# Chapter I: Petrograd

1.
... and, post factum, everybody claims that "he (or more often she) predicted it long ago, but they would not listen." It is a lie; we all knew that the war has been conducted abominably, that Rasputin and Stürmer were plotting, that the administration was greatly inclined to graft,--all gossip of the town. But no one whom I had seen since the execution of the monk was aware of the real fact: the revolution was in the air. Rodzianko, to whom I spoke at the Club only a fortnight before the abdication, said that everything would turn out all right. In fact, the Court, and people around it,--were much better posted; perhaps they felt something growing instinctively, as they were too silly to crystallize their fears in some concrete conception. Maroossia was in Tsarskoye Selo not long before the old Admiral's death; they said that the danger was expected from the "Town and Country Union." But all these whispers and chatterings were always of the category of a "so-and-so, whose brother's friend knew a man who...."
With all my running around about the town I must confess I did not notice any movement; I always thought that the reason of the unrest--was the shortage of food, and a little provocation, to put Stürmer in a disagreeable position. The realization of the serious danger approaching all of us came to me only when the police fired on the mob on the Nevsky and the first real clash took place. I happened to cross the Liteinyi near Basseinaya Street, when I heard for the first time in my life the whistling of bullets and the peculiar drumming of the machine guns. I felt weak in the knees and around the waist and had to stand in a porte-cochère for a while. It was only for a few moments, and I felt ashamed of this disgusting feeling of fear. A crowd of cooks, or maids, passed near me shouting and screaming for help; they had disgustingly lost their self-control. I reached home in a hurry and found Maroossia pale and frightened. I had to tell her not to show her nose in the streets. Then Mikhalovsky called me up and asked how did I like the revolution. He did not like it: his cook had been shot in the knee; a very moderate cook, in fact.
2.
Committees, everywhere committees! Everywhere suspicions! No more cheerful faces! Permanent meetings of the new elements! Much conversation! Greetings! Wishes of prosperous free life! Hopes of the Allies that we will continue the war!
All this still characterizes our poor country.
Today--for the first time in my life (it is only the beginning!) I saw a real communist alive. He was a man of rather short size and dark complexion, if such could be detected under his greasy cheeks. He wore a small beard twisted at the end in a tin hook. His ears--transparent and pale--were unproportionately big. I stopped near the Elisseiev store to buy score cards for this evening's bridge, when a little group of men--civilians and soldiers--gathered near the communist. The usual crowd of nowadays loafers,--shabby looking, discussing something, casting around looks full of hostility, hatred and superiority. A boy brought a chair from a cigar counter, and the communist stepped on it, and started his talk. "Tovarishshi," he said, "the time has come."... They all applauded, though nobody knew what was going to be next, and the speaker could even have been a reactionary.
"This is he," shouted a sailor to me; a big chap with hair falling off of his cap.
"Who is he?" I questioned.
"You, burjooi," a soldier said to me, "no wonder you do not know him. This is Comrade Trotzky. He comes from America. You had better move on or I'll tell who you are,"--he continued staring at me very resolutely, and spat on the sidewalk right near my foot.
I moved on. What people!
I crossed Nevsky and stood on the other side. From there I could not hear Comrade Trotzky, but studied his movements and gesticulation, his manner of scratching his nose, of quickly turning his head in a derby, and the nervous shrugging of his shoulders. The mob applauded him after every phrase, making his speech a series of separate sentences and thus giving him the advantage of thinking of most radical ideas, while awaiting for the listeners to finish the applause.
I have finally decided to give in my resignation. What is the use? No work is being done. We only talk. The whole administration, the whole administrative machinery, stands still, evidently retrograding every day.
Many understand it. Rodzianko is going away south; a man whom they think too old and too much of a reactionary. He is quite depressed, I presume, but likes to look perfectly satisfied. When I asked him whether the war looked to him as though it were to be continued, he gazed at me, and not after hesitation sighed, and said:
"Yes, if the army will stand the effects of order number one."
And then, fearing the next question coming, he assumed the air of a busy man and shook hands--"as he had to go and see his relatives."
Nearing the house I saw Kerensky in the Emperor's car, proud, and smiling to left and right. His Excellency, the Minister of Justice!
3.
Everybody is sure and proud that he is building up the new Russia. Lawyers and doctors, engineers and priests, all run with busy faces,--they think a statesman of today must run,--everybody gives orders, counter-orders, nobody carries them out, nobody listens. There are about 200,000 Napoleons in Petrograd today; as they multiply by section, this number will be enormous before long. The situation, however, does not improve....
In the office there was quite a discussion of the probabilities, and I was listening to the younger people. Criticism and "my own opinion" are the main sicknesses. Perhaps the private initiative used to be so hardly oppressed, that it comes out at present in excess.
Why should lawyers be convinced, that their profession gives them the right, primo genio to be statesmen? I should suggest an archeologist, or a man in charge of a lighthouse.
4.
We all went to the "Farce," Maroossia and F., myself and Misha. Afterwards we had supper. At the next table to us were the M's., Alexander Ivanitsky and the Baroness B. Since her return she certainly looks much better. At first I did not see her, then before all she reprimanded me in her usual kind manner. She had grown a little thinner and has more jewelry I should say, and is as fascinating as before. When she speaks one can see that she thinks of far distant things.
"We all are busy these days," she said, when I asked her whether she came here from England just for curiosity to see all of us under the Provisional Government. "You did not change at all." Misha, who did not know B. before, did not like her very much,--in fact, they all think she is suspicious. Aren't these youngsters peculiar? Especially Misha who is so grouchy lately--all seems dangerous to him. I never think that a woman can be anything but pretty or hideous. There is no middle, and no suspicion about them. If a woman is, what they perhaps would call "suspicious"--then there is a man's influence behind her--so find the man (and it is easy) and she is as plain as a card on the table. Baroness B. is pretty. And if she likes to talk like a Pythia,--that's her way of making people interested in her.
Maroossia complained of a headache, so we left early. Baroness is in the Hotel d'Europe--she is so sorry that "her Astoria" became such a hole. Well--not only her Astoria.
5.
It certainly would be a wonder to expect anything but confusion from the men who recently became the leaders of 180 millions. The leaders are sure they can make wonders.
Prince Lvov! This old squeaking carriage, as Polenov says, is a man from whom I would not expect anything. It is enough to look at his beard, with remnants of yesterday's dinner on it, at his small blue foxy eyes always reddish and always dropping tears. Miliukov! Minister of Foreign Affairs! All his experience consists of a continuous chain of political breaks and a series of moderately paid, superficial articles on Balkan questions in a provincial newspaper. And, Monsieur Kerensky,--la fine fleur--the Minister of Justice, a little man with a single kidney and a double ambition. Insects!
These people would not be able to administer a small country community, and here they are confronted with three immense propositions: the Great War, the building up of a new state, and the fighting of an organized propaganda directed against the war, and against order.
It was enough for the ladies (and for Maroossia too) to see all of these people in power, in order to find interesting points, not only in their political activities, that would not be so bad--but in their private lives too. They all already know who these people are, what they eat, when and where they were born, what their wives and mistresses look like, etc., etc., up to the most intimate deeds and traits of their characters. The foreign ladies also take a very keen interest in those little tea-chats. All prefer to listen to them much rather than to the events at the front.
Vadbolsky wrote me a letter sent through the "Help the Soldiers" society. Of course he could not say much. They all realize that discipline is going down with tremendous speed, at least at the Northern front. The soldiers listen more to what the Council of Deputies say than to anything else. This treble power--the Council, the Government and the Army Authorities--must be united, but there is no one to realize it; and if there were, there would be no possibility of co-ordinating the different currents.
6.
Evening with the Ivanitskys.
After dinner we all went into the library and started as usual to speak of our very bad affairs, the high cost of living, even here, in a private home, reserved, not to be accused of reactionary tastes. The ladies looked at every one who would start to talk, as if he would be the man to solve all of our complicated problems and mishaps.
Baroness B., whom I had seen very much lately, talked to me for a while in a corner, to the ridiculous anger of Maroossia who went to bed tonight without kissing me. She (the Baroness) said that Sophie had already reached London after the stay in Copenhagen and Paris. "Her mission," she said,--as usual coquettishly and childishly looking around with a fear of being overheard,--"was a failure." In Copenhagen "they would not even listen", to Sophie, and she was told that the solution and the "démarches" must be made, if made, from London, as there people have every means to arrange with Berlin. I asked the Baroness to keep all of this news to herself, and not to drag me, or what would be worse, Maroossia, into any conspiracy. "Be just as you are and don't try to become more serious, it may spoil you"--. Heavens knows what the Baroness has become since her peculiar conduct with the Vassilchikov and her permanent whisperings to Madame Vyrubov and the rest of the gang. But still, there was already a movement about Tsarskoe Selo. If I were not so particular about avoiding silly conversations, I would have asked her what she meant by communicating Sophie's failure to me.
Finally, I am glad, I did not ask her questions. What is the use of the Emperor's release to me? A man who did not know how to pick his advisors, who did not know how to arrange his home affairs, his Alice von Hessen Darmstadt, his monks and his generals, does not deserve to be too much regretted, and certainly does not deserve too particular interest. Baroness B's. actions are strange. Is she paid? By whom? Cash? Promises?...
(a page missing)
... was stopped by me and slightly pursed her red lips, we joined the rest, where a British Major (I never can think of his name) was telling of his experiences in the research work for German propaganda in Petrograd. So sorry he had to speak French with his typical Anglo-Saxon struggles with "D" and "T," that makes French so perfectly ununderstandable in an English mouth. It is horrid that people like the Ivanitskys don't know English well enough, and now, when we all have to be among our British allies, we make ourselves, and the allies as well, simply ridiculous!
So the Major explained that their man was at several meetings of a body, which he called "Le conseil secret du parti bolchévique" (that must have been something very bad indeed), where a man by name Lenine was present, also communists Bronstein, Nakhamkes, Kohan, Schwarz and others, I forget. They all are conspiring. "Be no war with our brethren," "Be peace on earth," "Closer together peasants and soldiers, workingmen and poor," "To hell with the intelligentzia," "Long live the International," etc., etc., was all we saw on the banners lately. The queerest thing is that the British agent at the meeting saw amongst the anarchists several men from the police, and a fellow by name of Petrov, the same one that had the accident on the Moscow railway and was asked to leave the Foreign Office a couple of years ago. Now Petrov is with the communists. Again the agent reported the presence of the 1905 blackhundreds. They all are there, and instead the "Boje Tsaria Khrani," they shout the International. They all understand their people (the agent said) and they all are with the Lenine and others, to return to the sweet past by destroying the bitter present. Sir George, the Major continued, knew all about these significant political blocks, and reported them to London, but the Foreign Office and the Conseil de Guerre seem to be either ignorant (I would not be very much surprised), or know more than the Ambassador, so, as yet, our Cabinet has not been warned. Our Cabinet! It sounds majestic.... Since Miliukov left, and the mercantile Monsieur Tereshchenko took his hot seat--everything goes to the devil with our policy abroad. It is strange, for Mr. Tereshchenko must be well posted in foreign relations: both of his French twin mistresses gave him every possibility of becoming "bien versé."
But--oh, shades of Count Nesselrode and Prince Gorchakov! Inspire the newcomer, looking from the walls of the Foreign Office, at his struggles! Your illegitimate son needs your sense and help ...
7.
Since the scandalous discovery of the plot (Mr. Kerensky took personal care to make it scandalous)--perhaps it was not a plot, but just a few letters of the Gr. Duchess M.P., Tsarskoye Selo has become very difficult to reach and to visit. A few days ago Maroossia came home from A. very late and so tired that I thought she was ill. The communication seems completely stopped, and soldiers were looking in the automobile every five minutes. Once she thought they would arrest her. Sentinels not only around the Palace, but in the garden too, with a double chain of Reds on the streets! The General told Maroossia that some one explained to him that these difficulties and impediments were provoked by the successes of the Germans on the Riga front, and that they expect a serious drive on Petrograd, and twice insinuated about her going to Yalta, or Gurzoof, or Gagry,--as things there rapidly were becoming complicated. So said the Admiral too, in his peculiar way: "The rats before a shipwreck usually feel the coming wreck by instinct, and run on the decks." He said that was his impression in Tsarskoye. Every rat is exceedingly nervous and tries to disappear from the Palace under some pretext or other, and the Palace is deserted.
Kerensky is coming there very often, usually with his milk-fed A.D.C.... This man wants to be generous, he wants to be square, in fact,--he wants to be magnificent. He calls the Emperor "Colonel Romanov," or "Nikolai Alexandrovich." Never says, "Your Majesty." He feels sure that he is beloved in Tsarskoye, and that they speak of him with tears of gratitude, admiring his justice and his manners. I hardly think Kerensky realizes that they are simply frightened, and feel with their inborn appreciation of the man, that by playing on his exceedingly well developed self-veneration--they might be saved.
I have been told in the Club that the Government is planning to get rid somehow of the whole family. The foxy old Polenov explained to us after bridge that he would not be surprised if Kerensky would say to the Lenine crowd that the Emperor should be taken somewhere in the country on account of the German advance, and to Buchanan ... on account of the growing strength of Lenine. "Many more people are interested in this affair," he said, "than even Kerensky knows. If he knew, he would have a larger field for bargaining."
Devil knows who is who now! If police officers enlist in the communists,--what is next? Trotzky's going to a high mass?
8.
Dined with Buchanans and the Lazarevs. Ros. was wounded. We all enjoyed this little story:--
A German girl was asked:
"Können sie Ibsen?" To which she replied:
"Nein! Wie macht man das?"
9.
I suspected, and feared, that it could or might have happened,--and so it was!
Yesterday Mikhalovsky asked me to come to his office. He looked queer and worried, and when I stepped in, he closed the door and started to reproach me with every sign of excitement, so proper to him; spitting all over my face.
"I never expected that from you! I never expected! How is it? What is it!?..." and so on.
I stopped him and asked him to be more explicit, as I could not grasp all of the meaning of his eloquence. After he lit a cigarette (how many times this little thing has been a salvation!) Mikhalovsky became more comprehensible and told me that Misha phoned at one o'clock in the night and asked him to come immediately to the Intelligence in his private office. Mikhalovsky, who is now taking great care of himself, drinks some waters, takes green pills and goes to bed at nine, became enraged and refused, but Misha said he was an ass, and simply had to dress and go to the headquarters. So the old thing had to dress and appear. Misha showed him a short note from the French Agent which read something like this:--"Baroness B. evidently communicating with Copenhagen through Sharp and Starleit M. General Z. to be approached, also Quart.--General R. In one instance a package carried to Sestroretsk by a lady in a blue tailor suit with white fox fur. Trail lady, arrest Baroness B. Watch Finland Depot, radio to Generals Z. and R." No signature.
My astonishment was very great, and I said that "though I have known Baroness B. quite well since I met her in Paris and Monte Carlo and...."
(five lines scratched out from manuscript).... "Quit your damn jokes for a while," he exclaimed. "Do you realize, what you are talking about? The lady with the fox--is Maroossia!"
"Maroossia? Spying?" I said, becoming angry in my turn. "You will have to account for it, Boris Platonovich, as even an old friend and relative must think over those accusations."
Then Mikhalovsky explained that Misha's man followed the lady--up to the house, and that it was Maroossia. Another one "listened in," and understood from Maroossia's and Baroness B's. conversation, that my wife took the package to a certain Madame van der Hüchts in Sestroretsk, on being told to do so by the Baroness, and that she did not know what there was in it, and even did not know who Madame van der Hüchts was.
"You see, you boneheaded fool," Mikhalovsky continued, "what was the danger? If Misha had not succeeded in having his own man listen in, and do it quietly, all of this detective work, your Maroossia would be gone by this time." "But,"--he continued, "now the case is closed, as far as your wife is concerned, and the only thing I wish to insist upon,--is to get Maroossia out of here right now. Furthermore, you should give her a scolding."
I said it would not be omitted.
10.
Maroossia left for her father's. We certainly had some explanation! She cried and felt indignant, and finally understood why I was so angry when the evening papers came out with the news of Baroness B's arrest. Then--she understood that she never should do anything that was asked her "without her husband's knowledge." The case, as Mikhalovsky says, is closed.
The last two or three evenings I spent with both Mikhalovskys. They told me strange stories. I simply cannot believe them. First--that the German staff sent Lenine here with a special message to some people now in power. "We know all about it," said Misha, "but the time is not yet ripe to act." Second--that a certain person received a request not to touch Grimm, nor any of the communists. Third--the strangest--to get the Tsar's family out. "All of this news would have been much fuller if only we could decipher some of this,"--and Misha took out of his pocket and presented me with this strange slip of paper....
(missing)
...--all of these crossings of the lines are words, or ciphers, or phrases, God knows what, and they must mean something very important for they were taken from members of this web, and stand in direct connection with our present, or rather our future, attitude. But that is about as much as we know of it.
11.
I went to Cubat's for luncheon, as the cook had to go to a meeting,--how do you like that?--and I do not regret it, for I learned much.
When I think of Cubat's, Contant's or the Hôtel de France's public before the war, and compare them with the present, I find the difference on the style of people simply enormous. They never were here before,--these types of men with eyes looking for quick money, for instantaneous riches, for some "affaires du ravitaillement militaire." Yesterday's poor chaps, that would not know the difference between a côtelette and a jigôt are ordering and easily eating things that it would take me some time to think of. Democratisation of French cooking, or vulgarisation of exclusive tastes (?) which?
I met Frank at Cubat's.... Heaven knows how he got released from custody. I could not help it when he approached my table and greeted me; I asked him whether he had heard anything from Colonel Makevich. He asked me about Maroossia, so one thing led to another, and finally the waiter brought a chair. "Can I join you?" he asked. I growled something like "delighted" and so he sat down. The conversation at first was rather general, and then suddenly:
"Did you hear anything of the Baroness B's. case, and how is she now?" he said.
This unexpected question put Frank in a new light. I had to take several puffs of my cigarette to think over my answer. Frank gave me time to prepare the response in giving orders to the maître d'hôtel. Quite a bit of time elapsed after he questioned me. I hoped for an instant that he was going to forget about it, but, alas, when he was through with his orders (from which I understood that he either had become rich, or expected me to pay his check) he looked at me and repeated:
"Yes, sir, did you hear anything new of the poor Baroness?"
"Well," I replied, "the only thing that we all know: she is in jail."
"Your information," he smiled, "is quite old. They released her about a day or two after this misunderstanding was cleared up."
"What do you mean 'misunderstanding.' You would not call such a case so gently, I suppose?"
"Here we are!" Frank said, lowering his voice. "So you must know more than the average person. I, personally, knew only that there was an arrest, and a release (as I saw the Baroness) after they understood that there was no reason for holding a perfectly loyal lady. I think we should talk it over again, but not here. I read in the Town Activities column that your wife went to Tula. Couldn't you join me for dinner tonight at Contant, say at seven-thirty?"
My first impulse was to refuse him flat. Then I happened to think that my avoiding him would perhaps somehow reflect on Maroossia for her silly behavior with the package. Besides I was interested to know what Frank would talk about, and to know what happened to the B. And again it interested me to know what he was doing at present. So I hesitated.
"Please do, decide affirmatively," he begged. "I feel sure you will not regret a good dinner."
"Very well," I said, "at seven-thirty."
After luncheon I crossed the street to see Mikhalovsky, whom I was sure to find in the Club. He was going out with Polenov.
"Aha, dear boy!" Polenov said to me. "The wife is away, and here he runs around like--... (his comparisons are striking, but very rough!) Come on with me. There are no political parties or platforms at Nadejda Stepanovna. A little lawyer, and an old soldier are equally welcome. Nadejda Stepanovna just telephoned there are new ones."
The old fool! As if there was a single living being in the town that would not know that all his pleasures were reduced to kissing a new girl on the forehead and petting her behind the ears! Nadejda Stepanovna told me how they all laughed watching Polenov through the keyhole.... "Thanks," I said, "I am through with the Oficerskaya Street." So he went alone, trying to look younger and straighter.
When he left I asked Makhalovsky to explain to me what happened to the Baroness. He almost fainted.
"For heavens sake! Don't shout that damned name! There are ears everywhere," he whispered.
He took me by the arm and dragged me all along the Morskaya, giving me short and hard kicks as soon as I would open my mouth. And only when we reached his room and he verified as to whether or not the door was well shut, he said:
"Now what seems to be your question, and what in hell do you know about her? Who told you that something happened to her?"
As this is the time when "homo homini--lupus," I said that nobody ever told me of her, but having met Mikhalovsky at the Club I thought of the Baroness and asked.
"Well," he said, "she was released." And Mikhalovsky became sad and worried, looking humble and frightened.
"I am all tangled up, friend!" he said. "I think I am in mortal danger. Last Friday Kerensky asked me to come to his office and said she must be freed, and everything was a misunderstanding. He said he had received proof; her arrest was a mistake. He also said that we all must be careful about our arrests, "from the left, as well as from the right."
"Did the British Embassy intervene?"--"Not at all (it seems though they never had heared of it)."
--"and here," he continued, "we received a letter signed by Executive Committee, Department of Political Research, saying that unless the whole dossier of the Baroness B. was burned, the undersigned of the message reserved the privilege of knowing how to deal with it. Misha was so disgusted with the letter that he went to see Kerensky, and explained that a body of doubtful prerogatives and no official standing had no right to insult an official institution by threats. Kerensky read the letter, studied the attached signatures and said "that he would not pay any particular attention to the letter, that there was decidedly no reason to think that the authority of the Department was offended, or held in contempt." He took the letter from Misha saying that "as I see it affects you too much, I will make a private and personal investigation and let you know when I get some results."
"Now," Mikhalovsky continued, lowering his voice, "Misha has disappeared. He is not in the office. He has never come home since the morning he told me all of that. When I asked his chief whether he knew anything about Misha--I got an answer that he was looking for him all over the city and could find neither Misha nor a dossier which he needs more than Misha himself! I feel,--I know, Misha is dead. And surely, all that in connection....
"Look here, Boris Platonovich," I said, "You must not feel so terribly depressed about that story. Nothing happened to Misha ..." and I continued in that tone of consolation, though I knew how weak the words sounded.
Mikhalovsky shook his head. "Anyhow I won't let it pass so easily. I'll try to know, and I'll try to clear it out...."
I left him with his head down on his hands, in an agony of sorrow for Misha, and in an agony of fears for his own sake.
At about twenty to eight I entered the restaurant, having decided to keep silent, to give no chance to the man to understand me not only by questions, but even by the association of ideas: I decided to be like stone. He was talking to a chap in the hall, a tall, pimply young man of twenty-five, in the French style of blue khaki and with aviation insignia on his sleeve. Frank left his friend and we both went to the dining room.
When we were through with our soup, Frank said:
"I have touched today upon the case of the Baroness. In fact you know the story from many sources, especially from Mikholavsky.... Please, please!" he exclaimed, when I made a movement of protest,--"don't. So, if you are apt in making logical decisions and conclusions, you are in a position to understand all. Don't try to destroy anything by going around with your personal impressions, for it really would be bad. Just look!"
The telegram he showed me read: "Michael Mikhalovsky's body found on the track near Vyborg station four in the morning suicide presumed." "There is no need for explanations," he said, in putting the message back in his pocket, "nor sorrow--all is over. But it would be an excellent idea to appreciate this mere fact properly, don't you think so?"
"So," continued Frank, "to come closer to our own affairs, I must say that a young and charming lady is leaving for Stockholm on a special mission--I know not exactly what it is--and I must give her some information, some of which could be furnished by you. Before I ask you for this little information, however, I must clearly apprehend one thing: do you feel sufficiently interested in anything closely connected with the old régime? And if so,--how deep is your interest? You understand?"
"I understand," I said, after a second of thinking. "I also get your threat. Now--my answer will be clearer than your insinuations, as I fear nothing that I cannot see." (what a liar I am!)
Then I assumed my best poker face and calmly continued:
"I don't know, and do not care to know, what you are after, Frank. Personally--I cannot find anything in the old régime that I would regret to any important extent. On the other hand--I honestly do not see anything attractive, or particularly elegant, about the new régime. Practically there is no régime whatsoever in this present concoction of kuvaka and elevated ideas. So, finally, damn it all! I would be grateful to a friend who would advise me how to get out of any activity, and of course, would not consider any suggestion leading me into it. My decision is plain. I resign. Then I realize all I can and disappear from this rich field of political life. That's all, Frank."
He looked at me. He was very grave. And then suddenly his face changed and he again became the chap that amused Maroossia and myself in Marienbad a few years ago.
"So I feel, old man, exactly so," he laughed,--"aren't all of them the rottenest types one ever saw? Trash, my dear sir, trash. And I greet your decision."
The tension which I felt at the beginning of the dinner disappeared completely, and we began to talk about different things, remembering the time when we met, and recollecting our mutual impressions of 1912-1913, when things and people seemed to be so very different. I could not help, however, asking Frank at the end of our dinner:
"Are there any especial reasons to try and be foxy with me, or any reasons to frighten me with mysteries?"
He answered:...
(several lines scratched out)
..."no such things as mysteries. This is the commonest of all planets and everything is plain and entirely within the old three dimensions. Some very cautious persons do not see the matter clearly--or perhaps they are too stubborn to see it right,--and it makes them suspicious.... You'll kindly forgive me," he added, "if I'll have to be going?"...
After his departure--it was only about 9:30, as I had nothing to do, I went to the New Club. No Misha there. I saw Boris Vlad. drunk as a sailor in company with three or four other rascals; I think the short one was the man from the Red Cross. In the card room--a gloomy game of bridge, no word said unless for a real mistake....
So I came home and looked out of the window onto the deserted and neglected streets of my Northern Palmira....
12.
Millions of those who fell for their countries in Europe and Asia paved the way for a general depreciation of life; human existence has no more value. For years they were killing people on the battle fields. It is justified.... They were killing lately, in Russia, officers (for the reason that they were such.) It can be understood: the crazy mob is not responsible. But what can one think of murders? For reasons unknown to the murdered, and perhaps to the murderers. Here are the results of three years of war, the results of three hundred years of slavery.
Maroossia read the news of Mikhalovsky's accident in the papers in Tula, and came yesterday.
"Nothing could stop me," she said, crying bitterly, and leaning on me so that I would not be too angry. "Dearest, everything is so strange! Misha's death, and Boris Platonovich's death!... Please, let us go away somewhere, I cannot think of you, here alone...."
I told her that I had made arrangements to resign, and why it could not be done yet. "Then," I said, "we will go to Gurzoof, where our house is rotting without care". I succeeded in calming the poor girl, explaining with all of the eloquence that I had, that Misha's suicide and Mikhalovsky's accident in the lift had nothing in common, and that both deaths were not to be put in the same angle of view.
Later she showed me a postal card from Misha, from Vyborg. He did not sign it, but his characteristic handwriting spoke only too clearly. "Wanted to send you some fruit," he wrote, "but here there is no fruit, so you'll have to get some yourself from the South."
"Poor Misha, there was something strange about him before he killed himself," she said. "I never asked him for any fruit. He was very nervous, the poor boy, I see it! And to think that almost in his last hour he thought of us!..."
Fruit from the south.... I see Misha's dead hand pointing to us the way out of Petrograd. It is a warning, a cipher warning from the other side of the grave; one more inducement to leave this filthy place.
13.
I again hear that something is growing amongst the bolsheviki. There are indications that if everything passes well for them--Kerensky will join the movement, passing from the left social revolutionary party to the commune. Both parties deal with internationalism, and finally the only difference is that the bolsheviki act more energetically.
The country will then become an ideal state: people would not know any laws, would not pay taxes, would not marry, or sell or buy.... Fine! About the last, however, I have my doubts. There will be always somebody to be bought in Petrograd. It is in the climate, I guess.
The Allies! Our Allies who were ready to fight Germany to the last Russian soldier.... Do they understand that the fraternization at the present time is so intense, that pretty soon the boches will get the foodstuffs from the very hands of their Russian comrades? They must know that at present there are only few men to be hanged. The war will be won in a month. Tomorrow their number will be so big, that not enough hangmen could be found in the world to clean up Russia,--unless some Powers wish to see Russia amputated. This looks probable.
Today saw the British Major. He expressed his condolence for our grief. I received the impression (or perhaps I am getting too nervous and suspicious?) that he knows more than I.
14.
Quite unexpectedly the Baroness B. came today to the office. At first I did not want to see her, but then thought that it would be better not to make these dangerous people angry, as heaven knows what they are liable to do if irritated, and besides--she is so fascinating. So she was shown in. She was veiled as much as only she could be, for mystery and to conceal the slight and ingenious coat of rouge, I guess. The usual feathers, rings and perfumes; and I had thought that I would see an ascetic face tired out by seclusion! She said that she had nothing serious to tell me, but had just run in to say good-bye and calm me; she was not going to call on Maroossia: "too busy and other reasons."
"I appreciate your other reasons," I said. "You have already shown what a friend you are. Why did you drag Maroossia into your business? You probably are well protected against any disagreeable event, but we are not. So next time please, use your other reasons...."
"There was no dragging your wife into my business. The package of laces she took to Madame van der Hüchts is not a crime. Besides everything is over; so, as if nothing had happened."
"Yes, it probably is nothing. Misha would be of a different opinion, I am sure."
"No, he would not."
There was a silence for a while, and then she said, sighing: (line illegible...) "For instance, we wanted to give you the whole outline inviting you to do something for your country--and you refused to help."
"Baroness," I said, "honestly and truly I don't understand these speculations. Just as honestly and just as truly I don't care for them, no matter what they are for. I hate this manner of operation. The manner! I hate plots. I hate underground work, and the only thing I care for--is my own comfort and my own affairs."
"You don't know what you are talking about," she said, "or the atmosphere has made you so clever, that I don't know whether you are trying to get something out of me or not. Very well, I am conspiring. I am now with these people, with whom I would not have thought of being--only three months ago. As soon as I succeed--I shall leave all and become free and independent...."
Then she corrected herself; "I don't mean to say, of course, I am not independent now, but.... What time is it?"
I told her.
"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....