“Why do they not play the Russian national hymn?” I asked of my friend before we left the table.
“Because the national air of Russia, like the ‘Marseillaise,’ is prohibited,” he replied. And thereupon he told me of how, a little while before, he had been one night in a famous St. Petersburg restaurant called “The Bear,” when, during the playing of the national hymn, a guard officer had shot and killed a man ostensibly because he lolled over the back of his chair instead of standing erect, squarely on both feet. The police authorities, fearing further disturbance of a similar nature, immediately prohibited the playing or singing of the national air!
It was nearly midnight when my friend and I returned to our hotel, but there we found other friends still up. Hardly had we laid off our greatcoats when the door was thrown open and in rushed a common acquaintance—a Russian—tremendously excited, but radiant. He had been with a group of intellectuals in a home just around the corner. Suddenly the police appeared and placed all present under arrest. Only our friend escaped, and he through some clever ruse. While he was still relating to us his experience we heard the sound of singing, in the street below, and as we went to the window caught the words of a favorite revolutionary hymn. My blood stirred in my veins when I learned that the singers were being led away to prison, and I thought then, as I often thought later, after wide experience in Russia, that few things on earth are more thrilling than the sound of voices under such circumstances—brave men and women marching through frozen streets, often half-clad, to prison, or tied to Cossack saddles being dragged to tortures, and fearlessly, gloriously singing the words of freedom.
Sleep was slow in coming to my pillow that first night I spent in St. Petersburg. My mind was in a whirl in the vain endeavor to shake free of the conceptions of Russia gained before ever I crossed the frontier. Already I realized that, while Russia might be just as bad as most foreigners think it, it is bad in a different way. And whatever dangers may exist for the traveler in the interior, St. Petersburg, at least, was as secure (to the stranger) as Berlin, Paris, or New York.
One week later the confusion of impressions was even greater. Reports had come in, during these seven days, of clashes between the military and the people in forty-eight provinces. The atmosphere of uncertainty was more intense. Conditions seemed to be ripe for almost any kind of a disaster—imperial insolvency, barricade fighting in the streets, army or navy mutiny, general insurrection—and yet nothing of consequence actually happened. The cabinet crisis grew more acute, it is true. Witte—who has been called “more of a stratagem than a man”—was said to be in perpetual deadlock with M. Durnovo, his unscrupulous minister of interior, and those who had access to the premier told of how this greatest of Russian political adventurers would sit at his desk, in silent despair, toying with his glasses, frequently snapping them in two—sometimes a dozen pair a day.
The second morning after my arrival I was accorded an interview with M. Timirassiroff, whose demission was just announced, because of his liberal tendencies.
M. Timirassiroff had been for many years an admirer and supporter of Count Witte—whom he several times spoke of to me as “a great man”—but he now believed that Witte’s secretiveness, and lack of decisiveness, even of ordinary courage, was ruining his power and perhaps blasting his career.
“A Bismarck goes straight through his difficulties to the goal he has before him. Count Witte goes around his,” said M. Timirassiroff.
The deposed minister also dwelt upon the impractical method of administration then in vogue. Under the existing system each minister reports directly to the emperor, and the prime minister has no way of learning the character of the report of his individual ministers unless they choose to tell him—which in the case of Witte they seldom did. Witte, consequently, preserved a holy silence before his ministers in regard to his own policies. A premier who persistently declines to share with his cabinet information upon which he bases his policies naturally fails to obtain unanimous support.
“I would say to Count Witte,” said M. Timirassiroff, “how can I subscribe my name to that which I know nothing about?”