"Thank you. So you see.... What were we talking about?... Ah, yes,
indeed,--how silly of me! Well so I am in a big game. It may seem that
I am in the wrong. But think of the time when there will be a moment,
when just a few persons, maybe only one person, will be able to appear
again on the stage and become the nucleus of regeneration? And if I
am wrong--and such moment will never come--it is so easy to get rid of
those whom many persons are trying to preserve...."
"Yes," I said, smiling at her enthusiasm and innocent cynicism.
"Please omit your insinuations and sarcasm, you bad thing. I only see
you are not patriotic, or you have something personal against me."
"You can judge better than others on this last point. It looks to me
as though you were wrong about the rest, however....
(_a page torn out_)
"... I saw Tatiana (don't ask me questions, if you please!) and the
girl said that there are only two acceptable ways: to be released
by the will of the people, or taken against their will, a kidnapping
staged. Other methods will meet with a refusal. That is why the
Emperor refused a formal foreign intervention, for it would place them
in a position of parasites with the "ex" title. After everything is
through--all of your Kerenskys--a parasite could not be popular and
desirable.... Well, she got up,--"goodby! Kiss Maroossia for me.
And here is a friendly warning: don't talk. _It is dangerous._ Don't
trust. _It is silly_. Write to Sophie's house in Paris--it will reach
me. So sorry we cannot be together!"
She left me.
15.
Saw a real picture of the time: General S-sky in the Renault
with Joffe! Smiles and hand-shakes. Red arm-bands. The tall
Dolivo-Dobrovolsky from the Foreign Office was with this couple. In
January, when S-sky got his car he said: "I'd rather sell the car than
let a Jew ride in it," when Gunzburg asked to use the automobile.
Madame D's apartment was robbed. Nobody knows "how it happened."
The house guard keeps silent on the subject. Paul sent her a wire to
Kursk, very laconic: "home emptied everything stolen." Now he received
a reply: "Sublet unfurnished." She is a darling. Never saw such
energy. I wonder whether she is trying to get the Emperor out too?...
16.
My interview with his Excellency is worthy of description. Since my
graduation from the Lyceum up to the present time--I have seen many
men of power; when young--they usually knocked me down by their
aureole of magnificence; with age I learned how to distinguish almost
unmistakably in the splendor of that scenery an idiot from a crook.
This one--was quite peculiar.
Kerensky made me wait for about one hour during which I had enough
time to ascertain that since the new régime the rooms had not been
dusted. So what Kerensky said to some foreigner: "Regenerated Russia
will not have recourse to the shameful methods utilized by the old
régime"--were untruthful words. The dust evidently was old régime's.
At the end of the hour (it was enough for Kerensky!) I decided to go
home and mail the resignation. When I got up, however, one of his men
(the young rascal was watching me, I am sure) entered and asked me to
step in. The staging of the reception was prearranged and intended
to impress the visitor; on the desk of the Minister I saw maps and
charts, specimens of tobacco for the soldiers, designs of the new
scenery for the Mariinsky Theatre, models of American shells, foreign
newspapers, barbed wire scissors, etc., etc., just to show the
newcomer the immense range of His Excellency's occupations and duties.
When I stepped in, Kerensky looked at me, posing as being exceedingly
fatigued in caring for the benefit of others. He almost suffered! He
never looked to me so exotic as at this moment: the Palace--and, at
the same time the perspiring forehead, the dirty military outfit. The
magnificence of power,--and the yellowish collar, badly shined
boots. He was glad of the impression produced on me, as I registered
disgust,--he, with his usual knowledge of men, thought it worship.
"Look how we, new Russians, are working"--shouted his whole
appearance, "look, you pig, and compare with what you have been
doing!"
"Alexander Fedorovich," I said approaching him, "I thought I had to
bring my resignation personally. You'll find the reasons as "family
circumstances,"--and I gave him the paper.
He rose. With one hand on the buttons of his uniform and the other on
the desk, he believed himself to look like Napoleon. Like Napoleon
he looked straight into my eyes. But his weak and thin fingers were
always moving like a small octopus--Napoleon's were stronger.
"May I ask you the real cause of your resignation?" he said, vainly
forcing his high-pitched voice lower.
"If you care to know it," I said calmly,--"It is disgust."
Napoleon faded away from his face, and before me was again Monsieur
Kerensky, a little lawyer with whom I had once made a trip from Moscow
to Petrograd. A little lawyer who tried to please me and looked for my
sympathy.
"That's the appreciation of our work!... Poor Russia! She is deserted!
Here I am all alone to carry this burden"--and Kerensky showed with a
circular movement of disorder on his desk,--"But you," he continued,
after a pause,--"you! Why should _you_ be disgusted, and why should
_you_ leave us at this strenuous moment? Don't you see that the
building up of the state needs the full co-operation of every element
of Russia,--the new ones, as well as the old?"
I said that I did not think I was more of an old element than he, but
repeated my categoric decision.
As if wounded right in the heart, with a theatrical sigh, Kerensky
looked out of the window, then smiled bitterly, and took the paper
from me. "I grant you your request. I know what disgusted you,--and,
and--I understand. I hope you will not regret this step."
He sat down thus politely indicating the end of the audience. Here,
on his desk, I noticed one of the last numbers of the "L'Illustration"
with a large picture of himself on it, which he was studying while I
was waiting for his interview.
How easy I feel! Left to my own affairs, to my own business, all to my
very own self! Thank God! I never felt this way before.
And our national Tartarin of Tarrascon--at his desk in the palace,
with his people, always meeting polite and covetous eyes,--will
continue his hard work. Under every smile and every bow, he will
see--up to the grave, the veiled appreciation: "By God, what a small
thing you are." On the pages of history his name will forever remain
and look like the trace of a malicious and sick fly.
17.
How glad I am that Maroossia went away! I feel more at ease though the
housekeeping is up to me.
There was more shooting and more of revolution, than heretofore,
during all of these days,--one more evidence that the building of the
new state is in full progress. Of course,--these days brought
Kerensky as high up as he only can go. Next will be his precipitated
downfall,--much speedier than his elevation. Why do the Allies make
this mistake of letting a worm like Kerensky endanger the cause--it
is a mystery ... though "there are no mysteries in this plainest of
planets."
Nahkamkes and Trotzky--found! and in jail, for the moment
being,--perhaps like the Baroness, or even easier! But the man, the
real German hound of Petrograd, Monsieur Ulianov-Lenin,--could not be
found. _Could not be found_ is true. He has not been looked for,
as any ass knows where he is. They send him meals from Félicien, or
Ernest.
Away from here! I must be going as soon as I get the things
straightened.
Have wired to Maroossia that I am still alive, otherwise she is liable
to appear again. Elisabeth wrote a letter from Moscow and said that
"here--everybody is well and things look satisfactory. Food supplies
in abundance. All active in building up the state." Is she sick? Who
is building the state? We destroy.
They speak of putting the Emperor in jail,--the St. Peter and Paul
Fortress. On the other hand Polenov was told that Kerensky won't
tolerate any abuse to "private citizens." How about other private
citizens?
18.
So finally they all lost.
The Emperor was taken away,--and both Mikhalovskys died for nothing,
just looking for the plotters, I think, or, perhaps, they were
plotting themselves?
Mr. Kerensky did not dare to do it himself personally, as he used
to say it repeatedly in Tsarskoye. No! Lies usually led him to other
things: to give to the Family a "detachment of special destination"
under Col. Kobylinsky (a fine man,--Emperor's A.D.C. during the
Empire, and his jailer during the Republic!) and Monsieur Makarov,
under whose command they all left for Tobolsk. I had to buy a map.
Sorry to ascertain it, but I have always mixed up Tomsk, Tobolsk and
Yakutsk. Which was which was a puzzle to me. We Russians must be proud
of our perfect ignorance of Siberia.
Monsieur Makarov? Nobody knew him, but, of course, Polenov. "Oh,"
he said, when I told him the news, "Makarov. A man who looks like
Turguenev, smells of French perfumes, speaks of the arts and is a
contractor!?... Of course I know of him. He is from the "Brussov and
Makarov Contracting Company"--the rascal! Kerensky knew him long ago,
I am sure. The first thing when he got powerful he appointed Makarov
as something in the Ministry of Beaux-Arts!"
From what I learned afterwards from Admiral and B-tov, all of "the
rats of Tsarskoye" ran away. Only a few remained with the family:
Botkin,--Capt. Melnik, Countess G. and her governess, M-e Sch., and
Gillard. That's about all I guess that I know of--maybe some will join
them afterwards. I am so sorry I had to go to Tula when they took the
Family. I'd have gone to watch the departure with the Admiral.
Petrograd simply died. The city does not reflect a thing. All seem
to be satisfied with mere existence, and to have lost interest in the
rest of the world. They look animated when it comes time to converse
of food and clothes.... Funny, strange, weird city! They don't clean
the streets any more.... and everybody finds it natural. There is
nothing in the stores--and we feel perfectly at ease. The country is
being maliciously run down--and all repeat that fiction of building
up.
Perhaps the only place that has not changed since its foundation is
the Club. The same old grouches are there, on the same sized seats,
with the same expressions of old indigestion and fresh gossip. Boys
keep up! The revolution will probably bring the sacred card games onto
the streets. Your progressive institution must preserve the classic
rules for the next generations.
People now are divided into two distinct camps: those of today, and
those of yesterday. The former--cover their disgust under a smile of
opportunism; kin and kind--don't. We hate each other, and envy each
other,--as we cannot see which way things will turn.... We will be
united only if the ones of to-morrow,--the commune, the third class of
people happen to take into their hands the war machinery. Then we both
will be crushed, annihilated, forgotten. It is coming....