"It was a long wait till midnight when the mob outside expected to
be invited to a division of the spoils.... but my plans were taking
shape gradually as the moments slipped away.... In this isolated,
though nicely furnished and elegant two-story dwelling, I got closer
to the heart of my celebrated prisoner and his family than any other
man alive.... In the few hours left to us before the time set for
their 'execution'--in these evening shadows of July, 1918,--we have
been discussing the effect of THEIR SACRIFICE upon the history of the
world.... I put this down from memory:
"'It is understood already in certain chancellories,' my prisoner
significantly replied, 'how my execution will be publicly accounted
for.... Each Ministry will appoint a Commission, suggested by the
Crown, to investigate and publish its own report.... The report
published will be given out under the name of a Naval or Military
Commission to impart an official sanction to the supposed inquiry and
support the authenticity of the document agreed upon.... Naturally
these prearranged reports will vary so as to satisfy the state of
mind in each particular country.'... 'If regicides are so easily
arranged,' I observed cautiously, 'perhaps the duration of this
"Revolution" is also definitely determined?'... There'll be a period
of revolution and distress,' my prisoner remarked, 'before our
country settles down to industry and contentment. But the desire of
"self-determination" will mislead the unfortunate and cause them to
embrace a tyranny of the most cruel and selfish type. This will last
for a time until gluttony destroys itself, as all excesses do. When
the country is dismembered by the activities of rival greeds, my poor
and honest peasants will turn upon their masters and restore this
nation's power. They need but education to accomplish glorious
results. They will obtain this education while they suffer and evolve
a science of self-government while learning to govern themselves.
It may seem strange to others when I say so; but not one of my whole
family is covetous of the Imperial Crown. We prefer peace and liberty
to all the pomp and penalties of Royal isolation from the rest of men
and women in the world. Royalty means SLAVERY of the most humiliating
form. The boy or girl that is doomed to Royal birth steps into a
prison with the first breath he breathes.... Take my own case; I
longed to get out and play rough-and-tumble with the boys I saw
staring at me in the streets. But I was taught by my English tutor,
Heath, that it would be lowering my dignity to associate with those
fine young boys. My "dignity" was placed in a strait-jacket and, in a
namby-pamby way, I was taught to play ALONE. I had cousins scattered
over Europe who took their lot more happily than I; but even they
regretted the mocking barriers that laid down a barrage between us
and the more fortunate chaps outside,--outside, they enjoyed
FREEDOM,--within, we were ALL prisoners in our little cells of
etiquette and traditionary bondage. At fifteen I was dragged away
to the Military Academy at Petrograd[A] and made to listen to old
Danilovich until I actually hated the very name of war. I resolved at
that time to inaugurate some means to get rid of such senseless waste
of life if intrusted with the power. The Hague was my interpretation
of what should constitute a proper exercise of international
obligation. You realize, of course, the precarious state of Russia
in a military sense,--while force was indispensable to hold us all
together from within, it always exposed our weakness when directed
toward external issues. I could not map out my own general education,
even; forced by the traditions of my family I was placed in charge
of the Holy Synod and taught by Pobedonostzev to regard myself as
the source of SPIRITUAL POWER and instructed to regard an unorthodox
opinion as a transportation offense. Now, while I reverence profoundly
the sacred tenets of my holy religion, I regard religious freedom as
indispensable to the dignity of spiritual belief. For that reason
I made that reformation in 1905. As I grew up I rebelled against my
intolerable confinement,--I went out among the PEOPLE and TALKED
WITH THEM. They were friendly in most instances and gave me very good
advice. I did not need a bodyguard to go about. I was as safe among
the people as I would be in the Winter Palace. Often have I walked to
the hotels alone to call on some particular friend without any thought
of fear. Nor was it necessary,--I liked the people as genuinely as I
believe they respected me. I learned their hunger for land by going
around; and it was on that account that I projected and completed our
Siberian Railways so as to give our people the coveted opportunity
and an outlet to the markets of the world. Given an opportunity to
accumulate and prosper, men will hesitate about going to war unless
THEY ARE MISLED. I saw such an opportunity in international trade. I
visited the Orient, extensively investigating the commercial field
in that direction. It was a mighty task, necessitating a reference to
others who should have been as much interested in the accomplishment
as I was myself. Their mistakes have made me quite unhappy and there
has always been CONTENTION between my Ministers and myself. If Witte
had kept his hands off when Count Solsky got after the plotting school
teachers and rebellious students, the propaganda against my reign
which has honeycombed the Empire with sedition might have been
checked in time to prevent this dissolution,--for it is more than a
"revolution." It is idealism run amuck. France, England, the people of
America, have been duped by the intelligentia--the Kadets--who never
seemed to realize that in order to hold this Empire together not
only FORCE but SUPERSTITION was required,--'_si mundus vult decipi
decipiatur_,' it is the only principle that will hold unorganized
ignorance in disciplinary subjection to orderly and regulated
progress; and without this discipline the ARMY, or the power that
holds this incongruous Nation together, will dissolve, as you may now
see, while the whole Empire will fly to pieces. My strong Ministers
were too physical and myopic to look beyond their noses. They were
afraid to seem afraid of _truth_,--and they even accused me of
plotting with Kazantsev and Feodorov against the life of my Minister
of Finance,--always excuses for fomenting discontent! They never
seemed to realize that the HAPPINESS of the PEOPLE meant the SECURITY
of the CROWN. As a matter of fact the only loyal supporters I ever had
around me were my wife and family besides a few others in the service
of the State. When I announced my war aims on the Pacific for the
benefit of my people my leading Minister had the audacity to obtrude
upon my privacy at Tsarskoye Selo and demand that I withdraw the
manifesto. This piece of impudence cost me the decision in that war.
That magniloquent Minister, with his versatile Irish amanuensis, not
only turned my mother against me, but he had the temerity to demand
that I dismiss my best agent, Azeff, who alone kept me advised of the
machinations of the Social Revolutionists, who, in turn, accused me of
murdering my uncle Sergius--the greatest theologian of the age. As I
recall the time, now, I am, of course, convinced that the only _real
friend_ I had among those Social Revolutionists was BURTZEV,--but
I understood him too late!'... My prisoner spoke regretfully. His
voice was soft and courteous, breaking at times into the altisonance
of the tragic muse. He does not think that any act of his can be
wrong; the mere fact that HE ran counter to accepted standards
divests, in his mind, the act itself of turpitude. That seems to be
the way he looked upon his former Eastern encrouchments. That's the
way he justified his subterranean deals with the KAISER; and he even
goes so far as to assert that '_if the Vyborg-Björkesund treaty had
not been denounced the present war would not have happened_.' He
speaks of this a little passionately, scorning the very memory of
Count Witte for 'questioning the morality of that arrangement.'
That great Minister my prisoner refers to as '_an uncouth bully who
bellowed like a mad bull_.' In this respect it is my impression that
the ex-Empress indorses his state of mind. What he likes she will
place in the superlative; what he merely hates, _she_ elevates to
positive abhorrence. In this way she seems to flatter his decisions,
which makes him smile quite indulgently at her, and hold her
ascendency over his apparently veering mind. I can notice this in so
many little things: She oozes delicate flattery and he likes it;
she plays upon his _prejudices_, and he seems to have a lot of them
submerged beneath his inalienable urbanity and instinctive grace of
manner that even this misery and abysmal gloom have not relieved of
polish. Beneath it all I get the impression that he is very much in
love with every member of his family.... that he would like to
be _alone_ with 'Alice,' whom he addresses as 'my darling' and
experiences a shell-shock if she stubs her toe. His final words are:
'Now it is ALL OVER and I WILL WELCOME THE OBLIVION that will release
us all from the memory of our devoted bondage!'... While my prisoner
conversed Alexis assisted his stately mother and his four beautiful
sisters while putting on their superannuated wraps.... One by one they
filed out the door leading into the open yard.... My prisoner stood
up and stretched himself.... He was about to resume his seat when the
report of a revolver resounded in our ears.... The brute on the
floor, wallowing in his blood, was raised upon his elbows and firing
recklessly.... After he had fired six rounds without apparent injury
I drew my own revolver and fired deliberately INTO THE WALL.... The
fellow slunk back to silence.... My prisoner and I followed
the ladies out into the night, _forgetting_ a jewel or two in our
leisurely departure.... Out in the open WE DESCENDED into the old
abandoned tunnel that formerly led from Ipatievs to the medical office
of a foreign consulate a thousand feet away...."
[Footnote A: Nicholas used "Petrograd," not the German nomenclature.]