THE RED TERROR.
Meanwhile a reform measure which subsequently became known as "the
constitution of Loris-Melikoff" had been framed and submitted to the
Czar by the Minister of the Interior. The project called for the
convocation of a semi-representative assembly to be clothed with
consultative powers. It was framed in guarded language, great pains
having been taken to keep out anything like an allusion to parliamentary
government.
"But it looks like the States-General," the Czar said to Loris-Melikoff.
The resemblance which the measure bore to the opening chapter in the
history of the French revolution, where representatives of the three
estates are convened in consultative parliament, made a disagreeable
impression on him. Still, the project was ingeniously worded as a
measure tending to "enhance the confidence of the monarch in his loyal
subjects"; so, upon a closer reading, the Czar warmed to it, and
returned the draft to Loris-Melikoff with his hearty approval. This took
place at 12 o'clock on Sunday, March 13, 1881, one day after the search
at the cheese store. It was decided to have the document read before the
cabinet on Wednesday, after which it was to be published over the
imperial signature in the _Official Messenger_.
The Czar was dressed in the uniform of the Sappers of the Guards, whose
review he was about to attend at the Michail Riding Schools.
"I pray your Majesty to forego the trip," Loris-Melikoff said,
solicitously.
The Czar smiled. Princess Dolgoruki had made a similar request, and by
accentuating his danger they both only succeeded in challenging his
courage. He felt as if in the light of their appeal staying at home
would mean hiding. Instead of pleading with him for caution
Loris-Melikoff should have made an effort to secure a suspension of
hostilities in the enemy's camp. Had the revolutionists been aware of
what was coming a truce on their part would have been assured. And then,
little as the project to be divulged resembled a constitution in the
western sense of the word, it was yet the first approach to
representative legislation in the history of modern Russia. The
Nihilists were pledged to abandon their Terror the moment free speech
had been granted, and although no reference to questions of this
character was made in the "constitution," certain liberties in that
direction might have followed as a matter of course, as an offspring of
the new spirit which the measure was expected to inaugurate. A
distinguished revolutionary writer has pointed out how easy it would
have been for Loris-Melikoff to bring his expectations to the knowledge
of the Executive Committee of the Nihilists by setting a rumour on foot
among the professional and intellectual classes, many of whose
representatives, as the Vice-Emperor knew but too well, were in touch
with the central organization of the Will of the People. Perhaps this
method of communicating with the revolutionists had not occurred to
Loris-Melikoff; perhaps the iron-clad secrecy that enclosed his project
was a necessary protection against the enemies of reform at court.
However it may have been, neither the revolutionists nor their liberal
allies had any inkling as to the document about to be published in the
_Official Messenger_. Instead, they saw the police and the gendarmerie
continuing their riot of administrative violence; instead, they heard of
an order by virtue of which a number of revolutionists who had served
their term within prison walls at Kara, Siberia, and been admitted to
partial freedom in the penal colony outside, had suddenly been put in
irons and thrown back into their cells; whereupon some of them had
committed suicide rather than return to the tortures of their former
life. All of which had added gall to the bitterness of the
revolutionists at large and whetted their distrust of the "crafty
Armenian," as they called Loris-Melikoff.
* * * * *
The Czar's favourite coachman, a stalwart, handsome fellow, with a thick
blond beard and clear blue eyes, sat on the box of the closed imperial
carriage, waiting in the vast courtyard of the Winter Palace. An escort
of six lusty Cossacks, two gendarme officers and one of the several
chiefs of police of the capital held themselves in readiness near by,
the Cossacks on their mounts, the other three in their open sleighs.
Presently a great door flew open and the Emperor appeared, accompanied
by an adjutant and a sergeant of the page corps. He wore a military
cape-cloak and a helmet. While the page held the carriage door open, the
Czar said to the coachman:
"By Songsters' Bridge!"
This was not his habitual route to the Riding Schools. Not that he was
aware of the suspicions which the cheese shop on Little Garden Street
had aroused. He had not the least idea of the existence of such a shop.
He had decided on the new route merely as a matter of general
precaution, in case there was a mine somewhere. As to pistol shots he
was sufficiently screened by the walls of his carriage as well as by the
bodies of his cossacks and their horses.
That calm feeling of reverent affection with which the average
Englishman hails his sovereign is unknown in Russia. But whether with
reverence or mute imprecations, the coach of a Czar disseminates thrills
of fright as it proceeds. The cavalcade of horsemen and sleighs, with
the great lacquered carriage in the centre, was sailing and galloping
along like a grim alien force, diffusing an atmosphere of terror. To
those who saw it approaching the fiery cossacks on their fiery horses
looked like a ferocious band of invaders, their every fibre spoiling for
violence, rushing onward on an errand of conquest and bloody reckoning.
It was a cloudy day. The streets were covered with discoloured, brownish
snow; the snow on the roofs, window-sills, cornices, gate-posts, was of
immaculate whiteness, apparently devoid of weight, smooth and neat, as
though trimmed by some instrument. There were few people along the route
followed by the little procession and most of these were in their Sunday
clothes. Now a civilian snatched off his cap spasmodically, now a
soldier drew himself up with all his might, as though trying to lift
himself off his feet. Here and there a drunken citizen was staggering
along. Every person the carriage passed was scrutinised by every member
of the escort, by the cossacks as well as by the chief of police and the
gendarme officers. The Riding Schools were soon reached.
The Emperor left the building less than an hour later. He was
accompanied by Grand Duke Michail, his brother, the two going to the
Michail Palace, where they were to have lunch with the Czar's niece.
Sophia, the ex-governor's daughter, was watching the imperial carriage
from a point of vantage. Presently she turned into a neighbouring
street, and passing a fair-complexioned young man in a dark overcoat,
who held a white package in his hand, she raised her handkerchief to her
nose. The young man then hurried away toward Catharine Canal. Three
other men, one of them a gigantic looking fellow, stood at so many
different points, and at sight of Sophia with her handkerchief to her
nose, they all started in the same direction as the first man, while the
young woman walked over to the Neva Prospect from which she crossed a
bridge to the opposite side of Catharine Canal.
It was half past two when the imperial carriage, surrounded by the six
cossacks and followed by the gendarme officers and the chief of police,
set out on their homebound journey. The handsome coachman let out his
horses. The group was scudding along at top speed. The chief of police
stood up in his sleigh, one of his gloved hands on the shoulder of his
driver, as he strained his eyes now to the right now to the left, after
the manner of the human figure on the face of a certain kind of clocks.
The carriage turned to the right, passing a detachment of marines who
saluted the Czar by presenting arms. The carriage was now on one of the
banks of the Catharine Canal, an iron railing to the right, a row of
buildings to the left. An employe of a horse-car company, who was
levelling off a ridge of caked snow at this moment, hastily rested his
crowbar against the iron railing and bared his head. Some distance in
front of him a young man in a dark overcoat, and with a white package
in his hand, was trudging along the canal side of the street. He was
passed and left in the rear by a man in the uniform of a hospital nurse
of the guards. On the sidewalk to the left of the Czar, another man,
also in military uniform, was moving rapidly along, while from the
opposite direction, in the middle of the snow-covered street, came a boy
pulling a little sled with a basket of meat on it. Sophia was looking on
from the other side of the canal.
Colonel Dvorzhitzky (the chief of police) was scanning the sidewalk to
the left, when a terrific crash went up from under the Czar's carriage.
It was as if a mass of deafening sound had lain dormant there, in the
form of a vast closed fan, and the fan had suddenly flown open. The
colonel's horses reared violently, hurling him over the shoulder of his
coachman. While he was surveying the left side of the street, the
employe of the tramway company and several military people, coming up
alongside the railing, had seen the young man in the dark overcoat lift
his white package and throw it under the Czar's carriage. The carriage
came to a sudden halt amid a cloud of smoke and snow dust. A second or
two passed before any of them could realise what it all meant. The young
man turned about and broke into a run.
"Catch him! Hold him!" the pedestrians shrieked frantically, dashing
after the running man.
He had reached a point some thirty feet back of the imperial carriage
when he was hemmed in. One of the cossacks and the boy lay in the snow
shrieking. One of the rear corners of the carriage was badly shattered.
The rest of it was uninjured, but during the first minute or two its
doors remained closed, so that the bystanders could not tell whether
the Czar was hurt or not. Then the chief of police rushed up to the
vehicle and flung the right door open. The Czar was unhurt, but ghastly
pale. He sat bending slightly forward, his feet on the bearskin covering
the floor, a gilt ash receiver on a shelf in front of him.
"The guilty man has been caught, your Imperial Majesty!" Colonel
Dvorzhitzky burst out.
"Has he?" the Emperor asked, in intense agitation.
"He has, your Imperial Majesty. They are holding him. May I offer you to
finish the journey in my sleigh?"
"Yes, but I first want to see the prisoner."
Pervaded by the conviction that another plot on his life had failed, the
Czar stepped out of the carriage, and accompanied by a group of
officers, some from his escort and others from among the passers-by, he
crossed over to the sidewalk that ran along the canal railing, erect and
majestic as usual, but extremely pale with excitement, and then turning
to the right he walked toward where a group of uniformed men were
holding a fair-complexioned beardless young fellow against the railing.
People, mostly in military uniforms, came running from every direction.
Somebody asked: "How is the Emperor?"
"Thank God," answered the Czar, "I have escaped, but----" and he pointed
at the wounded cossack and boy.
"It may be too soon to thank God," said the prisoner.
"Is this the man who did it?" the Czar asked, advancing toward him. "Who
are you?"
"My name is Glazoff."
The Czar turned back. He had made a few steps, when a man who stood no
more than three feet from him raised a white object high over his head
and dashed it to the ground, between the Emperor and himself.
There was another explosion, still more violent and deafening than the
first. The air was a turmoil of smoke, snow-dust and shreds of uniforms,
concealing everything else from view. Sophia hurried away.
More than half a minute later, when the chaos had partly cleared away,
the Czar was seen in a sitting posture on the snow-covered sidewalk,
leaning against the railing, his large oval head bare, his cape-cloak
gone. He was breathing hard. His face was in blood, the flesh of his
bared legs lacerated, the blood gushing from them over the snow. A heap
of singed, smoking tatters nearby was all that had been left of his
cloak.
With cries of horror and of overpowering pity the bystanders rushed
forward. Among them was a man with a bomb under his coat like the two
which had just exploded. He was one of the four men who had shifted
their posts when they saw Sophia raising her handkerchief to her nose.
Had the second bomb failed to do its bloody work, this Terrorist would
have thrown his missile when the imperial carriage came by his corner.
As he beheld the Czar on the ground and bleeding, however, he
instinctively flung himself forward to offer help to the suffering man.
At sight of the prostrated Czar the men who held the author of the first
explosion, began to shower blows on him.
"Don't," he begged them, shielding his head and face. "I meant the good
of the people."
Two yards from the Czar lay bleeding the unconscious figure of a
civilian. Further away were several other prostrated men, in all sorts
of uniforms.
"Help!" the Czar uttered in a faint voice.
Somebody handed him a handkerchief, which he put to his face, muttering
"Cold, cold." Several of the marines who had saluted him a few minutes
ago and two guardsmen placed him on Colonel Dvorzhitzky's sleigh.
When Grand Duke Michail appeared on the scene he found his brother
rapidly sinking.
"Sasha,[C] do you hear me?" he asked him, with tears in his eyes.
[C] Diminutive of Alexander.
The bystanders, who had never before heard their Czar addressed in the
form of affectionate familiarity, were thrilled with a feeling of
heart-tearing pity and of the most fervent devotion. Most of them had
sobs in their throats.
"Yes," the Czar answered faintly.
"How do you feel, Sasha?"
"To the Palace--quick," the Czar whispered. And upon hearing somebody's
suggestion that he be taken to the nearest house for immediate relief,
he uttered:
"Bear me to the palace--there--die----."
He reclined between two cossacks, with a gendarme officer facing him and
supporting his legs. This is the way he returned home. Pedestrians met
him with gestures of horrified perplexity and acute commiseration now.
The crowd at one corner of Catharine Canal was a babel of excitement and
violence. In their mad rush for the man who threw the second bomb, the
bystanders were accusing each other, grabbing at each other,
quarrelling, fighting. As Nihilists were for the most part people of
education, every man who looked college-bred was in danger of his life.
Among those who were beaten to a pulp in this wild melee were two
political spies who had the appearance of university students. A shout
went up that the thrower of the fatal bomb had vaulted over the fence of
the Michail gardens nearby, and then the mob broke down part of that
fence, and ruined the gardens in a wild but vain search for the
Terrorist. People were seized and hustled off to the station houses by
the hundred.
The heir apparent, a fair-complexioned Hercules, was on his way to the
Winter Palace surrounded by a strong escort of mounted men. It was the
first time he had appeared in the streets so accompanied. The cluster of
horsemen and sleighs that had left the palace three hours before never
returned; this one was coming in its place; but the effect of grim
detachment, of fierce challenge was the same.
* * * * *
An hour had elapsed. The flag over the Winter Palace which denotes
Imperial presence was put at half-mast. Church bells were tolling the
death of Alexander II. and the accession of Alexander III.
The new Czar was by his father's bedside. He was even more powerfully
built than he, but he lacked his grace and the light of his intelligent
eyes--a physical giant with a look of obtuse honesty on a fair, bearded
round face. An English diplomatist who understood him well has said that
"he had a mind not only commonplace, but incapable of receiving new
ideas." When he saw his father breathe his last, he exclaimed: "This is
what we have come to!"--a celebrated ejaculation which an archbishop
uttered at the funeral of Peter the Great in 1725. This was his first
utterance as Emperor of Russia. Its puerile lack of originality was
characteristic of the man.
Princess Dolgoruki fainted, and she had no sooner been brought to than
the packing of her trunks was ordered by the sons of her dead husband.
The palace was surrounded by a strong cordon of cossacks. Palace Square
was thronged, the neighbouring streets were tremulous with subdued
excitement. Some people were sincerely overcome with grief and horror;
others were struggling to conceal their exultation. There were such as
wept and cursed the Nihilists by way of displaying their own loyalty,
and there were such as burst into tears from the sheer solemnity and
nervousness of the moment. But the great predominating feeling that
pervaded these crowds, eclipsing every other sentiment or thought, was
curiosity. "What is going to happen next?"--this was the question that
was uppermost in the minds of these people in their present fever of
excitement. Had a republic been proclaimed with the Executive Committee
of the Nihilists as a provisional government, they would have sworn
their allegiance to the bomb-throwers as readily as they did, on the
morrow, to the son of the assassinated Emperor. Had the Terrorists
succeeded, the same bearded bishops who blessed and sounded the praises
of the new Czar would have blessed and sounded the praises of those who
had killed his father.
* * * * *
Pavel was in a suburb of the capital, when he first heard the melancholy
tolling of the church bells.
"What's the matter?" he asked an elderly man who was walking with a
sleigh-load of bricks, the reins in his hands.
"They say our little father, the Czar, has been killed," the other
answered, making the sign of the cross with his free hand. "People say
the Czarowitz is going to cut down the term of military service. Is it
true, sir?"
"What is true?" Pavel asked. He was literally dazed with excitement.
"A son of mine is in the army, sir," the other explained reverently. "So
I wonder if the new Czar will be easier on the soldiers, sir."
Pavel hailed the first hackman he came across. He was burning to know
the details of the assassination and to tell Clara that the first man he
accosted on the great news of the hour had shown indifference to the
death of the monarch.
When his sleigh reached the Neva Prospect, he saw the new Czar,
surrounded by a cohort of officers in dazzling uniform, passing along
the thoroughfare. The crowds were greeting him with wild cheers. They
cheered their own emotions at sight of the man whose father had come to
so tragic a death, and they cheered their own servility to the master of
the situation.
These shouts filled Pavel with a mixed sense of defeat and triumph. The
gloomier feeling predominated. The world looked as usual. It did not
look as if this cheering, servile, stolid mob would ever rise against
anything.
* * * * *
That evening placards bearing the name of the Executive Committee
appeared on the walls of public buildings. They announced the death of
Alexander II. and admonished his successor to adopt a liberal policy.