, were chained together like criminals with-
out any regard to age or position or titles and
sent to Siberia. The people reveled in vandalism
and would have robbed and pillaged the houses
of their kinsmen, without consulting their feel-
ings, if the word had been given, just to satisfy
the lust of the hour. Excellencies of yesterday
were arrested and shot, if denounced by a muzhik.
Germans were free game in those days ; but who
would imagine that the red-flamed war hyena
would seek the peaceful little spots on the Volga
and the Dnieper? In the warm ripeness of those
August days, when the flowers blossomed in the
little gardens, when the fields waited for the harv-
est in their golden fertility, when the red-roofed
houses seemed to slumber in the quiet of midsum-
mer warmth, the bloodthirsty beast dragged the

196

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

people to icy regions as prisoners. They are
gone forever, those blessed colonies which Cath-
arine loved, their happiness buried, and the
results of century-long industry obliterated. In
their blind rage the Russians have hurt the mem-
ory of their greatest empress and benefactress.
And in the Taurida Provinces, where from an en-
nobled Russian of German descent the czar had
accepted a princely present, the police hunted
for the landowner's brother, a naturalized Ger-
man who had gone to the Black Sea to pass the
summer in the home of his old mother.

After German interests, German vitality had
been crushed, suddenly, like a ghost, invisible, but
surely felt, roamed a German party which ad-
vocated a separate peace. It was said that the
trail of this party led to the throne, the czarina
being a German princess. Whenever the czar-
ina had an attachment to her native country, it
was drowned in the strong current of Russia's
moral influence. As Empress of Russia she had
to give up her own self, in truth and in faith, to
Russian interests in church and state. It may
be that the czarina was suffering in the depths of
her heart through this war which has put her

197

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

brother and sister in the ranks of the enemy, —
this was her holy right, — but first of all she was
the sovereign, the mother of her country, the
mother of the future czar. Why should the czar-
ina, who never had mixed in state affairs, sud-
denly excel in INIachiavellianism, and why should
Rasputin, who was illiterate, whose conception
did not cross the spiritual borders of Russia, have
been her instrument ? Was there no minister, no
statesman who could represent the czarina's in-
trigue ?

The czar's great longing for peace was never
a secret, and when he saw that military disasters
were irreparable, when, after Gallipoli, he saw
that the promise of the Dardanelles was post-
poned indefinitely, the desire filled his heart to
see the war tragedy end. Rasputin spoke the
language of the people, — no people wants war, —
and he strengthened the czar in his desire.
Though Rasputin possessed the great power of
the ignorant, he had learned enough to know that
the desire of a czar is a delicate thing, which can
not be prematurely exposed to political discus-
sion. The people were not permitted to speak
peace, to think peace ; their energies were directed

198

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

to war. Less and less the people who reflected
could find out the reasons for the continuation of
the struggle, and when every hope for their own
gain was gone, they were merely allies, merely
men to die for the policy of the Entente, which
they did not understand.

Then the revolution came. The people awak-
ened to the real sense of this war, to the war with-
out victory, as the President of the mother de-
mocracy of the United States declared, to the
war for the people's holiest rights, their Hberation
from gray autocratic despotism. But why
should the Russian suddenly seek the German
influence in the misery of the country, in its fail-
ure? The Russian army lacked the same spirit
in the Russo-Japanese War and suffered under
the same conditions.

There are no longer Germans living in Rus-
sia who have not been interned; therefore the
German influence must come from the Baltic
Provinces. The Baltic Provinces — that is an en-
tirely different question, a question by itself. It
was in the thirteenth century that German
knights first entered the land on the Baltic Sea,
— Livonia and Esthonia, for Courland then be-

199

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

longed to the Kingdom of Poland, — conquered
the inhabitants, and forced the Christian religion
on them. To-day the people of the Baltic Prov-
inces are mostly Lutheran. The knights took
possession of the land, obtaining their rights first
from Sweden, under which sovereignty they lived
until Peter the Great conquered the provinces
and granted them the same rights from Russia.
They remained German, kept their language,
and brought the Baltic Provinces to high culture.
They reigned on their estates like dukes, keeping
the original people, the Esthonians and Letts, in
a serf-like condition. They fortified their castles,
built cities with German administrations, and
were recognized as a free people, with their own
laws and privileges.

Beside the knights who developed into the
haughty Baltic barons that sat above all in the
councils there was evolved a class of German
patricians like those of medieval Geraiany.
These patricians were strictly classified as burgh-
ers, who under certain rules admitted the peo-
ple into their guilds and thus into their profes-
sions.

The Baltic Provinces flourished. Agricul-

^00

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

ture, industries, and commerce extended widely,
and science had its home at the famous university
in Dorpat. The Baltics belonged to Germans of
the highest type.

Their rights were respected by Peter the Great
and renewed by Catharine, who made courtiers of
her German subjects. Baltic noblemen were
called into Russian governmental and court af-
fairs. They were known and esteemed by all the
czars as the most loyal and trustworthy subjects.

The Baltics remained unmolested until 1880.
The divergences between the Russians and the
Baltics broke out as a natural result of different
opinions in regard to their duties in official posi-
tions. The Baltic was not pliable, a hard, but
just, administrator, and could not adapt himself
to the earlier standards which implied a flourish-
ing system of graft in the Government. Under
the reign of Alexander II the tension between the
Russians and the Baltics became unbearable, and
when among the growing anarchism of the Rus-
sian youth the searching police discovered a Bal-
tic, the treachery of the German-speaking sub-
ject was exploited. Prince Shahavskoy, the
Governor of Esthonia, after having been de-

201

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

nounced by Baltic aristocrats for bribery and
protection in railroad affairs, avenged him-
self, and a terrible period of suppression of
everything Baltic began. The Baltics were no
longer tolerated as German subjects under
the sovereignty of the Russian czar; they had
to declare themselves entirely Russian. Their
mother-tongue, in which their children had
been taught, was suddenly prohibited. A ter-
rible confusion began to take place. Officials
of the German city administrations were re-
placed by Russian bureaucrats. The street
names appeared in signs, which neither Estho-
nians nor Letts nor Germans could decipher.
The Baltics were shadowed constantly, and the
slightest opposition was exaggerated to a state
crime. Spies of the Government and of the
police hved unsuspected in harmless famihes, sat
among the children in school-rooms, sat in the
church pews, sat among the university students.
The victims of this terrorizing system were
seized, taken to the fortresses, and often disap-
peared, without any trial, into the darkness of
Russian prisons or were deported to Siberia.
The system did not help to make the Baltics more

202

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

loyal. The spirit of opposition grew among the
intelligent until it became open revolt.

Alexander II had no power, being himself re-
strained by the system which he hated. He
could not free himself, and was helpless to pre-
vent the inforcement of the new laws that the
Russian Government imposed upon this free peo-
ple. Among clergymen, teachers and students
the ochrana operated mercilessly. To be de-
nounced by a peasant, whose word in Russia
would have been less than the barking of a dog,
was sufficient cause for the arrest, without ques-
tion, of a Baltic. Sometimes it took years for
the desperate family to find out where the fa-
ther, son, or husband lived, or whether he had
been simply executed. This was the great Bal-
tic tragedy.

One of the greatest of Baltic physicians was
put to trial because a Russian workman accused
him of having declined to attend the peasant's
wife in childbirth. In this case the police feared
to arrest the physician because of his popularity,
and he was permitted to give a reason for his
failure to go to the woman. The doctor remem-
bered the call of the man, and remembered also

203

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

that he had a strong reason for sending the man
to his assistant, who unfortunately could not be
found, but he could not recall exactly what that
reason was. The whole city was in an uproar,
and a kind of revolution was expected. The
Germans and even the Letts had decided to re-
volt against the arbitrary system of the police,
but the police merely sneered at the possible up-
rising and decided to make a good capture on the
day of the trial.

The wife of the physician, in deepest distress,
stood at the window gazing out into the damp-
ness of the November day when suddenly a
young woman in the street looked up and greeted
her laughingly. The face seemed to the wife a
godsend, and she rushed down-stairs to ask the
young woman into the house. Yes, it was she
who had been ill of childbirth fever and who had
been nursed, through the kindness of the doctor,
day and night. She remembered well enough
the kind wife who had come to her, bringing re-
freshments. Suddenly the physician's wife
knew why her husband could not help another,
whj^ he had to send away the man just as he was
entering the carriage to drive to the suburb

204

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

where he had saved the life of the little mother
ill of childbirth fever.

The young woman, a real Russian and the wife
of a small government official, gladly appeared
at the trial, and her testimony freed the physi-
cian, who had been for a long time on the black-
list and would have been just the right person to
use as an example.

The Baltics breathed heavily under the strang-
gling of their freedom. When Alexander II
was murdered, his son, Alexander III, disdain-
fully scratched out with one penstroke the old
privileges of the Baltics. It was then, that hun-
dreds of Baltic noblemen left the provinces, to
become again, what their ancestors had been,
German subjects. Those whose interests were
buried in Russian soil and who could not leave
the country submitted to the new regime with
teeth set together.

Their rights, their laws, their language, and
their university were taken from them. They
had to be Russian; their children had to be un-
true to their own blood. Their existence became
a lie; they sinned against the holy law of race.
A nation never can love what its ancestors hated.

205

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

A nation can not build peace and happiness on
old distresses.

Despite the submission of the Baltics to the
new conditions, those who had been deported
were not pardoned, but their fainihes were per-
mitted to share their exile. The Baltics suffered
silently. They accepted the terrible change with
the dignity of a cultivated people. They en-
tered the Russian state service and became loyal
subjects of the czar. His personal bodyguard
was composed of Baltics, whom he knew he could
trust, for a Baltic never broke his oath. The
Baltics became the most able officials in the Gov-
ernment and the best officers in the Russian army.
But these Baltics, who became more Russian than
the Russians, denied their own souls, and what
they had suffered in the surrender of their own
freedom they made their Esthonian and Lett
subordinates suffer. They never had been mild
masters, and had treated the natives of the coun-
try which they had conquered and oppressed as
the Russian treated his serfs or even worse. The
Russian had always had a patriarchal feeling for
his serfs, was kind and condescending, and the

206

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

serfs were devoted to the house to which they be-
longed.

Beneath their cringing subordination the
Esthonians and Letts hated the haughty Bal-
tics, who stepped over them as if they were in-
sects, who never took the slightest interest in
their well-being, and who looked at them as they
looked at the animals belonging to their estates.
Like the animals, they had their stables ; they had
food, they even had schools, but they had no
love. In the cold repudiation of them as a hu-
man class they suffered from a terrible hopeless-
ness. Childlike, undeveloped, and frightened,
these people were always on the defensive.
When it was brought to the attention of the Bal-
tic barons that in these watching serfs slumbered
a terrible latent danger ready to break out at any
opportunity, they laughed disdainfully. Those
animals, those cowards, who for centuries had
been trampled under foot, had lost the courage
to stand up against their masters.

The Baltics did not see the looks of hatred
which flashed in the narrow little eyes when, in
the middle of the night, the Lett servants were

207

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

awakened out of heavy sleep after a hard day's
work to harness sleighs and to drive the barons,
the junker's gay parties, through the icy, glim-
mering woods. On the sleighs, which were har-
nessed as the Russian troika, the footman had to
stand behind the seats with crossed arms. Drunk
with weariness, the icy air striking their faces,
the poor boys were often overcome with sleep
and fell from the sleighs speeding over the frozen
snow. No one would notice that a footman was
lost, and the boy would lie on the ground to sleep
his last sleep. The next morning, perhaps, an
over-anxious father or mother would go out to
seek a son, and would find him frozen. Some-
times they would find him only when the snow
had melted away, or they would find him de-
voured by wolves. The barons forgot these lit-
tle incidents, but they were deeply engraved in
the hearts of the people.

The Esthonians and Letts waited patiently for
their hour to come, and the hour struck. In the
midst of the confusion of the Russo-Japanese
War, in the midst of raging internal revolution,
the Esthonians and the Letts slunk up like wild
beasts, a conununity of revolutionists of their

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THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

own. It was a peasant war, cruel and frightful,
not less barbaric than those of the Middle Ages,
where knights were speared on pitchforks, where
castles were burned and pillaged, and before the
eyes of their mothers children were thrown into
the flames. It was a terrible avenging of humil-
iation against haughtiness. This people had
been thwarted in their ambition to take part as
human beings in the progress of the world. If
one spoke of a man who asked for some distinc-
tion, the Baltics always said: **He is only an
Esthonian or a Lett. He does n't count."

While the Esthonians and the Letts hated
equally the German and the Russian, they pre-
ferred the Russian's compromising character to
the knouting discipline of the German barons;
and when the crater of hatred opened, it spit fire
and poison over the German masters who had to
be protected by Russian soldiers from a people
that nominally belonged to provinces they had
dominated not only materially, but morally and
in spirit. The proud castles, strongholds of cul-
ture in primitive Russia, were razed to the
ground.

The Esthonians and the Letts are the sworn

211

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

enemies of the Baltics and always will be. In
this the original population of the Baltic Prov-
inces is not absolutely wrong. The Esthonians
and the Letts never had justice. They were
dependent on the good-will of their enslavers,
who humiliated them, arousing their bad instincts
instead of teaching them to conquer their base
quahties. Even for their devotion the noblemen
had only a cruel contempt, and an incident in the
peasant revolts will always remain in the memory
of the Letts. One of the high aristocrats had to
flee through night and fog to save his life and his
family. The servants, all Letts, generously
helped those who had been their masters to escape
from the infuriated peasants who stormed
through the country from estate to estate, killing,
murdering, and robbing. When the noble

family left the estates. Count K promised

the old butler, who guarded the abandoned castle,
the greatest reward if it should not be demohshed
by the hordes. The old man did his best, but he
could not prevent the wing containing the
precious library from being destroyed by fire.

After the revolt Count K returned under

the protection of the Government, and when he

2ia

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

discovered the loss of his books he became
enraged. Instead of being grateful to the ser-
vant who had helped to save the other part of the
castle, his first act was to execute his old butler
by hanging him to a tree in the courtyard.

In the Baltic race is a strange mixture of the
highest moral sense, the loftiest ideals, and the
firmest will power, an intellectuality more cre-
ative than in other Germanic races, an individu-
ality untouched by Prussianism, a wildness of
temperament, a sharpness of wit, and the haugh-
tiness of a race that has always been masters.

In the Baltics the Lutheran spirit had domi-
nated, suffocating beauty and charm, and seclud-
ing woman in the dull insignificance of the
German chatelaine of the Middle Ages. The
women Hved for housewifely duties, practising
the strictest economy for themselves, while the
men enjoyed separate existences. Nowhere was
the natural difference between the male and the fe-
male so obviously expressed as among the Baltics.
They brought to mind the proud-plumaged male
and the gray- feathered female among the birds.
The women were not attractive, with their thin,
flat bodies clothed in self -woven coarse material

213

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

of an offending simplicity and ugliness, pressed
into bodices with innumerable buttons in the
front; with their colorless hair drawn back from
foreheads always too high and too square; and
with the little lace bonnets that brides as well as
matrons had to wear to express the dignity of the
married state. Intolerant of everything that
was graceful and free-minded in womanly spirit,
they persecuted charm wherever it could be
found, while they forgave the immoralities their
own men committed as masters on the big estates,
With a heroic self-mastery the Baltic noble-
women bore the escapades their men indulged
in outside their castles; but their dominion was
sacred ground, and the strictest decorum had to
be observed when once inside the gates.

Oh, the domestic tragedies when a Baltic took
home a wife from another country, a woman with
another spirit, with artistic or modern education !
Her brilhant feathers were plucked out by the
jealous gray hens, and before she was aware of
it she was squeezed into the coarse, moth-colored
clothes, the emblem of her dignity. If she tried
to fly away, she was lost forever, and her name
was erased from the family chronicles.

214

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

The Baltic noblewoman has held high the
banner of female virtues, extinguishing the best
in herself and the best in her men — ^humanity and
the kind tolerance which are much more than the
cold sense of duty.

The Baltics are about to die out. They live
outside their estates, being German subjects,
which means to be no longer individual men but
uniformed. They are the low and high officials
in the Russian Government. They are in the
army. They are the most chauvinistic Russians
and the most dangerous, their acquired Russian
characteristics not being excusable because of
Slavic origin. It seemed less a sacrifice for the
Baltics to be under Russian sovereignty than to
submit their haughty manners to German discip-
line: and their methods of treating subordinates
were much easier to exercise with the servile Rus-
sian than with the socialistic German.

The race has naturally suffered from inter-
marriage with the Russian. This crossing was
not an improvement for the moral qualities, and
in the last few years the Baltics have shown more
degeneration among the nobles than for the
preceding seven centuries. Among them have

215

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

been gentlemen murderers, gentlemen traitors,
and many of the descendants of the proud
famihes are moral victims of racial mistakes.

It is a mistaken idea that the German influence
could ever overwhelm the world. It was not the
fault of the individual German that so many mis-
takes in tact were made. It was the fault of a
German Government which was too young, too
ambitious not to show off wherever Germans* set-
tled aftei the fatherland had become an Empire.
Their growing power went to the Germans' head
as young wine ; and beside this, they had the idea
of defending their young nobility as the parvenu
always does. And also, like parvenus, they used
too much of their elbow power, too much space ;
spoke too loudly and they appeared always as a
compact mass. It was, as the Russian said sar-
castically: "If two Germans come together,
they immediately form a quartette; if four, they
found a Gesangs Verein; and if eight, they
unite in the Sanger Bund, Wherever a Ger-
man lives and sees his advantages, if condi-
tions are favorable to him, he is incUned to accept
the habits of the country, the language and the
traditions. Wherever he settles the German

216

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

will be to a certain extent an educator, but he will
never be either feared or loved. At his best he
will be accepted and respected. Germans
among other races are like teachers with their
pupils. The boys anxiously wait for the oppor-
tunity to play tricks, and as teachers rarely have
sufficient sense of humor to smile on school-boy
pranks, the Germans make the mistake of whip-
ping.

The German language was a habit to the Rus-
sians, a comfortable institution; but it has been
used only as a commercial means of communica-
tion. The Russian aristocrat spoke French,
wrote his letters in French, and even introduced
French words now and then when speaking Rus-
sian. When the war broke out signs were dis-
played everywhere forbidding the use of the Ger-
man language on penalty of terrible punishment.
At the Russian frontier travelers beheld these
signs before they were permitted to leave the
cars, but the first words they heard on Russian
soil from the lips of the lugubrious-looking cus-
toms official was the question, "Hahen sie nichts
zu verzollen?" ("Have you nothing to declare?")
A Norwegian traveling in Russia took the train

SIT

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

from St. Petersburg to Moscow. The Nor-
wegian shared the compartment with a Russian
general. The general, a talkative old man,
looked scrutinizingly at his silent traveling com-
panion, and recognizing him as a foreigner, asked
if perhaps he understood Russian. The Nor-
wegian shook his head. "Then perhaps you
speak French?" the old general continued,
uneasy at the thought that he might have to pass
many hours with a dumb vis-a-vis. The Nor-
wegian smilingly answered that he did not even
speak French, but perhaps the general could
speak English? Then the general shook his
head. No, he did not understand English.
Then with a sudden gesture the general shut the
door of the compartment, turning a terrible look
on the Norwegian as he whispered: "Sprechen
Sie Deutsch?" The Norwegian answered tim-
idly that he knew a httle German. The general
sighed as if Uberated from a great weight and
said: "Thank God! then we can have a good
chat together." Indeed, he chatted in plain
German about innumerable official and military
secrets, complaining, swearing, accusing, drink-
ing the forbidden vodka and even champagne

218

THE GERMAN INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA

out of a tea-cup which the guard poured from a
teapot. At the end of the journey the general
assured the Norwegian that he had had a very
pleasant time.

In Russia there was no German influence to
destroy; there were only German interests which
were closely intertwined with the Russian. In-
dustrially and commercially, Russia suffered ter-
ribly at the beginning of the war when deprived
of German skill and help ; many factories had to
be closed, and in certain parts of Russia trade
was entirely stopped. Indeed, German interests
in Russia are destroyed forever or for many years
to come. The Hfe-work of many is gone, and
another priceless thing, the confidence between
the two nations, which, paradoxical as it may
seem, was rooted in an innermost understanding,
the German's love of Russia for her philosophy,
her art, her poetry, and her melancholy. When
the German becomes drunk he sings sad songs;
when the Russian is drunk he weeps and talks
philosophy and is deeply melanchoUc.

Russia is an immense grave for the peaceful
achievements of centuries.

219

CHAPTER VIII

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

To the Russian's imagination nothing is so
vivid, so exciting, as the idea of America. To
his mind it has not been the country to which one
takes a wrecked existence, a broken hf e, or where
one goes for adventure, to find gold and every-
thing that a man can buy with gold. It is not
that. For him it has been like a light, like a star
of hope, like a heaven on earth, vast, but not with
the vastness of his own country, which is fright-
ening, but with the vastness of the sky, gay and
blue, full of sunshine and brightness. Even
though the Russian never may go to America,
that it exists has made him glad in the conscious-
ness that, if his own land should make him too
unhappy, he would be welcomed in another part
of the earth as a human being, as a simple man.

In Russia many, many speak of America, the
poorest, the most desperate, those who have been
so hopeless that they have lost the strength to go

220

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

away from their own soil. This one thought
has seemed vastly comforting to them, that
America was discovered for the poor, and was not
the land of the rich only. They must preserve
this hope that America is the great mother, with
wide-stretched arms, ready to receive children,
many children, from all parts of the world.

The real, the true Russian is not an emigrant
by nature. He does not hke to move; every
change frightens him. He is not curious, and
new things do not touch him. His interests are
deep in the Russian soil. He must know who
are his friends or his enemies and he must talk
about them; otherwise, life would lose its charm
for him. Those who have emigrated from Rus-
sia have been in most cases the Jews, the Gali-
cians, students who fled for anarchistic reasons,
refugees whose families were involved in unlucky
politics, and aristocratic soldiers of fortune. It
is very seldom that the Russian peasant is to be
found among the emigrants.

And when one of the peasants, devoured by an
unappeasable longing to catch a glimpse of the
earthly paradise which America seems to be,
dares the adventurous journey, he travels thou-

221

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

sands of miles to go somewhere over the Russian
border. Then again he travels through a foreign
country, where he is completely lost, owing to his
lack of knowledge of the language. Finally, he
is passed over the gangway to the immense boat
which is to carry him across the sea ; then his heart
beats faster, and he forgets the weariness and
hardships of the journey. He sighs deeply, his
eyes are directed forward with the movement of
the boat, he clasps his hands, and his lips move
in a silent prayer. The ship cuts the high waves,
and over him is the immensity of the sky; he feels
that in this holy solitude of the elements a man is
so poor and small a thing that there are no longer
differences among those who go out to America.
Day by day he sits beside his bundle, his poor
property, staring silently into the vanishing hours
which drop into the sea. Every morning more
of space is between him and his own land, and
every day a piece of his memory disappears, until
finally his soul is filled with expectations of the
future, and the past has left him completely.
Then hours come when the sky is darkened and
the clouds are restless. An anxiety never felt
before enters his heart, a fainting weariness

9.%%

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

before the cruel impenetrable wildness of the sea.
Deathly tired, he has no resistance, and gives up
the httle struggle before so enormous a grave.

The Russian sighs and thinks. Every one must
pass through a test to reach America, and he
makes himself ready for his entry; he prepares
himself for the solemn hour when his foot will
step ashore. It is night again. The big boat
is suddenly quiet, its tireless machinery stopped.
But no sleep touches the eyes of the Russian, who
looks in deepest bewilderment into the clear, sum-
mer night, from which stands forth the statue of
a woman, not an icon, not the Holy Little
Mother, but a woman great and triumphant, kind
and serious and protecting — Liberty, America!
And behind the statue there hes an enchanted
city, with buildings soaring into the sky.

With the dawn the Russian goes back to the
place where he can make himself clean. He has
the idea that it is Sunday, and it will be Uke
entering a church. People will look at him; his
hair must be brushed, his face washed, and his
high boots shining. There, at the first view of
America, he feels like a human being, equal to
all who are on the boat with him. He can not

223

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

speak to them, but they all have the same expres-
sion in the eyes as they look forward to the won-
ders to come.

Then a veil covers all the wonders of the new
world. The Russian rubs his eyes; the veil
remains. He sees persons, gay and happy,
leisurely walk over the gangway, and he sees
others who are not permitted to leave the ship.
A rope is drawn between the favored ones and
many poor men and women who, hke himself,
are waiting impatiently to go on land. His eyes
question. Why are some free to land and why
not all? He gets his answer when he and the
others from the steerage are pushed like sheep
into a hall at Ellis Island. With head bent he
enters America. The wonderful expectation is
killed in him ; a dull, submissive expression comes
into his face.

It is only a world of illusion, this new, redeem-
ing world; it does not exist in reality. Reality
is the same as in Russia, the difference between
those who have money and those who have not.
The poor are examined to find out whether they
carry diseases from the Old World, and the rich,
who perhaps do carry them, are allowed to spread

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

them in the New World as in the Old. As he is
a Russian, he understands and is sad. The next
day, when he is free to leave the island and to
enter the real new world. New York, his hopeful-
ness has shrunk, and his eyes, which were so
eager, are tired. He walks through the long
stretch of streets with another man who shows
him where the Russians live. This Russian quar-
ter is poor; it is the same as in Russia, only it is
confusing. The Russians have to learn English,
and so they mix together. They do not look
happy, but they all hope to be happy when they
can go back home with what they can earn in the
new country — money, as much as they want.
They will buy land and houses for the children.

The Russian sees that there is a will and an
energy that were not in Russia. He goes about,
asks and asks, and nobody can understand him.
Those who might understand him have forgotten
the language of the Russian soul; they have no
time to answer. A Russian who no longer has
time to answer questions of the heart, who hur-
ries away in the morning and who comes back in
the evening tired, looking out only for his food
and his bed, is no longer a Russian. The new-

225

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

comer finds himself alone, and a great homesick-
ness takes possession of him and paralyzes him.
There is no beauty, no rest, no happiness. There
is a uniform, nervous rush, and what is from the
old home-country seems no longer to interest
them. They smile pityingly when he speaks of
what he thought America would be — the para-
dise. He knows better now. There is more of
paradise at home, where they have their little
places, and sometimes think that the ground
belongs to them as well as to their masters.
They tramp along the country roads, and the
doors of the houses are opened for them; every-
body talks, everywhere a cabbage soup is ready
for them, and Russia is like a big, big home. He
looks at his rubles, which he has brought with
him. They are melting like his expectations;
almost nothing is left.

He meets the disapproving looks of his own
people. He who is so strong, why does he not go
to work, too? There is work in America if one
wants it, and this is the great thing here. The
more work a man has, the more he loves the coun-
try. He loves the week-days better than the
Sundays, which are dull. The working-peo-

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pie are too tired to gather, to dance, or to
sing.

No, the new-comer is not in haste to work.
He will go about and see where the wonders lie;
he can not beheve that America has only work,
nothing but work, waiting for the children who
come from an Old World where they have no
promises, no prospects. He walks days and
days, and he sees that there are streets for the
rich and streets for the poor, and he sees that the
poor and the rich never mingle. He sees that
there are many who look neither poor nor rich,
and are not gay, but noisy. He stands and looks
at the sky-high houses and the stream of people
that rushes in and out ; he sees the faces tense and
worried; he returns to his sleeping-place. And
he has not discovered America.

One morning he has only a few copecks left,
and misery has come to him. Oh, what a misery !
It does not mean so much the hunger of the body
as hunger of the soul. Nobody asks him if he is
hungry, nobody cares if he dies, nobody has a
word of compassion ; for all this nobody has time.
He lies on his bed day after day and becomes
weak; he will never see his own country again,

229

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

and he has never seen America. And one day
he has no bed at all. He could not pay, and the
man who wanted his bed could pay. Desperate
and deserted, he takes his small bundle. He
has the one desire to be home again, away from
the merciless, rushing world, which is like the sea
itself: those who are not able to swim will be
drowned pitilessly. But to go home he must
have money, and for this he has to go to work.
As he is no longer strong and beautiful and full
of expectation, work is hard to get. He must
accept any sort of hard labor until he comes to
the work that he did in his home country. And
the day when he sits in the workshop with the
work he is used to before him he thinks that he
has found America. He concludes that every
one must discover his own America — the Amer-
ica of his ambitions. America is like the big
machine which worked at home in the fields
separating the chaff from the wheat. Now he
knows the difference between Russia and Amer-
ica. In Russia they always have time to wait.
The father waits, the children wait, and so the
generations wait, and the country and everything
else are behind.

S80

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

The Russian brings his foreign skill into the
uniformity of the workshop, and this is liked by
Americans. Suddenly he is aware that he is dif-
ferent from others and that which his father and
grandfather waited for has come to him. He
discovers in himself all sorts of possibilities which
he never felt before. He is strong again,
stronger than ever before. There is something
new in his blood, which he never would have felt
in his own country, neither he nor his childi'en,
because it is not demanded, because they could
live without any effort. They could have their
tea and their soup and their bread, and they had
time to talk about religion. Everything remained
just as it was when his fathers were serfs.
America opens his eyes, and with doubled energy
he works to make money so that he may go back
to teach his children what progress a man may
make. And then it is true that there are no
class distinctions in America, because the poor of
yesterday can be rich to-morrow, and the illit-
erates can become the teachers if they study.
No matter what he has been or from what he
comes, a man may rise.

The Russian writes home, if he can write, or a

S31

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

neighbor writes for him, and tells about the won-
ders of America and how much he has in the
savings-bank. Ellis Island is not the invention
of a cruel Government, and America cannot be
plucked like a bird.

America is the model school for Russia in
which to learn everything that the Russians lack.
Into the remotest parts of Russia the idea of
America has penetrated — an idea of a new
encouragement for a stronger expression of life.

America is so strong that it pulverizes nation-
alities. As nationally strong as Russians are in
their country, where no room is left for the influx
of another people, in America they are scarcely
noticeable. But what is noticed strangely
interests the American. A Russian is to the
American like a book with seven seals, and if the
book is opened, the American cannot read the
mysterious signs; he cannot read in the Russian
what he reads in other people. Russian charac-
teristics are not comprehensible to him. He
calls the Russian inscrutable. The American
does not like contradictions ; his mind is straight-
forward. The food for his soul as well as for his
body must have the simple wholesomeness under-

232

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

stood and consumed by the masses. This is the
great difference between Russia and America,
that Russia has no care for the masses, only for
the individual man. This has expanded in the
Russian a finesse of art, hterature, and music,
and for the Russian only. What a tremendous
value must lie in this individual art ! What great
charm the Russian art must exercise over Amer-
icans when they feel a longing to penetrate to the
soul of a people! It is this that Russia gives to
America for the stimulus of energies that Amer-
ica bestows on her. In the closer approach of
the two peoples lie enormous possibilities.

The Russian cannot be Americanized, and this
is the great advantage. The race always takes to
America its originality and will keep that orig-
inality even when the heart is remote from Rus-
sia. With great simplicity and sincerity the
Russian marches in the columns of America's
immigrants. He never disturbs his neighbor,
and is more intelligent than the Jew. Like the
American, he is tenacious in business, and trading
with the Russian is still a disquieting puzzle.
Even though many things may be changed now,
neither the Russian merchant nor his character-

233

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

istics in trading can be changed. There is one
remarkable hkeness between the American and
the Russian: both are Uke children who always
seek to get the bigger end. The American is
even slower in his business resolutions — if it is
business and not gambling — than the Russian.
The American talks business without talking
business. He talks over and over things, and
has the same time to waste as the Russian. The
Russian shows that he is in no hurry, while the
American always piles up appointments, appar-
ently to keep him busy. The Russian has one
business in mind, and he pursues it tenaciously
and frankly. It must be known that the Russian
does not believe in business carte blanche; there
must be some tricks in it, or it would not be busi-
ness. And with all his honesty, a Russian would
not admit any advantage that might lie in a
business for him.

Russians never will have trustees. They have
cooperative companies, which buy necessary
materials more easily and more quickly than the
individual man. The cash — a Russian never has
cash. He has property, but to get cash he has
to borrow or sell. The whole Russian mercantile

234

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

business is based on a system of long credit. It
is hard for an American to understand this, but
it is harder to accustom the Russian to pay cash.
It is even a danger for a Russian to have a certain
amount of money at his disposal. He immedi-
ately buys what he likes and not what he needs.
This is the reason that the Jews and the Germans
had such a good time trading with the Russians.
They knew the national weak point and played
on it. The German merchant always had in his
shop what the Russian liked, and if the Russian
went to buy what he needed, at the same time he
bought something he liked. The German wrote
it in the big book, and the Russian never needed
cash. Sometimes the Russian's whole harvest
was taken away, or his sheep or wood or horses, to
give him a new sheet in this big book. The Rus-
sian was never much bothered about this. It will
be different in America ; he will buy only what he
needs.

But Russia needs many, many things very
badly. Russia's little towns are in a state of
touching primitiveness, more than romantic, less
than endurable. Besides a broad comfort, a
waste of space, — ^this is perhaps something that

235

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

would be adequate to American proportions, — is
a lack of hygienic institutions worse than in Italy
and httle better than in the Orient. The streets
are seldom paved, and in bad weather it is impos-
sible to leave the house without danger of being
drowned in masses of dirt and mud. The houses
are kept warm by immense stoves, and most of
them are lighted by oil-lamps which smell bad.
It is regarded as a crime to let in fresh air; the
houses are not heated for storm and wind, the
inhabitants declare. The windows are plastered
with papers, only a small pane being left so that
it can be opened. In this atmosphere of himian
breaths, of cigarettes, of Russian leather, and of
cabbage soup the Russians live through the whole
winter and until late in the spring. Only when
the sun begins to ripen the wheat are the windows
opened and is the winter spirit let out. This is no
exception at all ; it is the normal state of the Rus-
sian town. The water is not di^inkable; in the
bath-tubs, which naturally never exist in the
average Russian house, it looks brown and
muddy.

The Russians have their communal bath-
houses, with showers in the steam-heated rooms,

S36

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

where they lie on wooden benches. Every Sat-
urday whole families, men, women, and children,
march to the bath-houses with their samovars and
big, round loaves of black bread. There they
remain for hours and hours not only bathing, but
washing their clothing, which can be quickly
dried in the warm rooms, and ready to be put on
again. They chat, drink their tea, and the
weekly bath is as much an entertainment to the
Russian as the motion-picture is to the American.

In Russian towns there is usually neither
plumbing nor sewer. Infectious diseases, such
as typhoid fever and cholera, are prevalent, and
the Russian patiently endures them. That is
what life brings, and no one can change it.

The houses of the peasants are indescribably
worse than those of the middle class in poverty,
uncleanliness, and bad air. Yet the peasants are
not so poor, not so primitive, not so helpless as
they appear; they are only hopelessly lazy.
They would like to have all conditions changed,
but they do not know where to begin first.
They need a Russian- American Cleaning Com-
pany; it would pay wonderfully.

Those who are to-day at the head of the Gov-

^37

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

ernment know exactly the conditions of the
country; they have studied them. It is to be
hoped that they will not make the mistake made
by former governments, and, instead of institut-
ing radical reforms, send commissions to investi-
gate. This would take years, and the people,
still living in old filthiness, would not readily
open their minds to the demands of a new Russia.
The bodies must be freed before the spirit can
work properly.

America should investigate. America should
send out commissions to make necessary changes.
America's prosperity resulting from the war
could become a peace prosperity, the result of
constructive work instead of destructive work.
This would assure more peace in the world than
anything else. If America would go into Rus-
sia, it would become a matter-of-fact Russia, and
not the country for which every other nation has
a big scheme — to exploit it or to ruin it. But
America will not see in Russia a country for
colonization; it will be merely an outlet for
American pragmatism. The American would
have the Uberty to work out in Russia ideas that
in his own country are sometimes hampered by

^38

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

the trust system, enslaving in another way and
retarding the development of a free trade. The
Russian hates the idea of trusts ; to him they seem
nothing but a despotism limiting free commerce.

•In the immensity of his country the Russian
has created his islands of trade, v^hich have stead-
ily flourished, old-fashioned, but sure. The big
fairs are held with regularity every year, and
with the same regularity represent the same mer-
chant names. When the fathers die the sons
succeed them. And between these merchants is
mutual confidence. They have the proud con-
viction that they are providing the country from
the farthest east to the west, from the north to
the south.

Every year in Nijni-Novgorod, the commercial
heart of Russia, all the thousand little streams of
labor from all parts of the country converge.
The annual fair is the most fantastic, the most
primitive, the greatest demonstration of indus-
trial Russia. AU Russia gathers to buy and to
sell. Nijni-Novgorod becomes a place of pil-
grimage to which all bring their year's work. It
never deceives. In the Russian's mind it always
will remain the great, benign spot from which

239

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

their fathers and grandfathers brought home
wealth or economic independence.

In Russia is far more wealth than Americans
imagine, not over-night wealth, not the dazzling
heights of multi-millions, but a solid, established
wealth, with the old-fashioned habit of keeping
money in a trunk that is hidden somewhere, or
investing it in land where treasure is deep in the
earth or where there is enough timber to heat big
Russia. The Russian is superstitious concern-
ing everything that Hes undergi^ound. The
forces that have slept since eternity cannot be
liberated without the tribute of human victims
who try to hft the mysterious treasures to the
daylight. It is difficult to get a Russian to labor
beneath the earth. There lurk dangers unknown
to him — dangers that he cannot meet with the
courage of a man, that he cannot fight, avenging
dangers, mythical dangers, which still exist in
imagination. Russia never has had volcanoes or
earthquakes, and the Russian, who knows that in
other parts of the world towns disappear, is of
the strong conviction that it is because the slum-
bering forces beneath the ground have been dis-
turbed in their quiet secrecy. With all his super-

mo

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

stition, the Russian is shrewd enough to buy such
a piece of land. Often he lies down on the
ground with his ear close to the earth; he listens,
and it seems to him that he can hear the spirits
that would lure him to free them.

It happens that a simple man makes a journey
from the Caspian Sea to the capital with a bit of
sulphur in his pocket. A traveler has told him
that the piece of land he owns is of the greatest
value on account of the yellow stone that lies all
around his mountain like a crown. Yes, he him-
self has seen this strange glimmering in the sun-
shine, and has liked it very much to look at, and
sometimes he has had the idea it might be gold.
Men laughed at him, and showed him how soft it
was. Then he understood that it was not gold.
But the traveler told him it could be changed into
gold. In the capital he shows the piece of sul-
phur to a man at the inn, and the man takes him
about ; everybody seems amazed. But it requires
much money to have all those fellows around, and
at last, tired of all the promises, and having spent
all his rubles for a stupid dream, he goes back,
leaving the piece of sulphur with his address. So
the valuable specimen may He forgotten some-

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

where, for the Russian is usually too indo-
lent to form a company for exploiting latent
riches.

So it is everywhere in Russia. From the Cas-
pian Sea to the White Sea, through Siberia, the
Caucasus, and the Ural Mountains, gold-mines,
copper-mines, iron-mines have been opened, and
the half finished work deserted because, first of
all, the ofiicers of the companies generally stole
the money necessary for development. The
absolute lack of organization usually destroyed
any effort to disclose Russia's mineral resources.
Even the coal-mines in the Donetzky district
have been closed because filters were needed for
the impregnated waters. Sometimes a mining-
fever crazed Russia, and then companies were
hurriedly formed to exploit some newly dis-
covered virginal district. Such work has been
started with all the scientific skill of Russian
engineers; but after a short time enthusiasm
waned in the face of unexpected obstacles or on
account of the severe cold, too much solitude, or
lack of amusements, and finally the Russian
comes to the conclusion that life is too short to
bother with mines in the wilderness. Most of

242

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

the successful mining companies are therefore
French, English, and Belgian.

What Russia has not produced for herself in
iron and coal England, Germany, and even
Poland sent to her cheaper and without trouble.
It is known that only one-fifth of Russians per
capita need for iron is covered by domestic pro-
duction. The oil-fields in Baku were unex-
ploited until the Swedish engineer Nobel
obtained large concessions. English companies
have been recently organized that control many
thousand acres. All these mineral lands
belong to the crown, and will now be free to
benefit the Russian people.

It should be understood that labor and skill are
not lacking in Russia ; what is needed are money
and organization. Americans can achieve won-
ders by engaging Russian engineers and furnish-
ing necessary capital. Russian propositions,
when presented to Americans, are often declined
for the reason that Americans have enough op-
portunities in their own young country. But
Americans are confronted by the labor problem,
which unquestionably will hinder them more in
the future than in the past, on account of reduced

243

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

immigration owing to the wholesale man-
slaughter in the European War, and, as the
colonization of Chinese and Japanese is pro-
hibited, the working of mines will be limited. In
the meantime America's great ability in organiz-
ing and financing should be employed for the
benefit of Russia and to the ultimate advantage
of her own industries. In former Russia it was
difficult to procure proper treaties. To-day the
new order is too young, too effervescent, to make
possible any conclusion as to how much better
conditions will be. In any case, they could not
be worse for foreign interests.

There is much more money in Russia since the
war than there ever has been, because of the
abolition of vodka and the savings of the soldiers.
In 1915 the increase of deposits was more than
one billion rubles. Despite all the killed, the
crippled, and the missing men in Russia, there is
still a flourishing manhood among the people, an
inexhaustible store of health, patience, and good-
will. And there are the Jews, who in masses
will overflow Russia after all restrictions are
removed. They will grasp the possibilities well
known to them. They will take back to Russia

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

their keen intelligence and penetrating mentality.
With characteristic perseverance they will take
from Russian hands the reins of commerce, and
Russia will be ruled by Jewish capital. Jew-
ish industriahsm will trimnph over Russian
national indolence. A vast field of activity is
open for the Jew until the American intervenes
with his strong, clear initiative.

It is easy to handle the Russian laboring
classes since the abolition of vodka. In former
times the Russian's reason w^as always drunk;
to-day he will be amenable to sound arguments,
and he who has been enslaved for centuries should
not be left to his own childlike decisions. He
cannot dispose of himself to-day ; he is absolutely
helpless if not directed. It is a conscientious
duty to direct the free Russian workman and
peasant in the right way. This is the ethical
task that America will have to carry out — the
task of the mother democracy to educate the
j^oung country, which suddenly from darkest
autocracy has come into the light of freedom.

There is a great danger for the leaders as well
as for the people ; both will lose their sense of pro-
portion. They will do things that will make

245

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

them regret the liberty they have attained, and
the result may be that, tired and exhausted, they
will prefer to be again under the knout of gov-
ernors or police merely to have somebody who
knows exactly what they should do. It is the
hour for America to help Russia, even though
America has her own struggles. But America is
so energetic, so wonderfully equipped, that she
could help the new Russia organize, help her
stand on her feet, not as a menacing colossus, but
as a gigantic power guided by the spirit of light.
Russians have a boundless confidence in Amer-
icans. They know that Americans are not
despotic, that they are thoroughly practical, with
an utilitarian ideal. They know that there is no
danger that Russia will become a dependent
colony of the United States, or that American
influence could annihilate Russia's own interests.
Americans have many times sought trade with
Russia, and have met such entirely different com-
mercial conditions that, discouraged, they have
given up ; even in time of need the American and
the Russian have come together in trade only
through English, German, or Swedish inter-
mediaries. The Russian peasant knew not only

246

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

that he could emigrate to America, but he knew
about American machinery, the technical won-
ders that had been brought to Russia by the
zemstvos for work in the fields. American
mechanical skill has always been a great stimulus
for the inventive spirit of Russia. If a people is
able to invent all sorts of machinery to save
human labor, why should not the Russian, who
loves to work artistically and to invent all kinds
of miniature objects just for his own pleasure,
be able to direct big things? Few know how
many Russian inventions have gone into the
world, even to America. The Germans know.
They value Russian ideas, utilize them, and
present to the Russian, ready-made, what he has
thought out. America also knows something
about the efficiency of Russian engineers. It
would be the greatest mistake if Americans who
take up the tremendous railroad problems of Rus-
sia imagine that American engineers could solve
them. The Russian knows his own country and
its labor conditions. Americans will take their
ideas into Russia, and these will be an obstacle in
the way of success. All Americans have to do is
to use their precise and strict methods of business

247

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

organization, their sure and solid systems of
finance, and Russia will reward them by supply-
ing raw materials cheaper than America, with
her high cost of labor, can produce them.

America will discover that immigration from
Russia and Poland will cease completely after
the war. Jews, workmen, and intellectuals will
rush back home again, to be near when free
Russia shows the power of her strong limbs.
To-day she shows only an acrobatic virtuosity;
she gives an amazing performance without the
assurance that the "pyramid of the five," who
now form the government will be really the pillar
upon which the well-being of the whole country
can rest. While America congratulates Russia
on her rise, America still lacks confidence ; she is
afraid that in commercial relations Russia may
have unknown traps. America waits for Russia
to come to her, and this is a mistake. She should
go to Russia, and then will understand Russia.
Now she is interested without having any vital
part in Russia's commerce. She cannot see her-
self seriously connected with Russia without the
help of the English, who now guarantee the pay-
ment for everything that Russia purchases in

2i8

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

America. England does not perform this serv-
ice to Russia for love only, and America would
be amazed by an exact estimate of the good profit
lost to her in thus always having a broker between
her and Russia. In former years Germany did
tjiis work. She imported into Russia a tremend-
ous amount of American machinery, because the
Russian was stubborn, and would not accept
German manufactures even though much
cheaper. Germany sold to the Russians Ameri-
can products at high profits on long credit.

The American financial genius must find ways
and means of compromising with Russian com-
mercial ideas. The two nations must come
together in a pacifist union, the world's trade.
Japan is the most dangerous competitor. With
English support, Japan now supplies Russia,
but those who know the Russian realize that the
close union with Japan is temporary and caused
only by war conditions. The Russian peasant is
not inclined to trade with the Japanese. He is
afraid, he is superstitious. To him there is
something sinister about the Japanese, too
stereotyped, too polite. In the mind of the sim-
ple Russian still remains the memory of the "hell-

S49

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TOMORROW

stories" of the Russo-Japanese War, the tales of
the thousand devils who are like leeches sucking
the heart's blood of the people. With all the
effort that Japan is putting forth, she never will
be popular in Russia, and though the Russian is
patient, he finally shakes off other races he does
not trust.

The Russian does not trust the Jews. It was
not only the former regime which drove the Jews
out of Russia. It was the people, the idiosyn-
crasy of the people. The unlimited colonization
of the Jews in free Russia will be hard for the
Russians to accept. The Russian has a race
hatred for the Jew; he cannot help himself, and
it is stronger than his democratic sense of duty,
which bids him accept them as brethren. The
peasant knows only the Jews who nag him.
Although the Jews were not in power, they found
a thousand ways to force a strangling money sys-
tem on the Russians. The Russian people have
never fully estimated the Jewish intelligence,
which is antipathetic to them. The receptiveness
of the Jews, which absorbed the Russian's ideas,
turned into money what had lain idle in the Rus-
sian's brain, ideas guessed or dragged out in an

250

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

hour when the Russian was drunk from the vodka
which a Jew had sold to him. The Jews took
advantage of all the Russian's weak poinjts to
the uttermost. They were the white slavers of
Russia, and played on the Russian's worst
instincts. The peasants never will forget this
influence. But these were the oppressed Jews
of the past, the avenging Jews.

America will seem to young Russia more and
more a redeeming factor, after all the terrible
experiences of the war, through which she had to
dance to various melodies played by her allies.
Not by France. Russians worship the French
because in their historic memory the French were
the people who even in defeat left the unforget-
able impression of chivalry. Can America see
her moral advantage in Russia? Can she see
that she will be received with open arms and open
hearts? The Russians who will go back to their
country will fomi the first bridge for trade
understandings. Even if the Russian became a
citizen of the United States when he had no hope
of a free Russia, he will go back, and he will take
with him the simple joy of working and a strict
sense of duty, which is not taught in America by

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

a knouting superintendent, but by the necessity
of keeping up with life. The Russian knew that
when he was not at work on time there was
another man waiting to take his place ; he was not
missed, only sneered at. It is easy to get
employment in America. No questions are
asked; it is not any one's concern why a man
works, only how he works.

It is a great mistake that the United States of
America postponed the estabhshment of broad
and close business relations until after the war.
It may be too late. Free Russia may be under
the economic domination of others not so advan-
tageous either for Russia or America. Russia
wishes nothing better than to give her enormous
contracts and orders to Americans, who could
then employ the Japanese as sub-contractors.
American capital should be invested in Russia's
big railway propositions, which will be guaran-
teed by the state and would assure big dividends.
America should send out experts to investigate
mineral lands and to start mills and factories.
Propaganda concerning Russia's business fu-
ture should inspire quick action not only for
Russia's sake, but for the expansion of American

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

interests in Russia. The American spirit is the
only acceptable commercial spirit for Russia and
the only one not destructive, not likely to under-
mine and to overthrow the national prosperity.
The clean, clear point of view of the American
will bring into the confusion of Russia's business
ideas precision and practicability.

The question is. How far will Americans adapt
themselves to Russian characteristics? The Rus-
sian in a foreign country has the innate amiability
not to make himself conspicuous by his patriot-
ism; he bothers no one with the misery his heart
suffers in his exile. For this reason Americans
may have the mistaken conception that a Russian
who has lived in the United States for many years
and whose children were born in the country
would be too deeply rooted to go back to more
primitive and less comfortable conditions. The
Russian will go back. The mother has sung it
to her children, and the father has promised it.

Since the police were chased away from the
door-steps of Russia a vast wave of happiness has
flooded the hearts of the Russians in America.

The self-sufficiency of Russia will depend on
American support that is not political. It is

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW
sure that Russia never could be ruled bv the same

ft/

forms of liberty that prevail in America or at
least not at the beginning; that will perhaps be
the final touch. Russia must find her own
pohcy, for Swiss, French, or American systems
are not applicable to her. Russia probably will
become a very democratic country with very
autocratic leaders, with the knout of justice,
which sometimes is more painful than the knout
of despotism. Justice is a great, a terrible word.
It means the enforcement of the laws, it is fright-
ful, because in Russia the laws have never been
just.

What America can do is to teach young Russia
from her own experience in creating a new coun-
try. This makes America the only partner for
Russia. Russia, with her vastness of untouched
land, is like a new country; with her illiterates,
her Caucasians, Kirghize, Armenians, and other
peoples, she has her race problems like America,
which is dealing fairly and wisely with them. If
America's sanitary efficiency could only reach
Russia, it would awaken the people to the state of
human beings. And this might be the first, the
greatest, and most conscientious work to be done.

254

AMERICA AND RUSSIA

Russia and America have so much to give each
other of ethical, spiritual and practical values
that the alliance of which Russians dream and
which the Americans once declined must come
about.

^55

CHAPTER IX

RUSSIAN ART, DRAMATIC LITERATURE,

AND MUSIC

Dramatic productions have a greater influ-
ence on the Russians than on the people of other
nations. Russians live through what passes on
the stage; it even stirs the imagination danger-
ously, and the censor of old Russia had good
reason to be careful in scrutinizing new litera-
ture.

Both the simple Russian man and the Russian
woman of the world have the irresistible impulse
to represent on the stage what devours their
souls. It was a most impressive and unforget-
able performance that took place one day in the
waiting-room of a httle station. The train had
to stop on account of a heavy snow-storm, and
the conductor announced that there was no possi-
bihty of proceeding until the storm ended. The
waiting-room was filled with passengers of every
class. In one corner was the typical platform
before the icon of the Holy Mother, with pictures

256

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

of the czar and the czarina flanking it. Two
students, having the good idea of reheving the
tedium of waiting, sprang on the platform and
began to improvise dialogue. As they spoke and
acted they were suddenly interrupted by a young
woman, who took part as a third character in the
unexpected little play. Then in one corner,
lighted only by the little red flame under the icon,
a wonderful comedy was logically developed,
men and women understanding one another's
innermost feelings, entering and leaving the
scenes, and taking up their cues as if the play
had been written by a great dramatist and
rehearsed for weeks. They were all great artists,
those amateurs, because they had something to
express and because they had the natural gift for
expression. Even the inevitable pristav listened,
amused. When the dialogue became too free he
groaned ; but he was shaken by laughter the next
moment when one of the students directed his
words to a cat that had appeared on the stage at
just the right moment to catch a mouse. The
performance ended with the tingling of the
station bell which announced the starting of the
train.

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

The Art Theater of Moscow started in much
the same way. Men and women of society
played as amateurs until they became so fas-
cinated by the spell, which grew from their
artistic ambitions, that they devoted souls and
bodies to the development of the great new art
with which Stanislawsky and his actors surprised
the world. It is not a Russian art for Russian
plays ; it is universal, and therefore is for every-
thing that has been written for the stage. And
here is the point. Nothing in the world ever has
been written that would not echo in a Russian
soul; no thought exists that has not been buried
in the colorful mind of a Russian, and it requires
little to resurrect such a thought, to make it live
in all the wonders of life.

The Russians were the first to act with realism,
to clear the stage of old traditions, to move and
to speak without the yard-high heels of false
pathos. They were the first to give the stage the
significance of its raison d'etre and to exert a
powerful artistic influence. In the simplicity
with which Stanislawsky's actors presented the
ideas of the writers was an eternal beauty that
revealed the most secret intentions — intentions

258

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

of which the poet dreamed and which he never
dared to express. With his art instincts Stanis-
lawsky enhghtened the remotest meaning of the
poet's fantasy and gave form to vague visions.
His artistic courage stimulated not only the
dramatic art of Russia, but of the whole world.
He was redeeming, because he was not experi-
menting. He was decided in his methods. He
did not hint timidly; he expressed unreservedl3\
With the firm brush of the great artist he put the
picture of life on the stage. Stanislawsky was a
conqueror. Everything paled beside the inflam-
ing world of his invention; everything was gray
beside the colors he dared to use; everything
seemed nmmmified beside the freshness of his ar-
tistic figures. Long before Russia was freed from
its enslavers it was freed in its art. For the
people it was promising and consoling that Stan-
islawsky was loved and cheered as a national
hero.

Great artistic instincts lie in the Russians.
They are sincere in their emotions; emotion is
the leading power of their lives. A Russian
expresses everything, and everything that he
expresses reflects his own soul. He writes only

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

when the impulse is so strong that it bursts for
an outlet, and then he pours forth the joys and
horrors of his soul, which is never timid, never
disguised in cowardly conventionality. Unafraid
and truthful, he revealed the terrible weaknesses
of his brothers. The Russian poets were for the
world the greatest hope. With sacred sincerity
they disclosed themselves ; never draping terrible
instincts with the pitiable wrapping of lies.
They described Russian barbarism, with its cor-
ruption in society and politics, and gave to the
world the most pessimistic view of its darkness
and impenetrability, leaving to the world judg-
ment and understanding of the holy beauty of
their self-sacrifice.

Stanislawsky showed to the czar in "Tsar
Fjedor," majestic cruelty, tortured humanity,
the chain of terrors, which significantly was left
open for the links of Fjedor's successors; and
whoever understood the deep intentions of this
interpretation knew that, with the last link of
mysticism, the chain would be closed around a
whole people. But like strong animals which
scent danger, the people collected their last forces
to burst open the rusted irons, and a whole nation

260

ARSINATSCHEF

Author of "Sanin"

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

now advances, young, new, happy, and free.
Russian poets will hang the laurel on their tragic
Muse, which accompanied them wherever they
wandered and wherever they rested, in the midst
of the lowliest, in the midst of the highest.

Even the gaiety in Russia's dramatic art was
tragic, laughter under tears, smiles under curses.
The stage was always a mirror for the people.
They wrote and produced only what was their
own. They lashed their own conditions merci-
lessly, and in Russian literature are satires and
sarcasms incomprehensible to other nations.
Russians were interested in their own miseries,
their own hopes, in their own people, their own
country. Russian genius was so enlarging and
enlightening that other nations partook of its
grandeur. Tolstoy moved the whole world not
temporarily, but for eternity ; he preached a new
religion, the religion of humanity, and he was the
holy man of Jasnaja Pol j ana to whom Russians
made pilgrimage. Much was known in Amer-
ica of this poet prophet of the Russians, and more
is known of his philosophical and humanitarian
system since his eldest son Ilya Tolstoy came to
the United States to bring to the masses a deep

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

understanding of the influence with which Leo
Tolstoy anticipated the revolution. Yet Leo
Tolstoy's divine hopes of happiness for his
brethren were more of a biblical character, of the
fulfihnent of the prophecies of a millennium and
his great spirit might have suffered a thousand
wounds in seeing the Russians march through
death to their freedom. Gogol, simple, great
Gogol, was so utterly Russian, so strangely mod-
ern, that only Russians understood him; Gorky,
the poet who wrote his own life as it was, had the
courage not to disguise himself, but to show that
he was one of the people he dramatized. Every
country has its darkest part, which is all misery.
What made darkest Russia fascinating to the
world was that in the humblest burned a little
flame of wisdom, of longing.

Dostoyevsky, who made his readers suffer, who
made them shudder as no one else could, was a
pitiless surgeon not only for the Russians, but for
all mankind. It is so easy to be consoled with
the criticism that the Russian poets exaggerated,
that they only sunned their own misery, that Rus-
sian hearts and Russian ideals were torn to pieces,
and that it was never so with other nations.

264

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

People always will be consoled, always will think
that terrible truths belong to their neighbors, and
that they are exempt. So they read with a fever
of fascination the story of Russia as told by her
poets and dramatists. Having a superstition
for majesty and holiness, Russian poets have
never hesitated to disrobe their majesties and to
exhibit their poor nakedness first, and then to
make them grow vastly greater than weak mor-
tals, to make them immortal as martyrs of the
crown or of society.

What amazed the world was the fearlessness
of men who braved death in writing the truth.
It was a soul of wonder, this soul of the Russian
poet. Will it remain the same when suddenly
the Russians become happy and satisfied, when
everything that their poets ardently demanded
is received? Will Meretschowkowsky, will AI-
exandreieff, Ai'sinatschef and Kuprin, still for-
tunately living, answer in their new works ? The
pen which wrote the most terrible accusations
against a country, the pen which described great
horrors, which was dipped in blood, suddenly
halts at the miseries of yesterday, and trembles
over a white sheet of paper, after it has been

^65

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

dipped in the blue ink of the happiness of to-
day.

Still, there is a great curiosity in the world
to know more and more about the soul mechanism
of the Russians. The outside world does not un-
derstand that they have souls without any mech-
anism, without any conventionality, with the im-
pertinence of childhood, and with the frightened
consciousness that they may be punished for
what they are saying. The Russian who could
not read or write, and who knew nothing of
poetry and philosophy, was interested only in
himself. He listened to the melodies of his own
being, which laughed, cried, and silenced him.
The song in the Russian has triumphed over en-
slavement, persecution, and death. The Rus-
sian folk-lore shows the serene simplicity, the
original rhythm, of himself.

The Russian knows what a sky means when it
is blue. He has found hundreds of melodies for
this longing for a blue sky; he has found them
in the darkness of the long winter nights. He
adores flowers, the poor, rare blossoming of a few
weeks in the year. He looks on a flower as
Heaven's message, and he has many stanzas

^66

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

ready for it when it unfolds its beauty for him.
He loves the sunshine; in the darkness of winter
days he promises it to his children. And he
worships his children, but he conceals this tender-
ness under a half-humorous, half -bear-like strict-
ness ; he will even slap a child or a woman so that
he may not show how profound his love is.

Russian music lives not only for the elect; it
belongs to all the people. It is the sincerity of
the music that makes all the world that is not
Russian vibrate to it without knowing why. It
is the music that other nations love and fear; it
is not the music to which they dance ; it is not the
music that the organ in the street plays.

Russians do not compose music with the sweat
of their brows ; they simply express themselves in
melodies instead of in words. The chained men
and women sang on their way to the icy solitudes
of Siberia, and these songs will become sacred
hymns in memory of their martyrdom. They
sang in the depths of Siberian mines when they
were permitted to sing, and their words often
contained their stories, so that they understood
one another even when they were forbidden to
talk. There is a frightening beauty in those

267

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

songs, i^ which the same melody returns again
and again, sometimes only four notes telling a
whole life story.

In the barbaric times of Peter the Great, when
the czar sat in the Kremlin with his trembling cour-
tiers, drinking, and making all around him drunk,
they sang and danced to thie hideous caricatures
of Russian melodies that Peter had had changed
into gallant songs, like those he had heard in
other parts of Europe. The spontaneous cry of
race pierced through minuet or gavot, but from
time to time Peter would listen to another song,
heard from the court below, where men of high-
est rank lay on their knees, their heads on a
block, singing to forget the sinister moment when
their souls would be sent into eternity. Listen-
ing, the czar would wave his hand to stop the
voices of his creatures about him, who ghost-like
stared out of the windows, feeling that their
own turn at the block would come sooner or
later.

Peter could not see the faces of the condemned
while they sang, and he ordered that they be
turned toward the window. They continued sing-
ing with a superhuman power, so that the execu-

268

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

tioners paused, with swords in the air. Peter
became impatient. The song stirred his wild
blood, and he commanded his courtiers to descend
with him to the courtyard to make an end of the
singing traitors. Oh, those blood melodies!
They have found their way back to the songs of
the people, and they appear again and again in
Russian music, to which mankind often listens
terrified.

Like every one else in the eighteenth century,
the Russian court patronized Italian music and
singers, whose melodies were smooth beside the
wild and melancholy Russian songs; French bal-
lets took the place of Russian national dances,
and Russian nobles were tamed to the minuet and
the gavot. An old instrument, the tympanon,
which had been invented for the artificial arias of
Louis XIV, was brought to Russia for the great
Catharine, and it was she, foreign born, whoi
reviewed the old Russian songs on this strange
kind of cvmbal.

Old Russian music, old songs of war and love,
have been collected and passionately interpreted
with the intensity that belongs only to the Rus-
sian musical soul by young Sasha Votitchenko,

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

whose cradle stood in Little Russia, where the
people sang happy songs. The old tympanon
was preserved in his family, and as a little boy
he listened to the enchanting tunes which
his father and grandfather found in the chords
of the primitive instrument. In the little
boy's mind arose the desire to find more and
more of those wonder-songs, which make peo-
ple dream, which ring wildly, and to which
Little Russia danced fiery dances. He went
out, a little tympanon under his arm, searching
for them, like a wandering musician, to find
the way into the hearts of the people, who would
sing for him and would give to him what they
were not willing to disclose to a stranger. But
Votitchenko, young, persevering, and passion-
ate, never saw obstacles. He found and col-
lected treasures everywhere, in Great and Little
Russia, in Siberia, in Georgia, in the Caucasus;
and he revealed ancient folk-lore of beauty, treas-
ures for the whole world. It is most wonderful
how he ever achieved the miracle of uprooting
some of those century-old melodies, known only
by a small group of peasants in some distant cor-
ner of vast Russia, and transplanting them by the

270

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

means of the old tympanon to the modern world.
In this time of turmoil, which lacks totally the
spirit, the childhke faith, and the simplicity of
the past, it is strange to listen to those melodies
of hope, love and sorrow in the same words that
were sung by the forefathers.

Young Votitchenko wandered over Russia
coming into contact with peasants who have re-
mained in the same primitiveness of culture and
civilization as their ancestors of two hundred
years ago. He had to disguise himself as pilgrim
monk or simple peasant. He lived in the midst
of the people and lived their life. So he entered
the very soul of their song, their music; for the
dailv hfe of the Russian is all music. He never
separates this expression from his feelings; it is
almost a religious rite to him.

Starting at dawn, with the song for the rising
sun, which is quite pagan in its origin, the peas-
ant accompanies his labor in the fields with the
grand old songs of the harvest. The meadows,
the brooks, and even the small birds which fly
high and jubilant in the morning air, are all sub-
jects for songs. When he returns to his home he
sings another refrain ; and at evening, in the pure

271

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

and perfumed sununer nights of the plains, he is
inspired by the more romantic music; he sings
of love or complains to the stars of his broken
heart.

There is music in every phase of the peasant's
simple life, and true to the always contrasting
character of his nature, the same peasant who
sings the most tragic love-song of passionate
suffering at the next moment may dance the
national dance with a wild and savage joy.

Votitchenko learned all the fantastic mysti-
cism of this people. Their imagination, filled
with old legends and ballads, with beliefs in good
and evil spirits, with all the superstitions of
primitives, tells the story of the reigning spirit
of the forest, with his great beard and his eyes
of gold. Every old woman relates mysteriously
the tale of the "Flowers of Fire" which grow in
the impenetrable depths of the forest, and once
a year, at midnight, burn, sending an illuminat-
ing glow of "sacred fire" throughout all the
woods. She has seen the reflection on the sky,
and so have their grandmothers and all their an-
cestors. All those century-old fairy-tales are

^12

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

expressed in a music rich in color and poetry, and
only to be found in the heart's melody of a won-
derful people.

Having heard of a hamlet far north in Siberia
where lived an old peasant who knew songs for-
gotten by all others, Votitchenko undertook the
journey, traveling many days to the isba where
the venerable Ostap had passed his ninety-eight
years.

The old man, not different from other old men
who wish to lengthen their days, shook his head.
He would not sing; the thin thread of breath
which still kept him alive might break. But
young Votitchenko was stronger in his will than
the old man. He has made the journey; he had
to have his songs — songs forgotten by all, songs
the old must give to him. Oh, yes, Ostap knew
songs ; oh, so beautiful that only the great men of
his youth, nearly a century ago, could sing, and
that nobody else could remember, and so the
songs would die with him. The old man closed
his eyes; he sank into reveries of the past, of his
youth and vigor. All was silent in the modest
isba. Peasants had entered silently to listen to

273

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

the tympanon, which sang under the young
traveler's fingers, songs they all knew and loved.
Very softly, not to awake old Ostap from his
thoughts, he played the melodies, to which the
people moved and hummed. Votitchenko struck
rich chords, and the little wooden house vibrated
with the sounds of dance music, love-songs, war-
marches.

Ostap, as if awakening from a long sleep,
blinked at the young musician, bent forward,
listening to the joyful, fiery songs, his little eyes
opened wide, his wrinkled old face straightened
as in a tension. Suddenly he rose, his big frame
trembling like a leaf from emotion. The other
peasants, moving to a corner, were struck with
awe, as if they saw a vision. Grandfather Ostap
had not stood up for fifteen years; some of the
women crossed themselves, and a child began to
cry. Old Ostap, as if far away, began first with
a shaking voice, and then sang strongly and
loudly. Votitchenko excitedly followed the
strange song, note by note, and at the third
strophe could play it fluently. Old Ostap was
still standing, still singing, — but suddenly, ex-
hausted, he fell back into his chair, his eyes stared,

274

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

his heart beat no longer. The great old son of

a warrior had expired with his song; but the

song, the forgotten song, lives, and will live for-
ever.

In strange and sharp contrast to his life among
peasants and people of medieval minds and an-
cestors, young Votitchenko was called to Yalta.
The czar was anxious to listen to the old tym-
panon which had once been a court instrument and
now took up the immortal songs of the people.
Yet there was no contrast between the simplicity
of the peasant and the simplicity with which
Nicholas II received the musician. There was no
formality, there was no etiquette, but the same
spirit as that of the old peasant Ostap and some-
what of the same atmosphere. The little czar-
evitch, tenderly guarded by the simple Cossack
with the childish blue eyes, had the same big smile
as the Siberian peasants.

The czar asked Votitchenko to play for him,
only regretting that the czarina, being ill, could
not be present, as she was more musical than he.
But the czar understood the melodies of his peo-
ple and it will be everlastingly in the memory of
the Russian Votitchenko that he found the same

215

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

sincerity of soul and heart in the palace as in
the hut.

In the country the peasants sit together and
sing. Unconsciously and without any training,
they form the most wonderful and most exact
choruses, every one taking up a paii: with a nat-
ural and sure musical feeling. Nothing could be
more elemental and sublime than those voices
united in their expression of masculine power and
feminine sweetness. The profound bass voices
pour forth a whole world of strength, and no-
where else are the high-pitched sopranos of such
angelic clearness. The Greek Church, in con-
trast to the Roman Catholic Cuhrch, which min-
gles in the music of the mass the reconciling
voices of boys and the accusing tones of men,
lets only men sing its sacred melodies, lets the
softness of many tenors redeem the thunders of
gigantic basses, nowhere so nobly colored as
among the Russian voices.

Another original form in Russian musical ex-
pression is that of the Gipsies. Unlike the
Hungarian Gipsies, they do not represent the
national music. These Russian Gipsies are the
remnants of a bygone time, and they have kept

216

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

their individuality without singing their own
songs, which are too wild, too much a medley
from all the countries through which they passed
before settling in Russia. They are not Slavs.
The Russian adores these Gipsies, but only when
he is intoxicated by wine or joy or happiness.
Then he calls them, and they sing for him strange,
cheap music, popular and ephemeral, composed
at the table of a cafe; but they sing the motives
with all the passion of their own feelings in deep,
emotional voices and without any instrumental
accompaniment. A whole band of these Gipsies
sing, old and young, ugly women, witch-like,
neglected, di'essed in shabby clothing of all vari-
eties, and men in ragged garb, some of them in
shirtsleeves and high boots, a mixture of Rus-
sian peasant and Gipsy, rusty, strong, and dar-
ing. When they begin to sing in chorus, one of
two soloists leading the melodies, all their repul-
siveness is forgotten. Like a wave their ele-
mental singing rolls over the tense listeners.

When the Russians began to compose great
operas there was not only a revelation, but a
great hope for a new epoch in music. A Rus-
sian composer never has been misunderstood or

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

misinterpreted in his own country. Russia has
always received her own musicians as other coun-
tries received crowned heads, and nowhere else
have artists felt such a wonderful atmosphere of
warmth.

The Russians are great artists in color, and
they know how to create a background for beauty.
The interior of the Marinsky Theater is as deli-
cate in its blue and ivory decorations as the
boudoir of a beautiful woman, and its effect is
so harmonious that it prepares for the wonders
of the Russian music. When the curtain rises
for "Boris Godunuff," sung by Russians for Rus-
sians, no compromises or changes are tolerated,
no modifying of scenes or characters. Chalia-
pine — Boris Godunoff — walks from the door of
the Kremlin, over the red carpet, over streams of
blood, to the church door, far from all the others
on the stage. Livid, lonesome, frightful, and
frightened, he strikes the tragic chords of his
wild soul, begs for absolution, cries in repen-
tance, cringes before the saints, and despises the
priests, who stretch out their mysterious claws to
drag him into their mystical depths, calling to
their aid all the bells, the terrible Great Bell

278

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

sounding like the last judgment. Boris Godun-
of , sobbing, sinks on his knees. The curtain
falls, the ringing of the bells dies away, the music
stops, and there is deep, anxious silence. The
theater remains dark for one moment, the air is
vibrant with the emotion of men and women.
Light flames again and the conversation of soft,
musical voices is subdued. Russians cannot
suddenly change their feelings. Touched
deeply, shaken, recalling sufferings, the luxury
around them seems only play life. The orches-
tra interpreted the real life in the truths, the
cruelties, and the repentance of the singer, who
desires to be good, but cannot live without power.
Music and what is in this music Chaliapine has
fathomed. Russia has been revealed in both
words and music.

On the same square with the imperial opera
was the JDrame Musicale, the democratic opera,
the opera for the young, for aspiring artists. In
the simple, cold amphitheater, which was not an
ideal temple of art, the public was rather more
ready to criticize than to enjoy. It did criticize
and it did enjoy. An entirely new tradition, a
young, fighting spirit permeated the interpreta-

279

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

tions. Here was the home of a very realistic
opera. Meanings were not conveyed subtly, but
crudely, strongly. There was a vibration like a
young storm- wind; intelligence triumphed over
artificiality. ''Carmen" was staged as never be-
fore, realistically, sincerely. This Carmen was
one of the many who lure men to the under- world,
to the tragic end. All on the stage were Car-
mens; Carmen was the expression of all.

The old star system was entirely eliminated.
It was the triumph of the ensemble. All false
opera settings had disappeared, and it seemed
natural that these people should sing their joys
and sorrows, that their voices sometimes should
become hoarse and rough from passion. All of
them were young. It was the application of the
same artistic idea that Stanislawsky embodied in
his Moscow Art Theater. It was the same dar-
ing youthfulness with which Serge Diaghileff
started his marvelous combination of ballet and
decorative art.

In Russia dancing and dancers have never
been the frivolous hors d'oeuvres of the operas;
they have given another expression to amours
and tragedies, gaiety and romance. Dancing

280

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

was a form of culture, a flower which had to be
planted in its own earth. The dancers of the
Russian fantasias were trained spiritually as well
as bodily in the school which an imperial gen-
erosity started and maintained. It was a high
school, and the young men and women who were
sent to the rows of the imperial ballets were
young ladies and young gentlemen of education.

It was not only the splendor of the settings and
costumes, it was the spiritualized art, that amazed
the world, that taught what high and sacred
meaning could be attached to the ballet. The
Russian invented character dances, substituting
gestures for words that would have been sup-
pressed; but the people who understood unspoken
words passionately loved the ballet, asking more
and more of the dancers. Dancing was never a
mechanical art to them, but was significant of
something subtle and exalted. Nowhere were
the Pierrots and Pierrettes more vivacious or the
Petroushkas more tragic.

Diaghileff's extraordinary Ballet Russe had,
whether one would admit it or not, a great in-
fluence on the artistic progress of the epoch.
Who would deny the importance of the art of

281

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

decoration embracing the work of such painters
as Ruskin, Bihbine, Repine, Bakst and Alexan-
der Benoit? Of the marvelous mise-en-scene of
"Coq d'Or" by Rymsky Korsakoff, with Lar-
iono w and Gontschanowa ? Who would deny the
audacious victories of the modern musicians,
Moussorgsky, Rymsky Korsakoff, Balaghireff,
Borodine, and the amazing Igor Stravinsky,
whose first representation of the "Sacre du Prin-
temps" in Paris marked a date in the history of
music? Who would deny the sacred fire brought
to the people by the dancers, Nijinsky, Bolm, the
Fokines, the Karsavinas, and Pavlowa?

It was the intelligent classes which took part
in the rich development of modern art in Russia
rather than the blase great boyars. One of the
great merchants of Russia, a Moscow Croesus,
Nicholas Riabouschinsky, undertook the publica-
tion of a hterary and art review such as only a
Russian would understand how to produce.
Never was there more sumptuous printing.
Unique in form, it was filled with splendid illus-
trations, worked out in minute detail, everj^ en-
graving protected by tissue paper specially fiU-
greed for the subject it covered. To direct the

28£

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

French part of the review, Alexander Mercereau
came from Paris. To encourage young Russian
painters, Riabouschinsky arranged the most mar-
velous exhibitions. To choose the pictures he
himself went to Paris. Once in the studio of the
famous young artist, Henry Doucet, since killed
at the front, he selected a picture for the ex-
hibition in Russia. When the young artist ex-
plained that he could not give that picture be-
cause it was nearly sold to another person, Ria-
bouschinsky, without saying a word, paid twice
the price asked for it, so that he might not lose
it from his collection.

The Russian is more generous to the artist
than to the art dealer. He must know the artist;
he goes to the studios to find the best, even though
the fame of the artist has not yet come. He un-
derstands art ; he feels it, and is never a collector
from any snobbish ambition. The canvases rep-
resenting the newest movements, the most prog-
ressive painters, — Cezanne, Van Gogh, Seruzier,
Odilon, Redon, Metzinger, Gleizes, Picabbia and
others were taken to the young artists of Russia,
so that they could see how far the French artists
were going in their intentions. Riabouschinsky,

283

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

instead of being supported in his great artistic
ambitions by the imperial Government, had to
fight for his ideas. The censor watched at the
frontier, and in the name of the state rehgion
held up the pictures of Girieud, the iconoclast, be-
cause he thought they might have an influence on
the liberal spirit.

Riabouschinsky really gave the elan. Many
others followed, and the new art entered all the
larger cities of Russia, thanks to the enterprising
generosity of men who belonged neither to the
great nobility nor to the officials, but to the
bourgeoisie, which in Russia is so different from
the bourgeoisie of other countries.

The Tetriakoff, Poliakoff, and Morosoff col-
lections give vivid testimony of where the great-
est interest in art and the greatest development
of younger artists is to be expected. The feel-
ing for art is so deep in the Russian that there
is no difference between the noble and the rich
merchant and the simple man of the people.
The originality in Russian art and literature
never was influenced, and even if the Russians
have studied in the schools of France or Italy,
they go home to write their own books and paint

S84

DRAMATIC LITERATURE AND MUSIC

their own pictures. They never compose a song
that is not their own; they are too strongly in-
dividual. They cannot imitate, they are all too
creative.

So many eternal beauties grow out of old Rus-
sia's old distresses, so many flowers of art and
poetry and music sprang forth from the suffering
of the people, that the heart is filled with anxiety
and curiosity to know what new wonders will be
discovered when the jubilant hymn has been sung
in young Russia, and whether the songs and the
pictures created from the realized ideals of lib-
erty will replace the art which has been for cen-
turies the splendor of the Russian soul.

a85

CHAPTER X

THE PEASANTS — BUREAUCRACY — LITTLE

NOBILITY

The Russian peasants always belonged to the
nobles; after their hberation they became serv-
ants instead of serfs. They suffered and yet
they did not suffer, for as long as the Russian
can hold some one responsible for his fate, he is
patient and resigned. If he is in misery, he holds
his oppressers responsible; and if he is drunk, it
is due to his misery.

Dependent on kindness and love, the Russian
peasant never revolted from punishment, and he
would die for a kind barin; but he would never
endure indignities from a superintendent, who
was no better than he himself, who committed the
same crimes, and who had base blood in his veins.
It made no difference to the peasant whether the
superintendent was in power or not. The peas-
ant never recognized him, and obeyed him with
teeth set, only waiting for the opportune moment

to attack him.

286

THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

The Russian peasant was not envious of the
nobleman's riches or of his idle life. He saw no
more happiness among the nobles than he himself
could have; he would not know what to do with
all the things with which the master surrounded
himself. He has his sheep fur, and his barin had
his sables; both kept warm. The barina put
around her head the same kind of woolen scarf
that the peasant's wife wore when the wind
whistled over the steppes. The barina could lie
all day on her couch and read books and nibble
candies, but this seemed more difficult than to
scrub floors and to brush velevet chairs, because
she, first of all, had to study how to read, and the
servant knew that the barina^ when a little girl,
often had shed tears when her tutors made her
sit quiet for hours to get the letters into her head.
No, there was not such a difference. The baiin
also drank, sometimes, and the barina cried the
same as the peasant's wife cried when he^ drunk,
beat her. It was just the same, only that the
barina wanted money, and the barin sighed, and
had to get it from somewhere, and in his sorrow
he often came to the peasant, explaining and
apologizing for increasing the rent of the farm.

287

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

Poor harin! He looked grieved, and the peasant
yielded; the peasant knew that if he did not yield
voluntarily, he would be forced to pay more, and
he preferred the condescension of the noble, who
came personally to ask a favor from him.

As long as the nobles stayed on their land
everything was all right. The grandparents had
lived on the land, and the peasants' grandparents
had been the serfs of the old, old banns. There
was a tie. Oppression seldom came from the
landowners; it came from another power, which
represented the nobles, and it was against this
that the peasant revolted. As a class the Rus-
sian peasants never felt humiliated. They were
servile and humble, but that was their good
right. They did what they had seen their par-
ents do, and it would be a shame if what had been
good enough for one's parents was too low for
one's self.

The peasant loved the land even if it was not
his own. He cultivated the ground, and was
proud and happy when the wheat stood high in
the gold of the summer sun and the animals were
healthy, and the pigs were nowhere so fat as in
his pens, even if the stable belonged to his harin.

288

THE PEASANTS— BUBEAUCRACY

Some day he would have his own little piece of
ground ; but that might not be such an untroubled
happiness, because then, if the storm ruined his
wheat, the damage occurred to him alone, and no
one else was unhappy. Even his pig would not
be so well off in the little pen he could provide
for it, and would be much better with all the
others.

No, to have property was not the peasant's
dream. The sky was not divided into thousands
and thousands of pieces, and so it should not be
with the land. It should be cultivated by many
for many. Over the sky rules God, and over
many thousands of acres ruled the noble ; as long
the barin was kind and benevolent, the Russian
peasant wanted nothing changed. He had his
work, and when Sunday came it was a real Sun-
day, for there was nothing to worry about; he
and his family were content. It was his fault
and not his barings when he went to the inn with
his weekly wages to drink, to make useless
speeches about slavery — to drink until his last
copeck was thrown away; and it was his fault
when his family was poor and had nothing to
eat and his children became miserable. It was

289

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

his fault when he began the next week without
joy, grumbhng and quarrelsome, lazy and dis-
obedient, so that the barin had to whip him to
bring him back to his senses. The baiin was
sorry, but he had to use the knout. It was not
the master's fault; it was his. God also punishes
his children, and the noble, who understood the
soul of the peasant, did not despise him when he
whipped him. He spoke kind words, gave hun
a ruble, and sent him home. So he was often
cured for several weeks, and he was happy again,
and his wife was happy, and his children had
bread.

Sometimes it happened that one of the peas-
ant's children seemed unlike his brothers and sis-
ters, with different features, different ideas, al-
ways discontented and envious of things that
would not make a peasant happy. Then the
barin was kind enough to speak with his rebellious
child, and to take him from the estate to make
him work somewhere else; or he might even give
money to buy books the child wanted and to send
him to school, and one day the boy himself wrote
books, or put flowers, animals, houses, and even
the faces of his father and mother on pieces of

S90

THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

linen, which, as his mother sighed, would make
beautiful aprons. Then people made a fuss over
the boy and praised his art, as they called it, be-
cause his parents were only peasants. That was
what a peasant never could endure in all his hu-
mihty. Only a peasant! But that was much.
There were others who were less; for instance,
the police. The police had a certain power to
nag and to make a man's life unbearable ; but this
was not a privilege; it was a misfortune. Such
a poor creature was a policeman, who measured
his power by copecks, and was friendly or hostile
according to how much had been paid for his good
graces ! Was he not more pitiable than the peas-
ant?

And there were persons who came and wanted
to know why the peasants were not more inde-
pendent. These people would organize the peas-
ants and would persuade them to leave the soil,
to work in factories behind machines more dan-
gerous than animals ; because one can never know
the moment when a machine might turn around
to avenge itself on the human creatures who are
its slaves.

The Russian peasants will have nothing to do

291

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

with these monsters. One day the barin brought
one to the fields, where he thought the work be-
hind the plow with horses and oxen not quick
enough. There it stood menacing the men
around it, who looked like pygmies, and who put
all the little screws into its body to make it work.
And woe to the man who forgot one little part or
put in the wrong screw ! The monster treated a
man, a sacred human being of flesh and blood, as
a piece of straw, crushed him, and spit him out
a bloody bundle.

No, the Russian peasant did not like machines ;
he would not have the responsibiUty they
brought to him. He did not like the mechanical
world. There was so much more beauty in the
little flowers, the blossoming trees, and the snow
crystals. No, he preferred to fight with wolves
and bears that announced the danger; and even
if he was killed, he had fought them first. He
was helpless with the machines, and he would not
change his work under the sky, in the open air,
for work underground or in the factories, where
the ears were deafened by the terrible noise,
where danger lurked in every corner, and where
a man could command or dismiss, a man without

292

THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

any mercy, a man who had become a machine him-
self. The Russian reasoned that, if there existed
men who invented such artificial thunders and
lightnings, there would be found others who
would work them, men with mechanical minds,
men who had never worked in the fields, men
who never felt masters, because they never felt
oppressed.

It was a misfortune for the peasants to have
a city in the neighborhood, where they were lured
to take positions as dworniks in shops or inns
particularly attractive to them on account of the
eternal tips. Even the boys were taken to the
capital as little servants, in their national cos-
tume, their only pay being the silken shirts and
nice boots and sufficient food. Some of them re-
mained illiterate, and after a while returned to
the country to be peasants again, a fate most un-
desirable, because they took back with them all
sorts of pretensions that spoiled the simplicity
of the people. Sometimes they learned to read
and to write, and then they were most ambitious
to find masters with whom they could travel.
These made good servants, obedient, intelligent,
and shrewd, and when they came to see their

293

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

peasant parents, they were sho^vn to the others
as wonders, since they had learned a Uttle Ger-
man or French and had picked up gentle man-
ners. But, as an old peasant said, they had lost
their religion and they did not believe in the rights
of the nobles.

It did occur that the landowner was far away
from the people who toiled in his fields and did
not know when the long winter brought no work
and no money with which to buy what was neces-
sary; when the animals died of diseases, and no
one could find out the cause, when the wife fell
ill, and the children, too. Oh, there were trying
times; but this was fate, and perhaps, if the
barin would come to see to things, all would be
much better. But in the noble's castle lived a
stranger who had no heart, who was paid to
supervise the peasants ; and when the harvest was
poor, he took from the peasant's money, so that
the harms income would not be cut down and he
would not lose his place, which gave his wife the
privilege of driving in the noble's coaches and
sitting on the harinofs splendid furniture. So
the peasant suffered because the harin was not
there to look after his children. For this the

a94i

THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

peasant revolted now and then, but it did not
help much; it made life cruel. The police
hounded the peasant, who loved to live
in the open air, to tramp; he was jailed and
forgotten, and his family could die of starva-
tion.

This was all very sad, but it was because Rus-
sia was so vast, and the nobles had too many
estates; the barin could not have his eyes every-
where, and it served the peasant right that he
had not good sense, as his wife said to him wor-
riedly, when he first began to drink and to curse
and to take his ax to kill the superintendent. It
was not his fault that he met other men who had
the same miseiy at home and who had to drink to
forget and to gain courage to kick the cold-
blooded, fat superintendent and his wife, the
stupid, puffed-up woman, who had ear-rings, and
short-nosed, ridiculous children that no longer
spoke Russian. Russian was not fine enough!
But these sinful thoughts and actions were very
unfortunate, and brought him to the abyss. God
probably had tried him, and he had failed. He
wished only that his children, if they ever grew
up under these sad conditions, would be wiser

295

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

than he, and that they would not fall victims to
the vodka devil.

When the prison was too crowded, the peasant
was sometimes given his freedom; sometimes he
was dragged to a wagon, which wheeled slowly
many miles to a place far away from his province
where nobody knew him, where they thought him
a common criminal, where nobody understood
that he was only a misled peasant who never
would revolt again if he could go back to
his family. And his family waited at home, and
after a while he was beheved dead, and the poor
wife went to work to feed the children. The
children, bloodless and thin, began to work too
early or died of smallpox, which always attacks
the feeble more often than the well fed.

Oh, no, there had not been always joy and
happiness for the peasant, and the rich nobles
were to blame ; the nobles did not know the holy
responsibility that the ownership of property im-
plies. It was not the bad education or the lack
of education of the people that had kept Russia
back from civilization, it was the indifference
of the nobles ; it was also the vastness of the coun-
try.

296

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THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

Often a Russian aristocrat, living in Moscow,
would say, if a remote place was mentioned:

"I believe I must own some land out there. I
found a deed among my father's papers when he
died."

It happened that a young heir was the first
man in three generations who wanted to see an
old family estate somewhere in Simbirsk, where
the communications were difficult, and the par-
ents never took the time or suffered the incon-
veniences, to make the long trip from the capital.
It came into his head, when the "intendant" had
refused to advance money on a tract of ten thou-
sand acres of immortgaged land, to travel in-
cognito to the estates and to see what the "in-
tendant" was like. The "intendant" was thought
trustworthy, as the young man's ancestor had
liberated the serf grandfather and rewarded him
for faithful service with the post of overseer.
Sometimes a peasant, sent by all the others,
would make the long journey to present a peti-
tion to the barin. The young barin remembered
the white-bearded old man who sat in the kitchen
to have, first of all, his tea, while he blessed the
children of his barin with tears in his eyes. The

299

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

harins father had explained to the son that peas-
ants always had tears in their ej^es when they
wanted something special and that they were
never contented; that there were always com-
plaint of the *'intendant" about the peasants, and
from the peasants about the "intendant," and
that the best thing to do was not to pay any at-
tention to this, and to let them fight their own
fights. The peasant was dismissed with prom-
ises, but in reality the letter that the harin wrote
to the "intendant" did not help much, and the
peasant's life was much harder.

The young heir took the boat, and where the
Kama River crossed the Volga he left the boat,
and he took a coach with three speedy horses to
make the drive of twenty hours. The pristav
of the little town where the boat stopped
equipped him with the power necessary, and even
a gardovoy sat on the box of the coach.

Nothing could be more peaceful and beautiful
than the forgotten vast, high plains surrounded
by white birch trees, which are nowhere so strong
as in Simbirsk. The roads were bad, and often
the coach sank deep in the muddy ground. The
inn on the deserted road, where the night had to

SOO

THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

be passed, was the most primitive. Its one state-
chamber had three beds in it, in case there might
be, in the night, other travelers. Its price was
one ruble without linen, as it was taken for
granted that the traveler would carry his own
sheets and towels. The state-chamber had not
been opened for months, and had been left un-
touched after the last visitor, who had preferred
to sleep without bed Hnen. The innkeeper was
very sorry that the noble traveler had not an-
nounced his coming the week before. To open
the windows the young man used a knife to pry
out the papers around the casements and to let
in the wonderful aromatic air from the fields and
the woods. The innkeeper shook his head dis-
approvingly, and prophesied to the inexperienced
young man a bad cold, which always came from
too much fresh air.

In the hall, which was used as the dining-room,
sat several peasants and a wandering Jew with
his bundle. As it was late, they had stretched
their tired limbs on the benches. A glance at
the poor Ahasver showed how exhausted he was,
but the innkeeper rebuked them roughly for dis-
respect to the nobleman. The Jew instantly see-

801

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

ing his opportunity, awoke and displayed his
goods, showing that he had everything that could
be needed for the night under the roof of the
inn. Smiling and happy, he retired to a remote
corner, although the young man would have been
much more pleased if the Jew had gone out for
a walk while tea, a delicious cabbage soup, some
fresh piroggi, and a piece of delicate ham were
served for his supper. The night in the inn was
a torture; but it was June, the night was short,
and with the dawn the young man left the room
where the blood-thirsty insects were awake.

The old peasant who drove the coach pointed
out to the young man the sloping milestone that
marked the boundary of his estate.

The young harin was silent and even a little
moved as he drove for hours and hours over land
which was his. He looked around. The seed
was planted, the ground tilled. The httle col-
onies of peasants, which were passed here and
there, appeared no better and no worse than the
other poor, rudimentary villages in the vast soli-
tudes of the Russian landscapes. Dirty children,
amazed, glanced at the coach. Disturbed dogs
infuriated, ran with the horses, only to speed

302

THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

back to the poor houses where they had left old
bones. The slow and groaning coach moved in
a serpentine route over the uneven road to the
top of the plain, which seemed to lie in a veil of
delicate sunbeams. The earth breathed forth a
wonderful fertility from its open furrows of dark
soil.

In the distance oxen drew a plow, and a young
boy, shouting and whipping the animals, walked
behind. Like clouds, between sky and earth, in-
numerable sheep moved over the meadows, nib-
bling the grass and rubbing one another's wool,
for they had not been liberated from their winter
dress. Suddenly at the end of an alley of old
maples shone yellow and friendly the castle of
the estate.

The gardovoy turned to say slyly that perhaps
the harin would better keep his incognito and
make the scoundrelly superintendent believe that
he was a possible purchaser, for the *'intendant"
was a rascal who cheated everybody, whose
daughters were kept like barischnas and even had
a French governess, and whose sons were in the
regiments in Samara. All this did not belong
to an honest "intendant" whose grandparents had

303

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

been serfs. The young man accepted the sug-
gestion of the gardovoy. The old peasant on
the box smiled; Russians like to play a httle
comedy. The coach stopped. The place seemed
sleepy in the warmth of midday. A kind of
Russian butler, barefooted, and with a towel over
his shoulder, appeared around the corner of the
porch. He looked perplexedly at the coach, at
the young man, and at the severe gardovoy.
Visitors! They had not been announced; or
perhaps it was an inspection of the pohce. First
of all he scratched his head and then bowed
humbly. The gardovoy did the talking. Was
Simeon Wassiliewitsch at home? Why, yes, he
was at home ; he was out looking at the stables.

"Then," the gardovoy replied, ''tell Simeon
Wassiliewitsch that noble travelers are here to
buy the place."

The Russian butler opened his mouth wide.
'What, is the place to be sold?" he asked,
'Pascholir said the gardovoy, which meant,
"Hurry up or I will kick you," and the butler
pascholled, to come back after a while in a clean
blue-linen shirt, with high boots on his feet, and
his hair wetted with water or grease. The young

804

(i^

cc-

THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

man was asked to take a seat until Simeon Was-
siliewitsch and his wife Sofia Bogdanowa ap-
peared. It seemed that the house suddenly was
awakened into a state of excitement. Doors
were opened and shut, windows were opened, and
from one of them a rosy-faced, fair-haired girl
looked out, to withdraw, embarrassed, on meet-
ing the young man's laughing glances.

When the gardovoy returned from the stable,
where the horses were unharnessed, he smiled
whimsically.

"The place looks pretty good," he said.
"Simeon Wassiliewitsch hves here like a moth in
a fur-coat."

The "intendant," alarmed, came hurriedly from
the courtyard. He was a rusty-looking fellow,
with sly eyes and a long mustache, which gave
him a martial look. The gardovoy explained in
a few words what the young man had come for.
Simeon bowed a little uneasily, and also scratched
his head. No one had informed him that the new
heir, the young count, would sell the estate, which
had belonged to the family for more than a hun-
dred years.

"That is why," the gardovoy nodded, "the

SOS

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

pristav has ordered that Simeon Wassihewitsch
shall show the estate in minutest detail."

The "intendant," who avoided having much
to do with the police, completely changed his
policy. He probably thought it wise to be very,
very hospitable, and, bowing, he said that it was
an honor to show the place w^here he had been the
superintendent ; he was proud to show how good
and faithful he had been. And how long would
his Excellency, as he addressed the young boj^
give him the great joy to remain there? Several
days, perhaps? Then the guest-rooms would be
put in order right away, so as to make it as com-
fortable as possible for his Excellency under his
humble roof. The gardovoy smiled at the well-
oiled speech of Simeon Wassiliewitsch as he went
away.

The house was clean and comfortable, with its
vast rooms, large windows, and wide halls. It
was partly furnished with good old things,
mingled with pieces that showed an incredible
provincial taste, which made the young heir smile.
He had lost his timidity, and had decided to go
to the bottom of affairs. Anyhow, the estate
was in good condition, — that was apparent, —

S06

THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

and the sly Simeon had made a good fortune for
himself. An excited race of little butlers, all
barefooted at first, and then booted, went on
through the halls, and finally a fat housekeeper
appeared to find out what the guest needed.
The housekeeper looked astonished when the
young man asked for water with which to wash
himself before luncheon. Water at that time of
day! Such a request was a little embarrassing,
for all the water-bearers were in the fields, and
the water was rather remote from the house. At
last they compromised on a tea-cupful of boiling
water from the kitchen. Not only was the water
remote, but the bath-room turned out to be the
little river that flowed at the foot of the garden,
shrubbery" separating the gentlemen's part from
the ladies'; for the housekeeper explained that
the ladies, having a French education, were very
particular. In old times nobody thought of such
a division. She appeared to prefer the old times.
In the dining-room the window-shades were
closed on account of the bright sunlight and it
looked cozy, with the round table, the sideboard
with many bottles and steaming dishes, and with
the friendly, singing samovar. First, a bowing

307

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

with fluttering of white dresses and floating hair
was visible from the ladies of the household, and
the wife of the superintendent, round and stout,
felt honored when the young man kissed her fat,
white hand, and she responded with the cus-
tomary light touch of her lips on his temple. At
the sideboard the men took their glasses of vodka,
while the ladies stood modestly waiting at the
round table for the men to start the luncheon,
which turned out to be an excellent dinner.

The whole family was somewhat frightened by
the news that the estate was to be sold. This
seemed quite unbelievable to Sofia Bogdanowa,
who considered herself a kind of queen and who
never thought that a new owner could dispose
of the property. She sighed, and mentioned the
innumerable inconveniences, — the distance from
social life and the long winters, — but naturally
they could not pass the whole winter there ; after
Christmas they always moved to the little town,
where there would be pleasures for her daughters.
The daughters, sweet, pretty girls, were shy and
silent. They sat without saying a word beside
their Swiss governess, who looked up with burn-
ing, longing eyes, like a poor cow. They talked

308

THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

French, real French, and Sofia Bogdanowa
mingled with her Russian many French words to
show her noble education. Simeon was proud of
his family. He left the conversation to his wife,
and was zealous to have his guest try his best wine
from Bordeaux.

The place was so charming, so calm, and so
remote not only in miles, but in spirit, that even
this lady, who thought herself the last cry in
fashion, was hke a picture of the precieuse time
of Tolstoy's youth. She read French novels and
lived entirely in the world of romance, leaving
everything practical to Simeon, and her only
dream was to spend part of the time in the capital
and part of the time in Carlsbad.

Wonderful horses were in the stables, — horses
of fast breed, with little, intelligent heads, — and
the young heir passed most of the day on
horseback, speeding over the ten thousand
acres. In the evenings he walked with the
young ladies; he was young with them, and
without worries. The estate was in good con-
dition and most profitable; even the misleading
figures that Simeon showed gave an idea of how
much he must have put into his own pocket.

309

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

And there was a coal-mine somewhere, the
gardovoy had found out from the servants, who
did not like Simeon and wanted to have a real
harm. It was like having margarin instead of
real butter. Y^es, Simeon sold the fresh butter,
and sent it to the River Kama, whence it was
shipped God knew how far, perhaps even to Ger-
many. No one could tell exactly. The peasants
had to eat an imitation of butter, which was called
margarin. It was really astonishing how far
advanced this Simbirsk overseer was in modern
inventions.

It was not until the last day of the visit that
the dramatic moment came when the young heir
turned out to be the count, the owner himself.
It was the real last act of a merry comedy. Sofia
Bogdanowa shed tears, the little girls looked
radiant. The governess had guessed it, and
Simeon grew white. The gardovoy had to con-
firm the young man's claim, for Simeon never
would have believed it. But everything came to
a good end. Simeon agreed to pay double rents,
to send verified reports about the estate, and
even to drive with the young count to the provin-
cial town, where he could get cash from the bank.

310

THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

The "intendant" also promised to have a bath-
room in the house when the count would honor
the castle with a visit in the hunting-season, and
that he would look after the peasants, who now
came to make complaints and who had suffered
under Simeon's heavy rule.

This was one of the lucky cases where the
estate was not neglected and ruined, where the
peasants were treated badly only when they dis-
obeyed and refused to work. The "intendant,"
who was regarded as the representative of the
count, had his seat in the zemstvos, and so the
rights of the individual peasant were disregarded.
The zemstvos supervised the estates as a whole,
their products, and, as far as possible, the san-
itary conditions. They tried to eliminate infec-
tious diseases among the peasants and their live
stock. Smallpox alw^ays has been prevalent
in Russia, and nowhere else are so many scarred
faces to be seen.

The zemstvos had departments where lands
were registered, with all details concerning them.
They have regulated the prices of food-stuffs,
established credits, and made possible quicker and
easier work. They also took care of the peasants,

311

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

who were occupied only a few weeks in the year,
on account of the chmate, and who emigrated to
other parts of Russia where population is needed
and the opportunities are better. The provinces
cooperate in having land exploited and the out-
put increased. The zemstvos were the only
organizations in old Russia that really worked
without graft and bribery. The members had
had their own interests too long jeoparded not
to know that oppression of the peasant meant
their own ruin. They knew all the resources
which slumber in Russia's people; the unweak-
ened force of the primitive folk and the wonder-
ful naivete of imaginative souls that found
expression in their legends and their music.
Russian nobility and Russian peasants rose from
one source, and it is most promising that the head
of the zemstvos will help rule new Russia, for
that means that the democracy that rules has its
roots in the heart of Russia.

An entire class by itself is the little nobility
composed of the bureaucracy, the clergy, and the
police. In the smaller towns it is this class which
has played the first violin. The governor, the
head of a province, was the center around which

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THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

the petty ambitions of this class circled socially.
The governor himself usually was a removed gen-
eral of the army or an embarrassing nobleman,
with youthful sins on his record, which made his
high family want him out of the way, or an aspir-
ing politician rising to more exalted place. In
any case, he was a man to be respected. To be
received by the governor and to be invited to his
fetes was the aim of every woman and the ambi-
tion of all officials. Generally the governor had
a good time. He had only to hold his hand open
to obtain presents big and small from all sorts of
petitioners, who never would have been heard by
the minister in the capital if they had not been
reconmiended by the provincial governor, the
intermediary through whose influence everything
had to go. Between the petitioner and the gov-
ernor flourished the tschninowniks, whose good
graces were absolutely necessary to gain the gov-
ernor's ear. Sometimes it was the wife of the
governor who, aware of her importance, pro-
tected, favored, and rejected persons or demands.
In the smaller towns the same intrigues were
woven for little matters as in Moscow or Petro-
grad for large affairs.

315

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

The same system of bribes and graft was
employed everywhere. It was the great achieve-
ment of the governor never to be caught. He
always had his "sale monsieur," who listened to
the petitioner. Those who paid best were heard
first.

If a regiment was stationed in one of the little
towns, life and pleasure were amazing. There
were two clubs, the aristocratic and the club of the
lettered. The club of nobihty, with the governor
as president, was the goal of social ambition. Its
bylaws required the strictest behavior on the
part of its members : a fine of one ruble for spit-
ting against the wall; two rubles for using the
curtains instead of a handkerchief ; five rubles for
calling the waiters swine or attempting to shoot
them when drunk; exclusion from the official
dining-room for a week for breaking chairs or
china when drunk. The members were always
fined, which assured the club a good income.
Ladies were not excluded ; on the contrary, it was
fashionable for them to dine at the club.

The literary club was simpler. It was an
assembly of journalists, physicians, lawyers,
prosperous merchants, and the discontented. It

316

THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

had something of a pohtical character, and
women were admitted on certain days. This
club was suspected. It was a dangerous miheu,
where anarchistic and sociahst meetings were
sometimes discovered, and then closed by the
chief of police, who was a member of the club of
nobility. In many cases the chief of police was a
jovial man who, behind closed doors, yielded to
compromises when the champagne was not too
bad and when members offered him sufficient
money. So it happened that on one stormy
political night such a club was closed and
reopened twice.

Gossip blossomed in the provincial towns, but
to a certain degree gallant adventures were
tolerated, especially if the sinners belonged to the
exclusive class and did not mix with unimportant
personalities. There were rarely any apartment-
houses in the small towns, for there was space
enough for a family to have a house to itself.
The usual frame house was spacious and charac-
terless. The hall, overheated and never aired,
was a mixture of fur coats belonging to both
sexes, rubbers of all sizes, umbrellas, fur caps,
and woolen scarfs. There was a drawing-room

317

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

of cold splendor, which was opened only for great
occasions. A white marble table stood in the
middle of the room, hke an island, and on it were
the family albums in velvet, cheap German work.
Red and blue velvet corner sofas, uncomfortable
arm-chairs, and artificial flowers in alabaster
vases completed its magnificence. In one corner
was a hanging icon, with its ever-burning light,
and in another were assembled glasses containing
preserved cucumbers and fruits. The doors of
the various rooms were never closed, and some-
times a visitor enjoyed the unexpected view of
the lady of the house in the act of dressing. But
the lady was never timid or hypocritical. On the
contrary, she was proud of her complicated
French toilet articles and French cosmetics. As
she was likely to be rather indolent, she often
abandoned the marvels of make-up, sometimes
for days, preferring to lie on her couch with her
books and her cigarettes, not discommoding her-
self and receiving visitors in her negligee. Lying
in a dim light, her untidiness was partly con-
cealed, and the air was heavy with French per-
fumes.

The women of the middle class in Russia are

318

THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

stout like Orientals, and have the same qualities.
Their daughters are confided to governesses ; and
the young girls, sometimes of the finest material,
have the greatest possibilities. But as the par-
ents are blind and too much occupied with their
own lives, the noblest ideals are often abused.
Many of the girls, if not married to husbands
whom in most cases they hated, went to the uni-
versities or to the capital. To get away from the
narrow laziness of their famihes, they joined in
political agitations. In the Russian literature is
too much of good and bad inspiration, which
easily allures both boys and girls to a misunder-
standing of freedom or liberty of life. But
there is a wonderful stock of human force, intelli-
gence, and aspiration in the provinces, which
young Russia will use rightly, and the corrupt
and ridiculous class of little nobility will vanish.
To travel was always the highest desire of the
idle provincial ladies. To have a country home,
owned or rented, at one of the fashionable Cau-
casian water resorts or at the seashore was
absolutely necessary to them. It is not like
traveling; it is like an emigration when such a
familv moves to its summer residence. A Rus-

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

sian train conductor is the most indulgent
creature in the world. He waits at the car-door
until the tschinownik, with his wife, children, and
servants is settled in a compartment with his
hand luggage. This hand luggage consists,
many times, not only of a certain number of
cushions and bed-covers, in addition to bags,
boxes, and baskets, but of sewing-machines,
cradles, perambulators, musical instruments
belonging to the daughters, and finally the pets
of the children, birds, dogs, rabbits and even
white mice. A family often travels for twenty-
four hours and longer to reach the summer place.
After a few hours the crowded compartments
have become like a little town where all the people
know one another. The travelers laugh, chat,
and sleep ; they smoke and drink.

Russia has wonderful health resorts in the
Crimea and the Caucasus, which are favored by
climate and situation. They are equal to those
of the Italian and French Rivieras, and rich in
mineral waters helpful for all sorts of invalids.
Along the shores near Yalta in the Crimea is a
girdle of fascinating gardens and palaces of the
rich Russians and the aristocracy. After the

320

THE PEASANTS— BUREAUCRACY

former czar's family showed a preference for the
Russian Riviera, hotels were opened and prices
became as high as in other fashionable places.

The Russian watering-places never were pre-
pared to furnish the accommodations to be found
in resorts not so remote from the center of the
European world. Side by side with the greatest
luxury the most disagreeable conditions pre-
vailed, and European and American visitors
could not understand the existence of certain
institutions that shocked even the good-natured
Russians.

At Kislavodsk everything is beautifully cared
for, and nothing is different from places like
Carlsbad or Vichy. Elegantly gowned women
promenade to the ever-playing music, drink the
mineral waters, and stop at the different arcades
to purchase typical souvenirs or to drink tea or
eat ice-creams in cafes or confectionery shops.

Yet only a few yards from the bath-house, the
milieu of the fashionable world, the waters drip-
ping from big pipes collect in a round hole, which
the poor folk of Kislavodsk have enlarged to a
good-sized pool, and here, quite unembarrassed,
partly undressed men and women, old and young,

321

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

sit close together taking their baths, and deriving
benefit from the healing springs.

Tourists who go for the first time to Kis-
lavodsk and pass this peculiar spectacle are
startled, but finally they accept the situation. It
is Russian.

82^

CHAPTER XI

TRAVELING IN RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY^ WHICH
WILL BE ALSO THE RUSSIA OF TO-MORROW

In former Russia the loss of a passport was a
calamity. All possible excuses were rejected;
the traveler without the paper with official seal
was absolutely barred if there was not some au-
thority to testify to his harmlessness and to his in-
nocent intention of traveling in Russia only for
pleasure. To add the words "for instruction"
was dangerous, because former Russia did not
want anybody to make a tour of discovery; and
if such a tour was announced officially, the curious
man naturally never learned what he wanted to
know. The Russian official concealed every-
thing that could be valuable to the stranger.

For the outsider the greatest barrier is nat-
urally the language, and if Russians are obstinate,
—and that is what they usually are toward a
stranger, — ^they will not speak a word except in
Russian. Therefore the traveler must collect
words from his pocket dictionary, and as he pro-

32S

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

nounces them absurdly, the Russians shake their
heads as they dismiss him sneeringly.

If the passport was lost, and there was no one
of authority on the train to recognize the unfortu-
nate person, in mild cases, he was detained for
twenty-four hours in the frontier town, with
mixed people, mixed languages, and mixed habits.
It was only by good luck that he could leave the
restaurant, where waiters told sinister stories of
travelers without passports who were recognized
as terrible criminals, or mistaken for them, and
who were not only kept out of Russia, but were
put in jail and sometimes even chained. Such a
delay was hair-raising, and it is strange that tips
did not help at all. The chief trick of officials
was to be over-exacting concerning passports, as
this strictness could hide many laxities in other
directions, and the more the head of the gensdar-
mie at the frontier discovered irregularities, the
more efficient he was supposed to be. For each
irregularity he received a new decoration, and
after he had collected many little orders he was
ripe for the Alexander Nevsky, formerly much
coveted, which shone day and night on the happy
bearer's breast.

TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

When finally a high official would speak in
favor of the poor victim of the Russian frontier,
the unfortunate traveler was released, only to be
convoyed to his destination by a gendarme. The
next difficulty arose at the entrance to his hotel.
It was a very European hotel which the stranger
entered despite the porter in purple blouse and
with peacock feather in his cap. Without delay
the passport was demanded, and before the key
was handed to the little bellboy in national cos-
tume the traveler had to dehver his papers. Be-
fore this trap all other impressions vanished.
The traveler, with cold perspiration on his fore-
head, told his story to the European-speaking
manager, who tried to make him understand that
the hotel could not protect guests without pass-
ports.

The manager advised that the ambassador
from the traveler's country be called up; but if
the ambassador was out, and his staff dining or
supping somewhere, the traveler would be asked
for his credentials. Among the letters of the
traveler might be one addressed to a general in
the suite of the czar. This general could do
everything ; he could achieve miracles. His visit-

S25

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

ing card could make it possible to travel through
Russia without a passport. But the general was
on duty at Tsarskoje Sselo, and only after a tele-
phone message brought answer by an aide-de-
camp that the general expected the gentleman
from abroad, and would be glad to see him the
next morning, the hotel manager was satisfied,
and the little bell-boy led the weary traveler to his
very European suite.

The rooms in the luxurious hotels of the Capital
are not different from those of the hotel palaces
in other parts of the world. The bath-rooms con-
tain the same comforts, and it is only at the water
that travelers will look with a certain apprehen-
sion. The water in Petrograd is the color of
chocolate. Residents assure strangers that it is
the high percentage of iron that makes it of so
dark a tint ; but those who know will confess that
Petrograd is still lacking in sanitary regulations.
The water question is not solved. It is very dis-
agreeable to enter the water, still muddy after
being filtered by the hotel filters, which work day
and night. A servant provides a bottle of boiled
water, according to a strict rule of the hotels, to
prevent the everlasting danger of typhoid fever

326

TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

or cholera. But even with this boiled water the
cautious attendant brings a bottle of excellent
mineral water, with which he advises the guest to
clean his teeth, because one can never know in
Russia what devil can sit in the drinking-water I
No one could be more attentive than the Russian
servant. Smiling and indefatigable, he guesses
the wishes of foreigners. The door of an apart-
ment is always protected, a servant waiting in
the ante-chamber for orders, and eager to please
the stranger confided to his care. Attention
bought with money is less obvious than elsewhere,
and tips are comparatively modest. The servant
smiles; he tries to di^aw attention to things not
known to the traveler, to what passes in the
streets. He tells who lives in neighboring rooms,
and even relates interesting scandals of well-
known personages or of distinguished society
ladies. He is never impertinent, but always
humble. Such a sei^vant is a keen observer, and
never loses his sense of social distances.

The Russian servant is absolutely different
from all others. He is servant heart and soul;
he would be nothing but that, and wants to give
satisfaction. He waits tenderly on his master

827

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

with fatherly affection, and even when taking
part in the most intimate conversation he never
presumes; that is something beyond his under-
standing. He is not a Sociahst. He is alwaj^s
contented until he is associated with others of
his own class who are not Russians. The dis-
contented Russian is very dangerous. The
slightest sign of freedom is usually misunder-
stood by a servant, and there is no difference be-
tween disobedience and mutiny, between word
and deed, between offense and murder. The ex-
pression on the face of the Russian servant is ex-
tremely patient and good-natured. He smiles,
and if the master is disturbed, he tries to smooth
him. He begs, he sheds tears, he wants to be
beaten; and if the master is Russian enough to
slap his servant he is adored, because after such
a storm comes the soft reaction of repentance and
forgiveness.

The climate of Petrograd is trying. ^lost of
the year it is exceedingly damp. When cold, the
north winds are unbearable; and when hot, the
sun is nowhere more merciless than in the long,
unshaded avenues of Petrograd. To walk over
the Kasan or the Isaacs Plaza on a warm day is

828

TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

torture. So really nobody walks, and when the
stranger leaves the hotel door the little istvots-
chiks overrun one another to be at his disposal.
They shed tears to get a few copecks, but they
finally yield their demands good-naturedly when
they see that their arguments are vain. Women
travelers are warned never to hire one of the good-
looking drivers who wait in front of the hotels.
In dark-green, wadded coats they sit solemnly on
the boxes of their comfortable-looking little
coaches; the harness of their long-tailed horses
is ornamented with silver, with little silver bells
on their collars. It is not considered resjDectable
for a woman to drive in these carriages, which are
used by the demi-world.

When the traveler left to the istvoschik what
to see first in former St. Petersburg, he was
driven over the Neva Bridge to the Narodni
Dom, the House of the People, which Czar Nich-
olas II gave to his beloved people and dedicated
to them. It was indeed an imperial gift, and
it would be ungrateful if the Russian people ever
should forget the memory of this czar. The czar
trusted to the progressive taste of Russians when
the house was consecrated to the best perform-

329

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

ances that the aristocracy saw in the Imperial
Opera and the Michelsk Theater. The house
has under its roof two wonderful theaters, one
vast and airy, with every seat at one price. The
operas and ballets were given with the artists
from the Marien Theater, and the settings were
of the same colorful beauty as in the Imperial
Opera. The second theater is an amphitheater
in light oak, and here were offered the best Rus-
sian plays, with excellent casts. The vast build-
ing has large restaurants where the people can
have everything to eat at a very low price and
where alcoholic drinks are not served. The res-
taurants are open during the day for students and
laborers. Surrounded by a garden where on
warm evenings all kinds of refreshments can be
had, the Narodi Dom gives the impression of an
establishment as elegant as any place of amuse-
ment in Paris or London. The theaters are al-
ways crowded, and the people follow the per-
formances with great intensity. Opera-tickets
sell for twenty-five cents, and those for the plays
for ten.

Then the coachman drives to the Alexander
Nevsky Monastery, where the great saint of St.

330

TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

Petersburg has his cathedral. On the way he
points out the imperial buildings, the monument
of Peter the Great, of Catharine, the Little
Mother. He knows exactly what is worth while
looking at, and he makes himself understood by
intelligent signs ; one can see that he is sorry that
the foreigner can not speak his language. But
when understood, he can tell all sorts of stories
about the czar, the generals, the ministers, and
about the saints. He is wide-awake, and his re-
marks are very clever; sometimes he can even
read. He never fails to give his name and to
recommend himself for the next time.

But the serious question of the passport has to
be settled before the foreigner can breathe freely.
The general in the suite of the czar called
promptly in all his military pomp. With a sto-
icism to be admired, he wore his warm uniform,
his official uniform, with all his decorations for
the first call, and he looked really a war hero.
When the servants, with manv bows, announced
him, they looked on the stranger with a kindli-
ness mixed with a certain respect, and when the
foreigner was ready to receive the caller, the
servants, still bowing, ushered him to the door,

331

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

where they waited for him with crossed arms.
The double doors flew open, when the general
stood impressive and formal. But his face
changed quickly to a most charming amiability.
Immediately, without asking, the servant dis-
mantled the general of his heavy coat, for it was
ninety degrees in the shade, but the sword still
hung at his side, for, as he said, a Russian soldier
never parts with his sword. This sounds very
martial, but after the usual glass of tea and very
cold cognac, silently served by the tschelavik, the
general leaned back in the deep fauteuil, talk-
ing interestingly and amusingly in his wonderful
French or English, and then mechanically un-
buckled the leather belt to which the sword was
attached, the ever-present servant taking it and
placing it tenderly on the couch. Then the gen-
eral being quite comfortable, the hours ran like
sand under the animated conversation, and, as
understood the tschelavik brought the zakoustka,
the cigarettes and then served the luncheon,
knowing exactly what a general would like and
what a foreigner should be taught. The Rus-
sian cuisine is excellent. They have those won-
derful fish of the Volga, immense in size and with

332

TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

only the one strong bone in the center. It is the
greatest dehcacy, this cold stor (assitrina) the
famous producer of caviare. Everything was
seasonable — the cold bortsch, the sour cream, the
iced caviar and the champagne cup. To his
amazement the foreigner found afterward, when
the weekly bill was presented, that he had been
the guest of his guest who had ordered the lunch-
eon before presenting himself. Then last of all
a mighty round loaf of bread was brought.
Baked in its center was a silver salt-cup, orna-
mented with unique tula work, with salt in it,
which means soyez le bienvenu.

When the luncheon was ended and conversa-
tion became a little less lively the general sud-
denly smiled and said, "Let us have a little nap ;
it is so refreshing on such a hot day." The
tschelavik was only waiting for the hint. In-
stantly, the general's high boots were off and
lying down peacefully beside his sword on the
couch he took a long doze. All was so natural
because among persons belonging to the same
social world formality absolutely ceases and that
makes life in Russia from the beginning v/onder-
fully human and joyful.

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Still there was the question of the passport.
When awake the general was ready to attend to
the stupid invention of Russian laws, which are
sometimes absolutely necessary, as he added.
The general's own coach waited and the coach-
man, having turned up the tails of his quilted coat
to cool his body, slept patiently on the box. The
general's whistle woke him up and dropping his
coattails, stretching the lines tightly, he made a
startling vault before the hotel door. Presently,
the two black horses sped over the wooden pave-
ment like winged animals, and the general
explained that, despite the automobile, the Rus-
sian horse always would be preferred in the city.
Stopping before police headquarters, there was
a sudden, excited movement among the sleepy,
watching policemen. The expression on the
faces of the policemen, each one thinking himself
mighty, showed signs of fear. The general
asked for the official who handled passports.
Jumping up the stairs and opening doors, the
messenger shouted the name of the general so
often that when the proper official was finally
reached, the man was prepared for his visitor;
but not knowing for what crime he might be

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TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

arrested, he stood behind his desk humbly rub-
bing his hands.

The general explained the ease briefly in com-
manding tones, and the official was so confused
that he did not dare to chase away the flies which
adorned his beard. As he stammered his
answers, the flies entered his open mouth, and he
swallowed them resignedly. Whereupon the
general, turning to the traveler, remarked:
"Look at this animal! He is so afraid that he
even swallows flies!"

When it is summer in Russia, the families of
high officials live in their country places far away
from the capital, and the men pass the week-ends
at near-by sea shores on the Baltic, where life is
gay and devoid of complexities. There are
hotels, but people belonging to society do not
live in them; instead, they rent datches^ little
summer houses, very simple, but comfortable,
and always ready for the barins. For this
reason, when the general drove his guest to his
house, they found it deserted, dismantled,
wrapped in chintzes and papers, only the library
and a bedroom being left habitable for the gen-
eral, who explained that all were in the country,

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

a night's trip distant. He was not very busy,
but every week he had two trying days, — he
sighed, — as then he had to be on duty with his
Majesty. Sometimes it was pleasant when the
czar was in a good humor; but when he had one
of his fits of temper it was unbearable, and heavy
drinking was the only rescue. The czar never
knew what he wanted, and as every two days
there was a different officer on duty, every two
days he changed his ideas about governing Rus-
sia. One day Russia seemed to him the easiest
state to rule, and the next he thought that Russia
should be chained as a whole, from the highest to
the lowest, the people being lower than beasts.
And when the czar had one of his deaf -minded
days nothing could make him change an opinion.
Then brandy helped him to total forgetfulness
of decisions that he was about to make. The
general shook his head; it would end sadly some
day, and then those who were devoted to the czar
could not help him much.

With his powerful influence, the general made
it possible to have the Hermitage opened, which
was closed on account of repairs and for the
hanging of new pictures. Nothing could have

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been more interesting to a stranger than to see
Russian artists at work, because all the officials
who superintended the Hermitage were artists,
and the arrangement of this gallery is an example
of the intense love of art in Russia. No other
gallery in the world has so lively a touch, so little
the atmosphere of a museum, although it is not a
gallery for modern art. The building itself is
flooded wuth light, the walls are not overcrowded,
and the rooms are warmed by the wonderful
colors of lapis lazuli and malachite.

The official who guarded the treasures of the
crown solemnly opened the door to this sanc-
tuary; but as it was nearly dinner-time, he left
the foreigner in the care of the general, who
promised to deliver the key at the office when
the visit was ended. In the quiet of this high-
ceiled room, which opens on the Neva, the setting
sun sent red and gold beams over all the jewels
and precious treasures. It was like the revival
of a childhood dream, in which the chairs were of
gold and the floors of diamonds. It is amazing
how little the Hermitage, with its priceless col-
lections, was watched when compared with an
empty imperial palace. But there was always a

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

certain unconcern regarding things; the watch-
ing was concentrated on the person of the czar.

Among the royal wonders of the Winter
Palace, suddenly they came upon a httle model
of a new military bridge, with all the minutest
details reproduced. The general swore at this
open display of military secrets, and severely
rebuked the officer on duty, who could not
explain why the model had been left there.
Only a few days before the commission had
shown it to the Grand Duke Nicholas, and prob-
ably it had been forgotten. The general put it
in a box and carried it to the war ministry, where
he left it with a responsible officer. He explained
that he did not believe that the model had been
forgotten. It was more likely that a rascally
official wanted to show the model, which was of
great military importance, to a spy, by whom
he would be highly rewarded. And the Winter
Palace, deserted in summer, was a favorable
place for such an undertaking.

When the summer sun sets, Petrograd is
wrapped for an hour in a dense veil of warmth
and humidity, which is very depressing, as not
a breath of wind blows. The general, after

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TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

having changed his uniform for a khaki blouse
and a hght cap, directed his patient coachman
to the islands in the Neva, where one of his
friends, a high aristocrat, was expecting him to
dinner. A telephone-call was sufficient to an-
nounce a foreign friend. The islands are in a
swampy stretch of the river that has been partly
drained. There are summer houses and palaces,
areas of land planted in the time of Peter the
Great, blossoming shrubs, green lawns, and white
castles, all very fascinating in the evening dusk.
Saluted by two sentinels, the coach drove through
the maple-lined alley to the high-columned house.
The family was assembled in the cool hall with
several invited guests, all informally smoking
cigarettes and drinking cold tea even before
dinner.

The host, a minister, welcomed the foreigner
so heartily, and his wife had so many questions
to ask the traveler, that he had no chance to
satisfy his own curiosity. This vivacious hos-
pitality, which focuses all interest on the guest,
is naturally the method which prevents the for-
eigner from getting into the intimate life of the
Russian. Informality becomes stereotyped, and

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

the foreigner who dines, sups, and takes part in
many amusements for weeks or months suddenly
discovers that he is never taken into the con-
fidence of the family. It is very significant that
Russian women never gossip about one another.
Tragedies that may happen among them are
treated seriously and with delicacy and never as
a scandal; the sincerity of the Russians is too
great, and they do not call what is destiny
or temperament immorality. They are never
ashamed of their tragedies, their unhappiness,
and among themselves they speak of the last
consequences of a tragedy bravely and frankly.
The intensity of feeling in Russian family life
does not permit of little jealousies or suspicions.
Without any hesitation sins are confessed, and
it is rarely that parents abandon unhappy chil-
dren. In many cases in former Russia whole
families were brought to misery by the anarchis-
tic tendencies of one member. There is a won-
derful tie, without narrow-minded despotism,
between daughters and sons and their fathers and
mothers. A great freedom of spirit prevails
everywhere. Conversation flows unhampered by
hypocrisy over the widest range of subjects, and

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TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

the grown-up daughters have their share in it.
Russian women are never frivolous, and Russian
mothers have a beautiful, warm dignity; they are
always the best comrades of their husbands and
their sons. It is not what they say that makes
an impression on the foreigner; it is how they
say it.

Finally, it is true that the members of a Rus-
sian family know much more about their guest
than the guest knows about them. There are
so many differences in every-day habits that, fas-
cinated by the strange color, the traveler often
forgets the individual person in the impression
as a whole. In the absolute informality it seems
as if Russian servants are accustomed to guests,
and therefore the foreigner feels that there are
no embarrassing extras for him. There are, too,
always touching little attentions. "We noticed
that you preferred this dish," the host may say,
"or this entertainment." He sends a box of
candies or cigarettes which the guest has chosen
among others, or he bestows the favorite flowers.
In any case, there is always a surprise for the
guest, and, amazingly, it is just the thing he
likes best.

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

Russian ladies seldom take part at the zakoust-
has and vodka served at a sideboard, sometimes
in another room. They have excellent things
to eat, but they drink only in special cases, and
then the preference is for champagne. The
Russian lady rarely drinks, and it is not usual for
her to smoke. It is understood that the men
may smoke their cigarettes during the meal.
Russian conversation is a source of ever-flowing
interest. It may begin with every-day events
and end in the depths of abstract philosophy.
Russian poets voice the expression of the people
and absolutely without exaggeration. Their
deep knowledge of art and science, their never-
satisfied curiosity, expel from life all banality.
Life to them is the great mystery; nothing is
commonplace. Even their debauches are of an
extraordinary intensity.

After dinner a troika party is arranged. The
silence and fresh air afford relaxation and pre-
pare for the new and interesting pleasures to
come. The troikas speed noiselessly through
alleys on the banks of the Neva, through poor
quarters, over big stones to other islands, where
there is a stop before a summer variety show, a

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TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

huge garden with cabarets in the open air, hght-
opera, prize-fighters, and other attractions.
There are crowds inside, and the many outside
who are peeping in are laughingly accepted and
never chased away. It is very democratic, this
autocratic Russia. When ladies are in the party,
private boxes are preferred. Supper with
champagne is served, and a httle private dance
may be arranged. After all, the chief enter-
tainment is when the Gipsies are let in. It is not
a real party without them. This Russian fad
is not at first understandable to the foreigner.
To him Gipsies would mean a fantastic group of
strange, beauties and black-haired men in theat-
rical costumes. Instead, middle-aged, or per-
haps young women, in untidy clothing, sleepy
and apathetic, slouch in. One of the principal
singers has a bad toothache, and her face is
wrapped in a white handkerchief. The men are
common-looking and, on the whole, rather repul-
sive.

But Russian society cordially greeted them,
and was sympathetic with the woman who had
toothache and grateful that she appeared despite
the pain. The Gipsies sat in a circle. The gen-

S45

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

eral offered several of them, with whom he talked,
champagne, which they took, and drank slowly
to the general's health. Then they began to
sing. It was like opium, a warm, warm melody
repeated and taken up by the chorus until the
woman with the toothache came in. Her voice
was as if heavy drops of a sweet, intoxicating
wine were changed into sounds. The ear became
drunk, the melody passing from the ear to the
mind, and singing it into complete forgetfulness.
It is the highest degree of intoxication, the most
dangerous, this drunkenness caused by human
voices, and it frequently happens that men give
up life and life's duties, family and money, to
live among the Gipsies, to sing with them, and
to have them sing their songs. Again a Russian
mystery. The foreigner takes away an impres-
sion of a terrible hypnotic force, which has a
destroying attraction for Russians.

It was dr.^ light when the general's sleeping
coachman was whistled for, and as the morning
air was chilly, the party drove to a cafe at the
point of the island from which the view of the
Baltic Sea, at the mouth of the Xeva, was
resplendent in the golden light of the warming
sun. 346

TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

The morning hours do not count in the life of a
Russian, his activity beginning after luncheon.
Officials are rarely to be seen before noon. Even
if their nights are not passed in cabarets, they
never go to bed before two o'clock in the morn-
ing. It is the custom to receive visitors after
midnight, and many ladies never see the natural
light for a whole winter.

With great pride the general showed the for-
eigner the imperial libraiy. It was amazing that
even in summer, with the schools closed, the
library was a lively place. The Russian swal-
lows books. He is eager to instruct himself
thoroughl}^ about everything in which he is inter-
ested. He never lives on the surface of things,
and he w^ould never be satisfied to work for his
daily bread only, to have no hours in which to live
his ow^n life, his own joys. It is astonishing that
in the moment when a Russian is first able to read
he understands everything, that the faculty of
knowing existed before the mind was trained.
This is the most promising thing about the Rus-
sian people, but it is also the most perilous,
because when the Russian finds printed what he
thinks about life's incompleteness it makes him

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

unhappy and melancholy. Nowhere else are
people so life-denying as in Russia. The ques-
tion "Why?" is put and discussed by the most
simple persons. But nowhere else are life-
bringing ideas so wonderfully understood as in
Russia, and a Russian may live in a trance over
a new thought. A Russian never will discuss
business affairs after the few office hours neces-
sary for them ; business is a duty that he gets rid
of as soon as possible. There are so many
delightful things waiting for his mind that he
would not for the world burden his spirit with
too much work. This is the reason why negotia-
tions are either hastily closed or are drawn out
for a month or two or di^op into oblivion. The
Russian's imagination must be kept vividly alive
in all business affairs.

A decision to undertake a journey cannot be
left to the last moment, because express tickets
are not to be had at railway stations. Tickets
must be obtained in advance, for they are given
out carefully and are numbered, like American
parlor-car tickets. No Russian can endure
being crowded on a train. If he pays to travel
first-class, he must be left alone. Russian cars

348

TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

have many small compartments, each one
arranged for two persons. Such a compartment
is like a little salon, and is always gay with flowers
and cushions. It is a pleasure to travel for days
in Russia. There is a feeling of comfort and
security. The trains never rush at a dizzying
speed; nowhere could it be more comfortable to
sleep than in a Russian sleeping-car.

Cosmopolitan Russia ends in Moscow. Even
the big hotels cannot be maintained at the modern
European standard of Petrograd. They can-
not be kept clean. The Russian traveler does
not concern himself with sanitary conditions; he
detests discomfort and prescribed rules. Rules
in Russia are always to be circumvented. If a
foreigner in IMoscow is not the guest of a family,
the old-fashioned Russian hotels are to be pre-
ferred to the modern ones. Bath-rooms are not
numerous, for the Russians have their famous
public baths, the steam baths, which no Russian
would fail to visit at least once a week.

Life in Moscow is very stirring. No definite
office hours are observed. Business is transacted
in European-looking offices, which always belong
to foreign representatives, or in the back yards

349

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

of houses, in little rooms lighted by small lamps,
where the samovar is boihng, and where the real
merchants sit at a table drinking tea, smok-
ing, and sometimes discussing large affairs.
Then there are the big Russian restaurants,
where men sit about the whole day, closing deals
between meals, and leaving only to go to another
restaurant. Around the historic Kreml are the
principal stores, in dark houses, dark courtyards,
in dark and dirty streets. Everything that is
modern disturbs Moscow. The new department
stores are hideous and garish in comparison with
the individual, elegant shops where time and
attention is given to each buyer and where arm-
chairs invite customers to stay on for hours. A
great modiste never would keep a lady without
serving the usual glass of tea, and, to make it
easy and pleasant to buy things, milliners send to
the houses many hats from which to make a
choice.

In Moscow the private residences of the aristo-
crats and rich merchants are like realized tales
of a vanished splendor. The Russian delights
in velvets, brocades, carpets, and couches. No
one could be more conservative in his taste and

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TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

his living, no one more erratic in his spiritual life.
He has an indefatigable desire to pierce life's
mystery, its joys, and its distresses. He despises
all earthly needs in the midst of Oriental luxuries.
When new Russia is touched by the naturally
growing servant problem, there will be another
revolution. The Russian will never have his hfe
changed; that life he considers his own.

Moscow is a vivid picture of the Russian, the
visible contradiction of what he aspires to and
what he loves. In him an absolute satisfaction
with conditions is unthinkable. Even though he
may have dreamed of the change for years, the
revolution came too suddenly for him, and while
he will admire its achievements, and with it him-
self for having had the wonderful energy to bring
about what he had talked of for more than a
century — freedom, he will look around timidly
and ask himself what this freedom is. When the
many personal restrictions that freedom demands
are placed upon him, when his life is exposed as
in a mirror, he will never live up to this freedom.

When travehng from Moscow to the interior
of Russia, the modern man, used to comfort,
must absolutely resign himself to privations. If

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

he is fortunate, he may be sent from one family
to another, where he will be received with a hos-
pitality warming to his heart and soul ; but where
he will be dismissed after a while with the same
amount of joy that greeted him. The Russian is
afraid of foreigners and their criticisms; hosts
and servants live in a certain tension under the
eyes of strangers. Of course the hosts are so
amiable that guests would be the last to be aware
of the strain, but when a Russian says some day,
*'Dear friend, you should not spend your precious
time with us humble and boring people," then it
is high time to leave the place. Sometimes it
happens that the stranger, accepted at first with
secret sighs, but after a time regarded without
suspicion, becomes so attracted by real Russian
hfe that he would stay always. This would be
accepted by a Russian, who would never ask such
a friend, "Why are you not attending to your
business?" or say, "We can not keep you for-
ever." The stranger becomes absolutely a mem-
ber of the family, sharing wealth, joys, and griefs,
and in nearly every Russian household is to be
found such an intruder, who has entered this life
of insouciance, this life of long days and long

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TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

nights, this life of sociabihty, where friendships
are not knotted and unknotted in a few weeks.
"This is my brother," the Russian will say, and
the foreigner will find out that he, once a
stranger, has become the man's brother because
of an affinity of souls stronger than blood ties.
Or a foreigner might begin to discuss his host's
hobby, philosophy, and they would continue days
and days, then weeks, months, and years, and
it would be natural that the arguing would end
longing, but not the courage to live up to.

If the traveler in Russia would go not only
with a guide-book in his hands, but with an
awakened soul, he would discover many human
desires reahzed for which other countries have a
longing, but not the courage to live up to.

On the way to southern Russia it is worth
while to stop in the university town of Charkow,
an old town with frightful pavements and so-
called "Grand" hotels, where the doors do not
close, and one has to push trunks against them
to keep the rooms from being invaded by late-
comers with confused senses, where the water
does not run, where the bed-springs slip cogs and
drop the happy sleeper to the floor, where innum-

353

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

erable fleas and flies drive one almost to suicide,
and where, despite all these things, the traveler
enjoys the spirited people, with their eagerness
for humanity and progress.

Nature had somewhat neglected Charkow, and
no trees gave shade for the hot months; but a
park of many thousand acres was made by the
simple method of making the school-children
plant trees twice a year, each httle boy and girl
tending his or her special tree. Then another
generation planted new trees beside the old ones
of their fathers and mothers. In the afternoon
and evening the people go to the park, really
their park, and each greets his tree or his shrub
or his flower-bed. In this simple way is shown
the Russian character, its great simplicity, its
patience.

Russians never can understand why foreigners
care to travel through Russia for pleasure,
because the Russian himself does not travel much
in his own country; he prefers to take his
pleasure-trips in other countries, where he has
more comfort for less money. But he is proud
of his railway trains, and he is right. Nothing

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TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

could be more comfortable or more beautiful
than the Caucasian Express, the White Express,
as it is called. The cars are finished in bird's-eye
maple, the seats being covered with light gray,
protected in summer with white Hnen. This train
takes the traveler first to the Caucasian watering-
resorts. Very elegant, very lively, and wonder-
fully favored by nature are these little places
among the harsh mountains. The hotels, first
class according to Russian ideas, are very expen-
sive, and the pleasures and the night hfe are
healthful for Russians who live more than three
parts of the year on remote estates. The
waters of Kislavodsk are nearly as efficacious
as those of Vichy and Saratoga; but Kislavodsk
was so gay and colorful that sick folk were made
to feel more or less like intruders who disturbed
the joyful picture. The extravagant luxury of
the ladies was most amazing and amusing.
They promenaded to their morning baths in
evening clothes and jewels, and the men danced
in raw silk suits or white flannels in the evening.
The landed aristocracy took their debutante
daughters to Kislavodsk, and after the season

355

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

many brilliant officers of the Caucasian and Don
regiments went back to their garrisons with
young brides and their debts paid.

From Kislavodsk the wonderful express
brings the traveler easily to Tiflis, that strange
city, so European and yet so Asiatic. What
Tiflis is or ever will be has nothing to do with
changes in politics or government. It is like a
little kingdom by itself; it is something of a real
kingdom, a wild kingdom where every man can be
a king. The Caucasians are the best specimens
of mankind, the men and women royally tall and
slender and seignior-like. They look like people
just from the hand of the Creator, The Cau-
casians are wild, but noble. They are naive and
strong, and they have a feeling of contempt for
ugly, stooping people. Tiflis itself, in the
nacreous light of the mountains, often appears
unreal, and to ride on horseback through the
mountains and the high plains, where all the
petty habits of culture are abandoned, and where
a fresh spring at which to wash the face and
hands is all of comfort, is wonderfully reviving,
for one feels thoroughly cleansed in the rippling
wind and the crisping air. For days one might

356

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live on bread and milk and cheese. Nature alone
makes one happy. If one is escorted and pro-
tected, the mountain highwaymen, who are
princes, send the traveler on from one to another,
and everj^where he is received with the hospitality
of Bible times.

From Tiilis the traveler would take the train
to the Black Sea and the Crimea, the sub-tropic
portion of Russia. In the autumn the Crimea
looks like the dreamed-of fruit gardens of
romance. The people have the languid laziness
that characterizes a country where sun and earth
are the gardeners. In spring Livadia and Yalta
have been the imperial Riviera, the seat of the
high aristocracy, and very exclusive.

Unchanged for centuries flows the broad,
majestic Volga in her many-hundred-miles-long
course, sending big boats from the south of Rus-
sia to the north. It is a many-weeks' trip, and
the uniformity of the tranquil days submerges
nervousness in the unbroken grandeur. The
boat life is contemplative, with no rush, no hurry,
no impatience. No one in haste would put his
foot on a Volga boat, and no business man in
Russia is ever in a hurry; he will be in time for

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

the annual fair at Nijni-Novgorod, and hidden
in the hold are the treasures he will exhibit there.
They come from afar, those merchants; they
come from the Persian border; they come from
Manchuria. It is a solemn hour, the morning
hour on the boat; the men pray, the Russian
sailors sing their folk songs. It is another holy
hour when the sun sets, when the boat moves
toward the night, dividing the calm water with
the rhythmic motion of its wheels. The days are
enchanting in their monotony. Life on the boat
is subdued. Many languages are spoken, but,
with a kindly tact, voices never become loud or
disturbing. Cities are passed, and travelers
come and go without haste. Sometimes a boat
lies at a pier for several hours, and the traveler is
able to go on shore to catch glimpses of places
entirely Russian. The stranger may have a
letter to a hospitable family that may be waiting
for the unknown foreigner who will be recognized
immediately as a non-Russian. Samara is one of
the largest cities that the boat passes. There the
Transsiberian train brings Siberian merchants to
the steamer. Samara is a vast place in a vast
plain. Enormous Russian bazaars, which are

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TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

built in quadi^angles, with all sorts of shops out-
side as well as inside, have an Oriental touch with-
out the Oriental noisiness. The Russians move
with a silent poise, wait patiently, make their
selections, and buy. Extremely interesting are
the gold and silver shops, with their masses of
silver and gold icons, the marvelously worked
tea-glasses, and the enormous diamonds. It is
the Russian's pride to buy for his wife the largest
stones possible and many of them, and to have
her travel with immense diamond ear-rings,
chains, and bracelets. In the typical Russian
restaurants, where the prosperous merchants eat
and sit comfortably in their national blouses with
their stout, be jeweled wives, contented with life,
they pass hours over their meals, never speaking
when consuming with great appetite masses of
food that would satisfy other men for a week.

On the plains about Samara are raised the
famous mares which supply the milk for the
kumiss cure. Special estabhshments give oppor-
tunity for the treatment of tuberculosis and
anemia. Samara was a regimental town. It
will be emptied now, and what name will they
give to the proud hussars of Alexandra Feodor-

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

ovna, the black and silver uniformed regiment
of the czarina?

At the time of the fair Nijni-Novgorod looks
as if there were no original inhabitants at all.
Private houses as well as the gastinices lodge the
merchants. Russian hospitality never lets a
foreigner suffer if he has been recommended by
a friend. Rooms are reserved in the Convent of
the Sisters of Saint Afrossinia. At the station
small, high-wheeled istvoschiks are hired ; on one
trunks are fastened, on another, the traveler.
That means that a cover of leather is strapped
over the lap even when the weather is not rainy,
to prevent the traveler from being lost en route,
owing to the speed of the horse. The little car-
riage rocks behind the hurrying horse as it passes
over sticks and stones, rolling from one side to
another as if it were drunk; and despite the
leather cover, the passenger must hold on with
both hands not to be thrown from the seat. The
little horse leaves the town behind and speeds
over a road that looks like hardened waves. The
air is freshened by a fine cooling breeze from the
hills, over which the beams of evening red shine
upon the golden cross of the monastery.

S62

TRAVELING IN RUSSIA

Nijni-Novgorod is so filled with life through
the six weeks of the big fair that, exhausted, it
falls deeply asleep for the rest of the year, when
the courtyards where the enormous quantities
of goods have been shown are closed. In the
innumerable little booths all the wonders of earth
are assembled, from grains to Oriental pearls,
from house-woven materials to Persian gold
brocades, from the skin of calves to the noble furs
of sable and silver fox, from the httle nail to the
pine wood, everything that mankind needs to
live in or to be buried in. But the center of all
this Oriental, cosmopohtan life is the Russian
merchant, with his kindly poise, his patience, and
his broad-minded dealing. He has no pettiness,
he likes to hve and to let live.

Nijni-Novgorod is another thing that will
never be touched by politics or government. It
will remain as it always has been, the unique mer-
cantile center of Russia, which is a Russia of yes-
terday. And this Russia of yesterday should be
the Russia of to-morrow, for it should not become
the banal road of idle travelers, but always
endure as the land which has to be discovered.

S6S

CHAPTER XII

EUSSIA OF TO-MORROW

Young Russia has a tremendous task to
justify her proud name of a democracy. Only
with a clean conscience will she win the power to
establish in Russia's heart faith in herself. She
made her first steps into a world of blood and
tears, and she must protect the early days of her
childhood from the contradictions that brought
about the death-sentence for old Russia. But
while young Russia proclaimed freedom, she
apparently continued and tolerated the policy of
old Russia. She continued war, which is not the
initial demand of a democracy. Democracy in
Russia should have made her entrance as a con-
structive, and not as a destructive, power. This
was not the fault of young Russia; it was the
fault of old Russia, and to maintain her existence
young Russia will be compelled to make promises
the fulfilment of which will exhaust her tender
youth.

364]

RUSSIA OF TO-MORROW

With a sparkling generosity the five granted
all kinds of new wonders to the people, who
looked bewildered on events so adventurous, so
incredible, and could not comprehend why at the
same time young Russia rushed her children into
battles, into new miseries. If the five were so
strong, so mighty; if they were to replace all that
was yesterday imperative to the simple Russian
mind ; if they had the sincere conviction that old
Russia was not the reahty, that land and people
had been held in the spell of a century-long
dream, a dream of terrible nightmares; if the
morning red of a great truth was so flaming as to
awaken the last poor ilhterate, why should the
people open their eyes to see only a continuation
of the dream?

The people had to be avenged. This was the
first great idea, and it would have been a strong
idea if, after the first intoxication of revolt there
could have followed the supreme redeeming act of
peace.

The great sensation in the Russian spring
festival, beginning with the arrest and the dis-
missal of the czar and with the arrest of the czar's
creatures,— exceUencies having been treated as

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

common criminals, — the exciting holiday of the
brief elementary revolution is past. The people
have interred the victims of young Russia with
the most impressive pomp. The first trains from
Siberia have come in, and all the emotions that
accompanied the men and women when they
marched away chained have been revived by their
return. The people, now dull, are expecting
other things to happen. They have bread and
clothing. They have been given money and
many promises. But the people, stirred up, have
lost their ancient patience, which was like a halo
around their heads. They are eager and
demanding; they are beginning to reflect; they
enjoy the new right to draw conclusions.

The czar, they reason, was sent away, and all
of us have freedom to do as we like. What is
freedom which is bestowed on the last muzhik and
taken away from the czar? Perhaps the czar
had too much freedom. And the men who freed
us, have they also the right to dictate to us?
What really has changed? Those who ruled
Russia for hundreds of years, and who, despite
all the maledictions, made a great Russia and
brought out all the immense resources of men and

see

RUSSIA OF TO-MORROW

earth, were they not Russian? Was not the czar
a Russian? Those who punished the czar, who
still fill the fortress of St. Peter and St. Paul, the
lugubrious memorial of darkest Russia, are they
the Russians of to-morrow?

It was perhaps right that the people should
show the czar that God has given them the power
to disgrace a sovereign who did not march toward
the light, but are those five, the rulers of Russia,
marching toward the hght? Why are they the
rulers of to-morrow when still afraid of the Rus-
sia of yesterday ? Otherwise the czar would have
freedom to go wherever he wants to go.

The Russian people slept. From time to
time they rubbed their sleepy eyes, blinked into
the world, and noticed something different to
them. Yes, one day they had more than their
grandfathers ; they were free to work or to starve.
They were grateful. Not all of them suffered
from the suppression of free speech ; there were
many among them who could not read and write.
They knew only that they lived in a world of
limitations. They knew that there are strict
laws in nature for animals, and that a man should
not revolt against rules that God has dictated

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RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

and that men have only interpreted. And when
they were unhappy or discontented they could
accuse the man who interpreted God's laws for
them. They could accuse the czar, and they
could hope that some day God would inspire the
czar to goodness. So they lived between hope
and fear.

Provisional government is what the people will
not understand. It is vague to them ; democracy
is vague to them. They will go about discussing
democracy, and will try to find out what that
great word really means. Some of them have
been in America; some of them are still there.
Democracy is the expression of the power the
people have. They have not a czar in America;
they have a President. He is like a czar, and yet
he is not. He is not the father of his people.
He is not loved ; he is not hated. He is the head
of a great business. Russians can not grasp the
idea that the state is a tremendous business pro-
position. They are old fashioned, and think
there must be some superhuman being who knows
all about the people, the omnipotent one who
rewards and who punishes. The Russian mind
is strongly directed to the unit, to the one of the

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RUSSIA OF TO-MORROW

great number, which is responsible for the httle
numbers that form the big figures. They must
have this one. The czar had not a position; he
had a mission. But a President— how can he be
popular, and how can people beheve in his final
decision, when before his election they stripped
him of all his good quahties, because a part of the
people belonged to a political party that favored
another man? And how is it possible, so the
Russian ponders, to look up to a man who was
not elected because he was the wisest and strong-
est, but because the party who elected him was
stronger, had more money, or had better fighters?
The President's own party has to pull together
the stripped figure and show his capacity as a
whole. Each new figurehead must first struggle
against all kinds of prejudices among the people
who accepted him or rejected him. When finally
he has begun to win confidence, to be a man of his
own personality, of his own color, when he has
ceased to be a figurehead, the battles begin again
for a new man. And this they call democracy.
This might be possible for a country like Amer-
ica, where the people were first before they had
their rulers, where the people settled from old

369

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

countries from which they brought knowledge of
everything that history taught them. The set-
tlement of America began only when Russia still
had her czar.

It is very difficult to take away from the Rus-
sian the idea that the czar was the man next to
God, that he had to be crowned with a heavy
diadem of gold and costly stones, that he had to
be draped in a purple robe bordered with ermine,
that splendor distinguishes him from other
mortals. When this man, sometimes kind and
generous, stepped down from his golden throne
and condescended to the people, great miracles
were achieved ; victories were won where the czar
showed himself. The Russians worshiped this
mysterious force, and that made of them the
devoted, the imaginative, the patient people.

The Russian people look to-day on the five
heroes of the revolution as the link that connects
the Russia of yesterday with the Russia of
to-morrow. They have a childlike confidence in
those five. They see in them their own force
reflected, a force never known before, and they
accept the ^ve as those who will prepare young
Russia for to-morrow.

370

RUSSIA OF TO-MORROW

The Russians would not talk of a republic.
They were afraid before this denial of their
holiest convictions. The five who first headed
the new Government were wise enough to call
themselves "provisional." They know why.
These rulers will have to answer, and they will
disappoint the people, whom they hurried into
tremendous changes, from whom they took away
the illusion that beyond enslavement exists a con-
tentment on earth. As a substitute for the czar
the five must provide for to-morrow an equal
grandeur for the people's soul, which still is the
Russian soul that they would not sacrifice for
the comfort of the body. The meaning of the
Russia of to-morrow for the people can be felt
only through a deep knowledge of the Russian
character.

The Russian as an individual man did not
bother much about the blessings that the five
bestowed first so hberally. Personally he had
nothing to do with the question of religious free-
dom. If sects appeared or disappeared, that
was merely a matter of a few who fanatically
believed in a new Messiah. The Russian knew
that every one has to suffer for his faith, and a

371

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

faith would not be worth while if there was no
suffering for it. Christ died for mankind.
Christ was the great martyr. The man who
preaches a new faith must know that he, also,
will be a martyr some day; that belongs to his
holy vocation. If a man who proclaims a new
faith has not the courage to die for that faith,
then the faith is wrong. The Russian Church
did not want the sectarians ; she did not want the
Jews, who are a strong race, a convincing race, a
race that has had its martyrs, which still has its
martyrs. In the Russian people is a holy respect
for everything that has suffered for a conviction,
and if they object to the Jews as a race, they
respect their faith.

The Russia of to-morrow means more for the
Russian than political freedom. Even in the
darkest days of old Russia the human being felt,
as nowhere else, rest for the soul. Nothing was
ridiculed, neither imagination nor utopianism.
The soul could expand; it could laugh and cry.
Human sins met nowhere else such kindly, sym-
pathetic understanding. Nowhere else was there
such fertile earth for fantastic ideas. Freedom
for Russia means more than the simple liberties

RUSSIA OF TO-MORROW

which are permitted in other democracies, where,
for utihtarian reasons, the people are able to
rule themselves, where the people recognize
restrictions which are necessary for maintaining
pubhc order, and where the exceptional cases are
punished. In Russia are too many exceptions,
and the first disappointment for the Russians
will come through the simple laws to which
every man has to submit for the sake of the
country.

There will be many little revolutions growing
out of the varying opinions of what freedom
means. In Russia live many persons who never
have been connected with political movements.
These will demand other reforms, a different sort
of freedom. The Slavic fantasy is so extensive
that every man in Russia has his own dream,
which he will want fulfilled, and every man will
rush to the new rulers to make his own demands.
When the busy ministers will not have special
time for him, the Russian will go back home to
tell his fellow-men that such a thing as freedom
does not exist, and that he prefers to be ruled by
a czar, who had a regular cabinet, with many men
employed to listen to petitions, rather than to be

373

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

snubbed by men of the people who think them-
selves the new autocrats.

It is a fact that the cabinet of the czars at which
petitions were received was hke a little govern-
ment of itself. Catharine the Great desired to
meet all petitioners, to look into demands per-
sonally, and to grant them or to explain why
they could not be granted. She had to give up
this plan, and she appointed three high officials
as state secretaries to communicate with peti-
tioners "kindly, patiently, indulgently"; but
sealed letters addressed privately and confi-
dentially to "His Majesty's own hand" reached
the sovereign without intervention.

Czar Paul tried to imitate Catharine and made
every effort to come into contact with the people,
who went to the palace. To facilitate the receiv-
ing of petitions, a large iron box painted yellow
was attached to one of the windows on the gTound
floor of the Winter Palace in Petrograd. This
box had to be opened by the state secretary and
the contents submitted to the czar. Some peti-
tions were so absurd that they were partly torn
and returned through the postoffice. Others
were pubhshed in the St. Petersburg "Gazette,"

374

RUSSIA OF TO-MORROW

with the reasons for refusal. In 1799 this same
Czar Paul was so eager to meet all demands from
his people that he issued a ukase forbidding the
presentation of unreasonable requests; but it
gradually became impossible to prolong the box
method of communication.

In the time of Alexander I a commission of
appeals was establishe<i, and in the time of Czar
Nicholas the court of petitions was reorganized,
more or less on the basis upon which it had existed
under the last Czar Nicholas II, the members
being appointed by the czar himself. To their
former duties were added others relating to
orphans and lunatics. By the wish of his
Majesty the reasons for refusals to grant favors
were sometimes given, but this could not always
be observed. Czar Nicholas II gave orders to
enlarge the court's sphere of work by accepting
appeals to imperial mercy for criminal charges
and misdemeanors.

In 1907, an average year, 65,375 petitions went
through this court, and of this great number
64,174 were fortunate enough to be attended
to without delay. As a rule 65,000 petitions
were presented annually. Imperial benevolence

375

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

toward children reached 10,000 cases a
year.

This court of petitions will cease to exist, and
the people will expect every one of the provisional
rulers to confer personally with the petitioners.
The first discontent will be awakened. What
the Russians endured from the "Little Father"
they will never accept from democratic rulers.
And the people will demand more and more,
believing that nothing can be refused them.
The people have been promised freedom, and
freedom is an elastic word. The people will take
their petitions to the provisional Government,
and all refusals will be regarded as a terrible
injustice. This democratic Government sits
among the people, and people must be heard.
Freedom has rung in the last little village of
Russia, and men and women are on their way,
with hopes of acquiring more sheep or land from
this wonder of democratic Government, an insti-
tution which had the muscles of a giant and was
forceful enough to turn over the throne. They
think that now the five are only waiting to listen
to their desires, and to do kind things for the
mothers and fathers whose children are still fight-

376

RUSSIA OF TO-MORROW

ing, still dying. But they will discover that in
the consideration of their demands nothing has
changed, that this provisional Government is an
invisible body which cannot be touched and which
is impersonal. They will be received by some
tired, busy clerk and they will see their petition
disappear into a desk. They will go back shak-
ing their heads and not understanding at all why
a democracy should be better for Russia. The
democratic leaders will sigh more heavily under
the demands of the people than the people sighed
under their oppressors.

The Russians dream now of electing a czar oy
the grace of the people, a czar who will unite in
his person all the qualities scattered among the
members of the body called the provisional Gov-
ernment. The provisional Government does not
impose the idea of a reverent feeling of remote-
ness. The Russians cannot see that thev are
bound now to help their rulers instead of hamper-
ing them. They cannot see this, because "ruler"
is a higher idea for them, an idea which wears a
crown, which is specially and personally helped
by God. The excuse for the delay of affairs
which are important to the individual man has

377

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

vanished ; the people want to have their own, their
private griefs considered first, and every one of
them will revolt against neglect. For what is a
people's Government when the poor people come
last?

In crown and ermine was a magic spell that
banished criticism, and the monarchial idea must
be forever removed from the people's hearts. It
is like in the old song of mother's love for her
erring child. When the child has torn out the
mother's heart, which rolls on the floor, the
mother's dying voice murmurs : "Take care, my
child, not to fall over my heart and hurt your-
self."

With the hymns of freedom in Russia, tears
were shed for the czar and, dethroning him, they
expected to proclaim the czarevitch enthus-
iastically. But the five forced the czar to
abdicate for himself and for the czarevitch, the
pretext to keep the dynasty being merely an act
of policy.

Nothing was brought before the people con-
cerning those last happenings between the czar
and the representatives of the Duma, who, one
morning, manifested themselves as rulers to the

378

RUSSIA OF TO-MORROW

surprise of the people. "God has illuminated
these men," the people said as they prayed that
injustice in Russia would end. "They will sit
at the right of the czar, and will restore Russia's
glory to the inner and the outer world, and the
czar will make a new oath."

The world outside of Russia must not have the
illusion that the Russian democracy is settled.
How should a people so long mysterious as a
whole suddenly be awakened to new ideas, though
the Russian has not changed? The world outside
of Russia rejoiced at the victory of the democ-
racy, and did not realize what the Russians might
suffer in the exposure of their young helplessness.
They always belonged to the democracy of
genius, which made them all equal before the
great world spirit. The democracy applicable
to others will make of them dull, simple people,
with stomachs satisfied, and with their miseries
disclosed through health departments. Chari-
table women will go among them and will force
them to become happy.

Old Russia will change from the mysterious
conditions of hunger and fear to the banal cer-
tainty of a people who will recognize business

379

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

opportunities. Old characteristics of the primi-
tive, the strange Russia will be first sacrificed to
a practical spirit, and old Russia will be buried
and burned and reconstructed into sky-scrapers,
into factories. The people will forget the songs
of their oppression; they will become fat and
banal. They will read and write, and will quote
the wisdom of the newspapers instead of their old
sayings and prophecies. They will become a
political people, with all the prosaic horrors of
elections, and small ambitions will take the place
of cruel grandeurs. Heroism will be eliminated ;
there will be no longer risk of life or deportation,
no longer the dream-like secret meetings. The
Russians were the wonder-people who thought
they had to wait for something marvelous, great,
and new, an earthly heaven. They had fought
for life, not only for suffrage and imagined
splendors. The people were serfs, and their
souls had wings; the suppressed word had much
more to say than unrestrained speech, and hopes
were more beautiful than realizations.

The Russian suddenly will have to close his
mind to spiritual miracles and to open it to the
daj^'s necessities. He will no longer have time

380

RUSSIA OF TO-MORROW

to discuss the affairs of souls and their beatitudes ;
he will discuss new corporations. He will live
much faster, and the charm of the long, long
days, which began only at noon and ended when
the next morning dawned, will disappear. There
will be no longer many, many holy days, with
the interruption of church services, for the saints
never have had room in the pragmatism of a
democracy. Gaiety and life of individuality will
change into the hypocrisy of civilized habits.
Souls will be emptied, and art will be submerged
by inventions of practical value. A nation of
dreamers and philosophers will become bathed,
clean-shaved Russian citizens.

Beneath all that was Russian to the outer world
slumbers quite another Russia, not the barbaric
Russia, not the anarchistic, nihilistic Russia, not
the Russia known to-day, — the confused people
who blindly follow the strongest or run in wild
disorder in another direction, — but a Russia that
is revealed only to those who know her, who love
her so greatly that they would not die for her, but
would live for her; a Russia young, emanat-
ing, above democracy and autocracy; with a
force too overwhelming to be freed, a force that

381

RUSSIA OF YESTERDAY AND TO-MORROW

would conquer the whole world, a force that must
be tamed at any cost until Russian ideals, through
education, enter into the age of ripeness and
become like a precious wine, golden, heavy, and
sweet, a wonder drink for all mankind. This is
the Russia of to-morrow.

THE END

382

DATE DUE

DK 262.S6

3 9358 00341168 0

DK
262

Soulny-Seydlitz, Lconle Ida Philipovna, baroness

Russia of yesterday and to-morrow.
New York, The Century co. , 1917.

3<1-1168