Of course there was nothing to explain, and I wrote meaningless and evasive answers to all the questions. Oranski discovered the following statement in one of my letters: “No written constitution leads to anything: they are all mere contracts between a master and his slaves; the problem is not to improve the condition of the slaves but to eliminate them altogether.” When called upon to explain this statement, I remarked that I saw no necessity to defend constitutional government, and that, if I had done so, I might have been prosecuted.
“There are two sides from which constitutional government can be attacked,” said Golitsyn junior, in his excitable, sibilant voice, “and you don’t attack it from the point of view of autocracy, or else you would not have spoken of ‘slaves.’”
“In that respect I am as guilty as the Empress Catherine, who forbade her subjects to call themselves slaves.”
Golitsyn junior was furious at my sarcasm.
“Do you suppose,” he said, “that we meet here to carry on academic discussion, and that you are defending a thesis in the lecture-room?”
“Why then do you ask for explanations?”
“Do you pretend not to understand what is wanted of you?”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“How obstinate they are, every one of them!” said the chairman, Golitsyn senior, as he shrugged his shoulders and looked at Colonel Shubenski, of the police. I smiled. “Ogaryóv over again,” sighed the worthy old gentleman, letting the cat quite out of the bag.
A pause followed this indiscretion. The meetings were all held in the Prince’s library, and I turned towards the shelves and examined the books; they included an edition in many volumes of the Memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon.[[74]]