Chapter III: Part 3

Of Van Dyck, the cleverest and most prominent of Rubens's pupils, who aspired to aristocratic refinement--perhaps only to free himself from the overpowering influence of the robust genius of his teacher, perhaps also because of his inherently more tenacious nature--the Hermitage possesses the largest and most valuable collection. The "Holy Family" is still influenced by Rubens, although it is somewhat softer. It is a charming composition, full of peace and cheerfulness. Mary is sitting under a shady tree holding the Christ-Child, who is standing on her lap so that he may bend over to look at the dancing ring of little angels. St. Joseph is comfortably seated in the background. The play of the angels is unmistakably conceived after Rubens's festoon, and yet possesses great beauty of its own. In its color effects the picture is among the best. The artist is seen in complete self-dependence in the numerous portraits of his English period as well as in the cabinet piece of "The Snyder Family." The English impress us especially by the expression of self-conscious gentility, aristocratic exclusiveness, peculiar to themselves as well as to the master. We cannot escape the charm of these somewhat decadent faces, just as we would enjoy equally a Beethoven sonata and a Chopin nocturne. Without the exuberant imagination and the universality of his teacher, Van Dyck possesses, none the less, a personality of his own, shining with a light of its own; he is one of the psychologists among the painters.

Another psychologist, though not with delicate hands, but sturdy and creative, with exuberant genius, is Franz Hals, who is represented here by four strikingly lifelike portraits. Of him, too, nothing more need be said, though one may add he is a splendid fellow.

The Dutch miniature painters have here some dainty pieces. Of Van der Helst's we see his renowned "Introduction of the Bride," a scene from Dutch patrician life, with somewhat strongly exaggerated respectability and affluence. The bridegroom's parents, themselves still young, are seated on a garden terrace clad in their holiday attire, and with gloves in their hands; the youngest son, stylishly dressed, with a parrot in his hand, is looking with strained attention towards the bridal couple, who are ceremoniously ascending the terrace; two greyhounds by the side of the parents, a lap-dog by the bride's side, take part in the performance; and loudest of all is the parrot, whom the master is obliged to call to order by an indignant "Keep still!" Notwithstanding its size (it has a width of more than three metres), the picture is painted with a minuteness of detail, from the frills of the mother to the rustling silk of the bride's dress and the thin foliage of the poplars in the background of the garden, that would do honor to any miniature painter. To be sure, our impressionist creed of the present day does not allow the recognition of such painstaking elegance and neatness in the execution of details. However, doctrines pass away, but, thank Heaven, the pictures remain.

The numerous domestic genre pictures, Terborch's famous "Glass of Lemonade," Jan Steen's "Drunken Woman," held up to derision by her husband, and the "Visits of the Physician," who is feeling the pulse of a young woman, evidently embarrassed, while the doctor, with a significant smile, is exchanging remarks with an old woman, by Metzu, as well as certain physicians' examinations, by Gerhard Dou, that cannot further be described, are all notable, not only for the execution of the velvet and silk fabrics, of the glasses and the interiors, but even more for the unfailing firmness of characterization in movement and physiognomy. Certainly these are great painters, and their works are true cabinet-pieces. Composition must always swing between painstaking accuracy and bold impressionism. Yet nothing could be more foolish than the contempt for miniaturists in a period of impressionism and the contempt for impressionists in a period of painful detail. "In my Father's house are many mansions."

What shall we say of the works of Ostade, Teniers, Wouwerman, Pottes, and Ruysdael? The Hermitage not only contains an inexhaustible abundance of their productions, but includes their very best works. Potter has a wolf-hound and dairy farm, an animal group of the highest plasticity, and a quite modern transparency of atmosphere. Tenier has pieces that show him to have been not only a grotesque humorist but also a great landscape-painter; and of Ruysdael there are true pearls like the "Sand Road" and the "Bay Lake."

Rarities, valuable as such not alone to the art-lover, are the "Healing of the Blind," by Lucas van Leyden, the "Maid under the Apple-Tree," by Lucas Cranach, a triumphant Madonna, by Quentin Massys--faithful, honest works which the pious masters laid with devotion on the golden ground. No sensible person will deride them, for they are still governed in their conceptions by the carefully obeyed rules of symmetry. In the _attachement_ there is such depth of characterization, such affection and warmth, that many a masterpiece must be placed much below them. For enthusiasm of conception and conscientious execution are, after all, of deciding moment in every unbiased judgment. But the technique belongs to the time and not to the individual.

The French of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries conclude the group. The Germans have never succeeded in placing themselves in a true relation to this art that is rhetorical and theatrical rather than really poetical. Yet we shall never be wanting in respect to others, especially to the masters Poussin and Claude Lorrain. The landscapes of a heroic-mythological character that represent them in the Hermitage are monuments of respectable ability.

Of real charm, however, are the piquant genre masters Fragonard and Watteau, who were held in such deep contempt in the virtuous years of the Revolution, that no one dared to pay even fifty francs for their frivolous paintings. They are represented by excellent pieces, as well as the more serious master Greuze, whose "Death of an Old Man" would do honor even to our good Knaus. Boucher and Lancret justly deserve our attention. But Marguerite Gerard, the sister-in law of Fragonard, and Jean B. Chardin, have quite inconspicuously realized a goodly portion of the impressionist programme without devoting themselves merely to problems of light and shade. The "Mother's Happiness" of the former does full justice to the charming scene and easily solves a problem in interiors. The same is true of Chardin's "Washerwomen." There is positively nothing new under the sun. It is only the one or the other side of the universal knowledge of the great masters acclaimed as an entirely new discovery. Then follow actions and reactions, and thus the so-called art history is formed, the rise and fall among a few high peaks and nothing more.

One day we found a whole row of rooms closed, just those that contained our favorites of the Rembrandt gallery. What was the cause of it? Preparations were being made for the Czar's dinner. A great court dinner is given every Friday in the splendid halls of the Hermitage, and suitable preparations are made on the previous day. Flowers are placed everywhere, dishes and silver are brought and kept under special watch. The Czar's table is placed in the large Italian hall; the courtier's tables in the adjoining halls. The conservatories and prominent artists have already petitioned for the abolition of this barbaric custom, for the vapors from the viands do not in any wise contribute to the preservation of the costly paintings. But how are exhortations of warning to reach the Czar's ear? They are derided by the servile courtiers, and held up to scorn as professional fancies of but little significance when compared with the wish of princes to dine among the finest works of art in the world. The consciousness that great works of art are merely kept in trust by their passing owners, kept for their true owner, progress-making humanity, has perhaps reached the better class, but has not been awakened in the autocracy, where even the conception of humanity has not yet been attained. They own pictures as they own crown jewels, and consider themselves at liberty to treat them as they please. But on such a matter the subject must remain silent; and he does. It is the environment that influences princes, whether for good or for evil. But the injury to a few paintings, however expensive, is not the worst that rests on the conscience of the ring in the Czar's court, just as the Hermitage is not the most objectionable feature of St. Petersburg. When the Russian empire shall have overcome the phase of barbarian mistrust for strangers and of oppressive police management, when it shall have really opened its gates, the Hermitage will become a true centre of attraction with few equals in the universe. Then will become common property those wonder works that to-day are still beyond the reach of common knowledge. In the Russia of to-day a treasury of culture like the Hermitage is almost an anachronism.

IX

THE CAMORRA--A TALK WITH A RUSSIAN PRINCE

Before I report here a significant conversation I had with a prince, the friend and former confidant of the Czar, I would make an earnest appeal to the public opinion of Europe, for which these lines are intended. I have conversed with many men of the highest rank in Russia; I am indebted to them for most valuable information about the land of riddles, yet not a single interview was concluded without my informant asking me to withhold his name. Only the prince whose views I report here said to me, "If you need my name to prove the credibility of the most incredible things I had to tell you, you may use it without compunction. Possible suffering that may befall me because of this use of my name is of no consideration where the enlightenment of Europe is concerned." On mature deliberation I have preferred, however, not to mention his name here. I thus renounce the weight of a name of European repute and of unparalleled authority. Notwithstanding this, I still consider it necessary to ask public opinion of Europe to watch with redoubled care the fate of the few persons who have been my informants. It would not be right for me to suppress this report, for I should thus act in direct opposition to the wishes of the noble-minded prince. Neither could I disguise him entirely, since there are, after all, but few persons that could have made to me these disclosures on the helplessness of even the eminent patriots. And so I must resort to an appeal to the public opinion of Europe with proper caution. It can protect the prince. For with all their wickedness the Russian rulers still fear foreign public opinion. This and this alone has a certain influence on the Czar. Let it be exerted in behalf of a man of the greatest heroism, who makes appeal to it out of pure patriotism.

"Does your highness think," I asked, in the interview I am about to report here, "that the discontent everywhere noticeable in all classes of society is real and of political significance?"

"We must make distinctions," answered the prince; "of its reality there is no doubt. But if you ask whether I consider it politically fruitful, in the same sense that we may gain through this discontent some necessary change in the present régime, I must answer, unfortunately, no."

"Is this, then, only the chronic discontent present in western Europe as well as in Russia, or is it now acute?"

"It is acute. As you have justly observed, the West has its discontented element also; yet your Western discontent with all work of man may best be compared with that frame of mind prevalent in our country, even under a régime that is normal and well-intentioned, lacking only efficiency. The restlessness that you, as a stranger, have noted here is quite abnormal, and is due to the decided wickedness, not to say infamy, of the existing system."

"Then it is stronger than usual?"

"Incomparably stronger. No entertainment however harmless, no scientific congress, no meeting of any corporation can take place that will not end in a political demonstration. All the prisons are filled with most worthy people, deportations and banishments increase, yet other men and women press onward to martyrdom."

"I admire this spirit of sacrifice in your intelligent classes."

"That is the difference between to-day and a few years ago. Ten years ago our public opinion was weakened, resigned, crushed by the heavy hand of Alexander III. and the serpent wiles of Pobydonostzev. With the accession to the throne of the present Czar new hopes were awakened; but now, thanks to the executioners Sipyagin and Plehve, disappointment and exasperation have grown to such a vast extent that expression of them can no longer be repressed, and thousands risk life and liberty unable longer to bear this condition of grinding inward revolt."

"I witnessed the funeral of Mikhailovski. I must say that my ear detected revolutionary tones, and such a procession of five or six thousand men and women from among the highest classes, surrounded by Cossacks, among a listening police, singing songs, making fiery, freedom-breathing speeches, impressed me of all things as a foreboding of revolution.

"Arrests in plenty were made among the participants in the funeral celebration. But do not deceive yourself. There is no revolution with us. Our country is too thinly populated. Let us say that ten, fifty, or one hundred thousand inspired intellectuals would willingly sacrifice themselves if they could help us thereby; how many Cossacks and gendarmes would there be for each revolutionist, when we are spending millions to maintain an army against the nation? There is only one revolution that can be really dangerous, and I will not assert that such a revolution could not break out if the present war should end disastrously. That would be a peasant revolution, directed, not against the régime itself, but against all property-owning and educated persons; it would begin by all of us being killed and thrown into the river. And the odds would be a hundred to one then that the police would not be actively against this revolution, but secretly would be for it, in order to rid themselves quickly and surely of their real antagonist, the educated classes. A Kishinef may be arranged here at any day, not only against the Jews, but against every one with whom the police wish to get even."

"Then your highness believes that the Kishinef massacres were arranged by the police?"

"This is not a mere belief; it is a proved fact. Their real authors, Krushevan and Pronin, are the special protégés of Plehve; and Baron Levendahl received a direct order from the higher authorities to refrain from any intervention."

"And what was the purpose of it?"

"To intimidate the Jews, who, by their temperament, bring a little more life to the radical parties, and to create the impression in the higher circles that there is discontent in the country, not against the government, but against the usurious Jews."

"And is not that true?"

"Usury with us is carried on by good, orthodox Christians much more successfully than by the Jews, who are comparatively few in number, and, besides, do not enjoy the protection of the authorities. No; the mob massacres the Jews because in the name of the Czar they are proclaimed outlaws. It is a kind of annual picnic. The Kishinef massacres are condemned by the whole country, not only by the philo-Semites--to whom, by-the-way, I do not belong. It has showed to all of us what may be done in our land when an assumed purpose requires it. And for this reason the entire public opinion takes sides with the Jews, who were merely intended to serve as scapegoats for the educated and the discontented."

"But in what respect is the present régime so essentially different from the preceding ones that such a fermentation could arise? Surely the people have not been spoiled by anything better?"

"Now it is worse than ever before. There is perhaps an explanation for this. Czar Nicholas is inspired by the best of motives. He is the first of the malcontents. He would give his heart's blood to help his people. The clique knows that, and is, therefore, risking everything on one card, to prevent the Czar from drawing nearer to the people or creating institutions that would put an end to bureaucratic omnipotence. The terrors of revolution are painted on the wall, and the daily arrests are intended to prove that it is only the mailed fist of the present government that can curb a popular uprising."

"I know from sources near the Czar's family that the Czar is again finding threatening letters in his coat-pockets, under his pillow, and elsewhere."

"This is an old police trick. It was used to frighten Alexander III., and it almost drove him insane. Naturally, it is only the police that can carry out such devices, for others could not reach the Czar's room. But Plehve retains his ascendency through the illusion that his dismissal would mean the way to the scaffold for the Czar's family."

"Has the Czar really anything to fear should the police relax its vigilance?"

"Heaven forbid! The Czar is a sort of deity to the people, and the educated classes know only too well that no man is less responsible for existing conditions than he, in whose name these conditions are inflicted upon us. But the Czar is made to believe that every attempt to free public opinion from its fetters would lead to popular representation, to a constitution, and finally to the scaffold."

"And all that is done by Plehve?"

"By him alone. His predecessor, Sipyagin, was an honest, narrow reactionary, who regarded the state as the private property of the dynasty, something like a great estate with property in souls as well as in inanimate things. The nation has no more right to complain against the impositions of the master than the cattle on the estate to complain about the methods of feeding. Plehve is of an entirely different caliber. A political cheat, an intriguer, an unscrupulous cynic, the playing on the key-board of power tickles his blunted nerves. He has as much conscience, sympathy, and humanity as my tiger here. His talent consists of cunning and the art of dealing with men. There is no one with whom he has exchanged three words that he has not lied to. His patriotic overzeal, however, as a non-Russian--he naturally overdoes his patriotism--commends him to the 'camarilla,' and so he becomes omnipotent."

"You say that Plehve is not Russian?"

"He is partly Lettish, partly Polish, partly Jewish. Men like this are always the worst here; they must see that their non-Russian names are forgotten."

"And what do you mean by 'camarilla'?"

"The servile courtiers, the high officials, but above all, the entire system. Do not forget that we are being ruled by a Camorra of bureaucrats, that have no interest at all in the real welfare of the country, but have their primary interest in the uncurtailed maintenance of their power. If the Czar wished to hear, to-day, the truth about the condition and sentiments of the country, he would never succeed, because they do not expose one another in the Camorra; for there is only one god--the career with all its chances of legitimate and illegitimate gain."

"Your highness, I must allow myself an indiscreet question. It is said that you are a friend of the Czar. You are surely not the only one. You must have colleagues among the nobility, statesmen, and patriots who cannot be prevented from being heard by the Emperor. Are you not in a position to break through the iron ring of the bureaucrats, and to tell the Czar the truth about the men who possess his confidence?"

"I appreciate your question. But what could single individuals do against the abuses of centuries? Something is being done in the direction indicated by you. The Czar receives, often enough, honest and unreserved statements. But a lasting effect from such occasional impulses is out of the question. Moreover, one must know the spirit of the antechamber, the slanders and suspicions, the burden of routine. It would require the power of a Hercules to escape from the net of these forces, and the Czar is of a timid, modest, kindly nature. And how quickly is every suggestion or initiative paralyzed! And what influences cross one another at such a court! Who is strong enough to oppose a grand vizier who works with unscrupulous falsification, and weaves about the sovereign an impenetrable fabric of false dangers by means of documentary calumnies and misstatements?"

"And so your highness can see no deliverance?"

"Only when God in heaven shall decree it, not otherwise. We live between the anarchists in office and the anarchists with dagger and revolver. These are only active forces, the latter as the logical sequence of the former, and more than once their tools as well. All else is inactive, limited to dissipating demonstration. The fountain of public opinion is not tolerated; the organization of a progressive party is prevented; the system anxiously guards the people from any contact with the educated classes. There is no room for sentimentality in repelling every attempt to render the Camorra harmless. An unguarded word, a simple denunciation, are sufficient to send honorable and respected men where they lose all desire for criticism. Whence, then, can help come? And we need it, for the war places before us entirely new problems, that may be solved only by unshackling intelligence. But now our bankruptcy will become evident to all the world."

"And Witte! Has he no longer any influence?"

"None whatever. He is not a convenient and acceptable minister, for he has a statesman's ambition and political ideas. He could, perhaps, inaugurate a new system, but this is not allowed. In this country there rules only the ministry of the interior--that is, the secret police; the other departments are merely figure-heads."

"And a constitution would change nothing of this?"

"The Liberals and Radicals believe so, but I do not. I am of a different opinion. 'Men and not measures,' is my motto, especially in an autocracy. You know my views on the war. I am convinced that our brave army will win. That will only mean a greater strengthening of the system, till the complete financial and economic, social and moral collapse, or till the first collision with a real power like the United States of America. I see no relief and no salvation, especially since foreign public opinion also forsakes us. We are fawned upon for political or commercial reasons. Tell them abroad that we deserve something better than this contemptible, statesman-like reserve and these affected expressions of respect before a régime that we ourselves denounce without exception. We deserve honest sympathy, for no other nation has yet been made to struggle for its civilization against so pitiless an adversary. Europe must further distinguish between the Russian nation and this adversary. Russian society is full of noble impulses; it is generous, warm-hearted, capable of inspiration, and free from odious prejudices. Our common oppressor, the danger to the world's peace as well as the author of this unhappy war, I repeat it again, is the Camorra of the officials, a thoroughly anarchistic class. I do not know, I must admit, when and how our release will come. I fear that we shall, ere that, pass through sad trials, and even more terrible misery of our flayed and hunger-enfeebled people, before Heaven shall take pity on us."

I left the noble-minded prince with feelings that are usually awakened in us only by tragedy.

X

SÄNGER'S FALL

The sudden dismissal of the minister of public instruction, the former university professor Sänger, led me to discuss it more exhaustively with several high dignitaries who willingly gave me information during my sojourn in St. Petersburg. I had the opportunity of conversing with persons exceptionally well-informed, but, for reasons easily conceivable, I am not permitted to mention their names. I report here, from my notes, an interview with a person standing near to the retired minister, and still in active government service, because it seems interesting to me even now.

"In the first place," said my informant, "you must not believe that Sänger was dismissed. He himself insisted that his resignation, repeatedly offered, be finally accepted. Scarcely two days ago the Czar asked a general, highly esteemed by him, who came here from Warsaw, where Sänger had formerly acted as curator of the university, as to his opinion of Sänger, and the general answered that he considered Sänger a very honest and learned man. 'I have just that opinion of him myself,' said the Czar, complainingly, 'but he positively would not remain.'"

"Why does your excellency believe that Sänger had become so tired of his position?"

"There are permanent and special reasons. The permanent ones are harder to explain than the special ones. I therefore begin with the more difficult. A minister of public instruction--'lucus a non lucendo'--has here a very difficult post when he is an honest man and really desires to live up to his duties. For what he is really asked to do is, that he do _not_ enlighten the people, that he do _nothing_ for education, that he merely pretend activity. We need no education; we need obedience. That, of course, is not said to the Czar, who really believes that he is being served honestly. But in the end it amounts to this, that only one man rules here, the minister of the interior and chief of the secret police, and that all the other ministers must dance to his music. I make exception here, to a certain extent, of the ministers of war and of finance. But if in any case there be a possibility of conflict between any other department and the omnipotent police ministry, that other department must subordinate itself to the rule of the latter. For von Plehve stands guard over the security of the empire. You understand that all other considerations are silenced here. The third division (the secret police) and the Holy Synod are the pillars of our empire. Of what importance is here an inoffensive minister of instruction, or culture, as he is called in your country?"

"I should be obliged to your excellency for concrete examples."

"Here they are. There was, for instance, General Wannowski, a really competent and influential man. While he was at the head of the department of instruction he could not be so easily turned down at the court as our ordinary university professor. Wannowski even effected some reforms in our universities, but finally he, too, found it desirable to retire from the field. Do you think it possible for a minister to remain in office when a regulation prepared by him, approved by the Czar, and made public, must next day be withdrawn because the minister of the interior states in a special report that this regulation is in opposition to the general government policy and is a danger to the security of the country?"

"And has that occurred?"

"Something of that kind was a secondary cause also of Sänger's resignation. As former curator of the University of Warsaw, he knew Poland well. With the Czar's approval, he framed a regulation for instruction in Poland that was pedagogically wise and politically conciliating. Instantly Plehve made objection--for a relief of the tension everywhere prevailing does not suit his system--and secured the withdrawal of the regulation."

"But could not Sänger defend his measures?"

"His position was already weakened. Above all, his enemies succeeded in placing him under suspicion as guilty of philo-Semitism. You know, or perhaps do not know, that it is also a part of the system here to keep the Jews--particularly the Jews--from higher education; and this higher education in itself runs contrary to the desire of the dictator-general of the Holy Synod and to that of the police. A minister of public instruction, particularly when he hails from the learned professions, may easily commit the error of making science readily accessible to all properly qualified. Sänger granted some alleviation to the Jews, so that the most gifted among them, especially when their academy professor had already taken a warm interest in them, could enter the university without great difficulty. He was reproached with that, and that would have been sufficient to weaken the position of a stronger man."

"I am not familiar with the disabilities of Jewish students."

"A detailed description of these disabilities would carry you too far afield. Suffice it to state that we possess a very complicated system, particularly developed in Moscow, for the exclusion of Jewish children from the schools. The ratio of three to one hundred must, however, be conveniently tolerated. Now it happens quite frequently that, no matter how strict the director at admission, on promotion from the lower to the higher class this relation is shifted in favor of the Jews, because of their diligence and sobriety in contrast to the characteristics of the sons of the Russian officials. Then the trouble begins anew. Splendidly qualified candidates cannot enter the university, since the prescribed percentage has already been reached. The professors, however, who are not pronounced anti-Semites really like these Jewish students who have survived this process of selection, for they are really studious. But that again is opposed to the principles of the accepted policy. And whoever is inclined to take sides with the professors rather than with the bulwarks of this general policy may easily find himself in the toils, as it happened, for instance, in Sänger's case."

"Who are these bulwarks of this general policy?" An involuntary glance towards the door, as if to see whether some uninvited listener was not accidentally near--a glance I have frequently seen only in Russia--was the first answer. Then, even in lower tones than before, he proceeded.

"That is still a portion of the legacy of Alexander III., rigidly guarded by the dowager-empress, and particularly by the Grand-Duke Sergius in Moscow. When in the Russo-Turkish war enormous peculations of the military stores were discovered, the heir to the throne, then commander of a corps in the reserve, was persuaded that the Jewish contractors had defrauded the army, and the officer of the secret police, Zhikharev, exerted himself to prove that two-thirds of all the revolutionaries were Jews. That belief remained, just as a great portion of the French still cling to the belief that Dreyfus is a traitor because he is used as a scapegoat for the information-mongers of high rank on the general staff. Something similar happened here. I really have no desire to defend any Jewish contractor; but when there was in our stores lime-dust instead of flour in the sacks, quite other people than the Jews pocketed the difference. However, that is another story. Grand-Duke Sergius, of Moscow, has among his other passions bigotry and a fanatical hatred of Jews. And he is the uncle and brother-in-law of the Czar."

"Then Sänger found himself in a rather dubious position mainly as a philo-Semite?"

"At least as a man of not sufficiently pronounced anti-Semitism. But also because he was not really the man to hold his own with the generals and talents of the career-maker von Plehve. Finally, he was blamed for adverse criticism of the general principles of the government expressed at various conventions."

"At what conventions?"

"There was lately a convention of public-school teachers that presumed to criticise by speaking the truth about an intimate of Plehve's, Pronin, of Kishinef. I must emphasize here, by-the-way, that there was only an insignificant minority of Jews at that convention. Then there was a medical congress whose hygienic resolutions hid under a very thin hygienic disguise an arraignment of the system of stupefying the populace. The Lord knows Sänger had surely no premonition of these occurrences. But they concerned his department; the spirit of his staff was not right, and he alone was to blame for it, especially since von Plehve knew very well what Sänger thought of him."

"Always Plehve, and only Plehve!"

"He is our little Metternich. A representative man, to quote Emerson. The régime cannot be discussed without the mention of his name. Here is another little sample of Plehve. There is a Professor Kuzmin-Karavayev at the academy of military and international law. He was elected member of the St. Petersburg city council, and is a member of the zemstvo of Tver, a highly respected, upright man, interested in popular education. But now he has been forbidden any public activity by the following letter of von Plehve. Plehve wrote to Kuropatkin, the minister of war: 'By virtue of the authority vested in me by the Emperor on January 8, 1904, I would simply dismiss Professor Kuzmin-Karavayev as politically inconvenient. But since he is in the government service I ask you to insist that the aforesaid professor renounce all public activity.' This is literally true. You see how the omnipotent Plehve treats even a favorite like Kuropatkin, to say nothing of a timid, good professor like our Sänger! You may rest assured that, with all his upright views, we lost little in his resignation; he was without influence and too weak."

"And who will succeed him?"

"That is quite immaterial. Major-General Shilder, superintendent of the cadet corps, has already been offered the position, but he declined it. As long as Plehve's spirit and that of his minions is sweeping over the waters nothing will happen save what favors the suppression of public enlightenment and the prevention of revolution. The name is but an empty sound."

"Your excellency, should I commit an indiscretion by publishing our conversation just as it took place?"

"With the necessary precaution of leaving out my name, for I naturally have no inclination to attract the especial anger of our dictator-general. For the rest, I do not believe I have told you anything that could not be said in almost the same words by any one at all familiar with conditions as they are."

"That, your excellency, I must confirm. One of the greatest riddles for me is the formation of a public opinion in St. Petersburg, where the papers dare not even hint of what is spoken in the circles of the intelligent classes."

"Russia also has its constitution," said he, rising, and smiling significantly. "That constitution consists of the dissensions among the ministers. And when among ourselves, a certain discretion assumed, we do not stand on ceremony. Here you have the sources of public opinion"--again the significant smile--"you will perhaps understand why no minister fares well."

"Hence also Plehve?"

(A motion of despairing defence.) "He? No! speaking seriously. It is the curse of our country. May the Lord save us!"

XI

THE PEOPLE'S PALACE OF ST. PETERSBURG (NARODNI DOM)

In Potemkin's fatherland the art of government consists principally in hiding the truth not only from the people, but also from the Czar, who must be made to believe that he really strives for the welfare of the people, and not only for that of the all-powerful bureaucracy. Potemkin's art, as is well known, consisted in deceitfully showing to his beloved Empress, in a long journey, prosperous peasant farms, where in reality wretchedness and misery had established their permanent home. What the all-powerful favorite had accomplished by means of pasteboard and bushes, costs the modern Potemkins somewhat more comfort; but like their predecessor, they are in a position to supply it from the richly filled imperial treasury. The "Narodni Dom," the people's institute on the St. Petersburg fortress, is utilized to persuade the philanthropic Nicholas that in his paternally governed empire more ample provision is made for the common people and their welfare than in the heartless, civilized Western countries.

To the eye of a well-meaning ruler or of a well-disposed globe-trotter this is really a pleasant sight. Framed in alleys of tall trees, there rises in the park a far-stretching stone structure, of St. Petersburg dimensions, surmounted by a great cupola. On the payment of ten kopeks at the entrance we walk into the well-heated central portion under the dome, brightly illuminated by arc-lamps. Furs and overshoes are removed. And now an exclamation of admiration escapes our lips. A well-dressed crowd strolls naturally, without crowding and elbowing, towards a platform rising at the farther end, on which, to judge at a distance, Neapolitan folk-singers are performing. We join the procession, and when scarcely in the middle of the immense hall supported by iron girders, there resound behind us thundering notes that cause us to look upward. An orchestra stationed on a one-story-high cross-gallery has begun a Russian popular song. The singers before us stop for a while. The crowd moves forward. A negro dandy with high, white standing collar and patent-leather boots, proudly leads by the arm a voluptuous blonde of the Orpheum type. He grimly shows his teeth and fists to the scoffers who make fun of the unequal pair; but this does not end in a race conflict, for it is not yet certain whether a negro boy is more in sympathy with the Japanese or the Russians. We finally reach the interesting side of the hall, and there opens before us a still more enchanting picture. Behind long buffet-tables, kept scrupulously clean, and laden with all the delicacies of Russian cookery, from caviar sandwiches to the splendid mayonnaise of salmon, there bustle neat waitresses in white caps and broad, white aprons. The prices are maintained low throughout. The same is true of the warm dishes, the preparation of which we could watch in the large, open kitchen. Spirituous liquors are not sold, but in their place kvass, and tea from the immense copper samovar blinking in the kitchen. The glasses are continually washed by sparkling water on an automatically turning high stand. The bright nickel, the reddish shimmer of the copper, the bluish white tiles of the floor and walls, the snow-white garments of the cooks, the white light of the arc-lamps could induce a Dutchman to produce a very effective painting of neatness. We allow ourselves to be crowded forward, and after a fruitful pilgrimage, pass the folk-singers, where a part of the crowd is gathered, back towards the central hall, which we now observe at our leisure. We are struck here, in the first place, by the colossal portraits of the Emperor and Empress. They are the hosts here; for the millions for the imposing structure came from the Emperor's private purse. Then there is an immense map of the Russian empire for stimulating patriotic sentiments. But there await us still other pleasures. The entire left wing of the building is occupied by an enormous popular theatre. To-night Tschaikowski's "Maid of Orleans" is being played. We purchase tickets at the popular price of one ruble per seat, whereby we secure a place at about the middle of the extensive parterre, and are enabled to look over the public in front and at back of us; and this is not less interesting than the play on the stage. The seats in the rows ahead of us cost up to two rubles; in the rows at the back of us up to sixty kopeks. On either side are galleries and standing room that cost "only" from thirty to seventy kopeks. In comparison with the prices in the other St. Petersburg theatres those of the "Narodni Dom" must be considered decidedly popular, even though it is a peculiar class of people that can spare thirty kopeks to two rubles for an evening at the theatre, quite aside from the incidental expenses of an evening drive, of admission, and of wardrobe. But of that later.

We follow the play. The performance is decidedly respectable, from the leader to the chorus. The setting is quite brilliant, and true to style, the orchestra well trained, with some very excellent performers among the soloists. We forget, for the time being, that we are in Russia, notwithstanding the Russian language and the Russian music. It is Schiller's heroic composition which has inspired the composer. Dunoi's Lahire, Lionel, Raymond, Bertram, Agnes Sorel, Charles, the cardinal appear before us in familiar scenes, and we experience at times quite peculiar sensations when we again come across this northern night, the images, the glowing rhetoric of which in the dear tongue of our own poet had given us the first intoxication of patriotic enthusiasm. The passionately warm music of Tschaikowski, and the swing of his choruses intensify the effect of those reminiscences.

But let us return to Russian reality. A thin, black-bearded young man paces busily through the rows during one of the entr'actes. He exchanges remarks here and there with the officers and officials, whom he leaves with a smile. And in the second entr'acte it becomes evident what preparations had been made here. War had just been declared; the password had just been given out to arouse patriotic enthusiasm, or, at least, to make the attempt. Already in one or another of the theatres the public had thunderingly called for the national hymn. What is proper in the Imperial Theatre must be acceptable in the popular theatre. The curtain had fallen after the second act, when suddenly, from one of the boxlike recesses on the left gallery was heard the call "Hymn! Hymn!" Everybody looked curiously up. There were there a few uniformed young men, as we found later, student-members of that patriotic secret association organized under the patronage of the reactionaries--a stroke of Suvorin--to watch the progressive students. The orchestra replied to the call with remarkable alacrity, and the public rose dutifully smiling and stood to the beautiful hymn. But new shouts were heard. The choir must join in. The curtain rose obediently, and the entire cast of "The Maid of Orleans," Charles, Agnes, Jean d'Arc, and Lionel, Burgundy and England; the people and knights were already properly grouped and joined in the hymn with the orchestra accompaniment. The public again arose politely and listened standing. The demonstration was not yet at an end. It was reported that the hymn was sung three times in the other theatres, hence that should occur also here. And the public patiently rises for the third time, and lets the song float over it. The thin, black-bearded young man, however, rubs his hands with which he joined in the applause but shortly before, throws a significant glance to his neighbors, and hastens out. I do not know to this day whether he was an entrepreneur of the public resort, or a penny-a-liner who had arranged an interesting piece of local news.

Thus I came to see the birth of one of those patriotic demonstrations of which the papers were full in the following days. The impression was anything but striking. The fine hand of the police could be detected in the arrangement as well as in the audience. It was a forced demonstration that no one could avoid. I remember from my boyhood the explosive enthusiasm after the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war, and the evening after the battle of Sedan. In man's estate I was a non-participating observer of patriotic demonstrations in Hungary; my heart beat fast at home as well as in Hungary under the stress of sympathy. That was a real storm of feeling. Here--wet straw that would not burn. Worse. An obedient participation--woe to him who did not participate! and then a sarcastic wink felt as a compensation for the coercion just experienced.

The difference was never clearer to me between free citizens and Russian subjects, between national sentiment and obedience, as at these patriotic demonstrations under police supervision and inspiration.

And now I looked at the public more carefully. Where was the "people" among the thousands sitting in the theatre, or eddying up and down the colossal halls? not one hundred, not fifty men or women in the dress of the common people. All of it what is known in St. Petersburg as the "gray public," officials, business-men, the class with an income of two or three thousand rubles. I saw high-school instructors, students with their girls, modistes, the good, small bourgeois, that often stand morally and mentally high above the fashionable world; but the people, in our sense of the term, the workingman, the peasant, for whom the popular house was really built, in whose name the Czar was made to contribute, and to whom the building is dedicated, these were absent, and had to be absent, because they do not possess the schooling that would enable them at all to enjoy the offerings of the "Narodni Dom." The court may be persuaded that with such an institution they are marching in the vanguard of civilization, and that something of the future state has been realized with an institution that even the republics of the West do not possess; but the Russian patriots who are indeed living for their nation, and who would free it from the fetters of ignorance and superstition, only shake their heads sadly at this Potemkinism. Sand for the eyes of the philanthropic Czar, another winter resort for the St. Petersburg middle class; for the people neither "panem" nor "circenses," but for the paid eulogists a theme at which enthusiasm may be kindled--that is the "Narodni Dom," the pride of St. Petersburg. In Zurich, in Frankfort, in any place with real popular education, this "Narodni Dom" would be an ideal people's house, adapted to inspire sentiment of citizenship and patriotism, and to elevate the general culture level. In St. Petersburg it only shows the good intentions of the Czar and his consort, and the fundamental corruption of the régime. A sober, enlightened, culture-loving people would not submit to the autocracy of bureaucratic dictation shown above. It makes ideal "people's houses," but takes care that as far as possible, this house be kept free from the people.

XII

RUSSIA'S FINANCIAL FUTURE

I had a long and exhaustive conversation about the material welfare of the Russian people with a statesman to whose identity I am not at liberty to furnish even the slightest clew, if I am faithfully to carry out my promise to guard against his recognition as my informant. They were several hours of searching criticism, such as I had never listened to, from a man who through long years had himself been active in a prominent position, an outpouring quite permeated by the most hopeless pessimism, and stated with a passion that contrasted oddly with the gray hair and deeply furrowed face of the speaker. My references to him were of such a nature that he felt it safe to allow himself the most uncompromising plainness of statement. But I carried away the impression that it would be sufficient to give the Russian statesmen the possibility to speak freely, and there would be left no stone unturned in that wicked structure that is called "the Russian government," so great is already the accumulation of bitter anger even among those of whom it would be supposed that they are the real leaders of the state. The autocracy cannot even utilize the forces that are at its disposal.

"Yes, fate is cruelly upsetting all our calculations with this war," said the statesman, in answer to my question as to the probable effect of the war on the Russian economy. "No one even suspects what catastrophe we are facing, thanks to the policy that is just now celebrating its greatest triumph."

"Is not that a paradox, your excellency?"

"No, not at all. The triumph of our policy is the money reserve at our disposal, which enables us to mobilize without borrowing. But only nearsightedness can find therein additional justification of this economic policy, which, on the contrary, receives with its triumph also its death-blow."

"May I have a fuller explanation?"

"It may be easily given. Financial and fiscal considerations have destroyed our economy. You are surprised at this statement. But one must understand this system. The creation of a gold-reserve, the formation of a fiscal balance even at the expense of the internal forces of the nation, are, under certain conditions a necessity. For a backward agrarian state it is necessary, before all else, to join the more advanced countries in fiscal economy and guaranteed values, and if that requires sacrifices, it pays, in the end, in the greater credit facilities, I might say by the greater financial defense of the state."

"And your excellency believes that the internal development of the nation was thereby neglected, just as an athlete develops the muscles of his limbs at the expense of his heart muscles?"

"Certainly; I accept the analogy. We have increased our fighting efficiency, and have paid for it by internal weakening. I repeat that there was no other way, if we ever were to pass from the natural to the money system. This would be the right time to employ the credit thus secured for internal strengthening. But the war has upset our calculations and not only has it consumed our cash reserves, but will also compel us to make new sacrifices. We are in the position of a man who is still out of breath from running, but must begin running anew in order to save his life, and may only too easily get a stroke of apoplexy."

"Has not the industrial development in the western part of the country strengthened the national finances?"

"No; on the contrary, it has involved sacrifices. And we cannot expect salvation from these either. We have a yearly increase of two million souls, and our entire industry does not employ more than two million workmen. Our national existence must still depend for a long time on our agriculture, and this, so far from advancing, is becoming poorer from year to year."

"On account of the industrial policy?"

"No; but you should not forget that this industrial policy has by no means mastered the system. Nay, had the spirit whence our industrial policy originated been the ruling spirit, our agriculture would also have been in a better position; for that is the spirit of enlightenment. But now the strength of the soil is decreasing; and the peasant has no manure, nor is he acquainted with any system of cropping under changed conditions of fertility."

"And why is nothing done for the uplifting of his economic insight?"

"You must ask that of the gentlemen of the almighty police and not of me. I am of the humble opinion that hunger is beneficial neither to the soul nor to the body; but in that department where there is more power than in ours, it is believed that knowledge is under all conditions injurious to the soul. Also, that too many people should not come together and take counsel of one another; in the opinion of our government, no good can come of it. We had appointed commissions for the uplifting of the peasantry, for road-construction, for the regulation of questions of credit; but always the results were only conflicts between the provincial corporations, the zemstvos, and the government."

"What was the cause of these conflicts?"

"The tradition and the guiding principle of the present system, which I can only designate as the principle of gagging. An administration that does not oppress the peasantry is not yet to be thought of. Our peasant needs nothing so much as travelling agricultural teachers. But what would be the end of such teaching? To Siberia direct. Fear of the intelligent classes has already become a mania. Intelligence, if it pleases you, is revolution; only no contact with Liberal elements. The salvation of our people lies in its isolation."

"But that is the régime of a conquered country! Are not the rulers themselves Russians? How can they be so cruel to their own flesh?"