The two sides of the room glared and stared one at the other. The Duma evinced a curious interest in the spectacle the bureaucracy presented. Most of them seemed to wonder what all that display had to do with the business in hand. The bureaucrats, on the other hand, were much more moved. Some laughed with obvious scorn and derision. Others were sad and depressed. Others were merely amused. Only here and there was a face whose seriousness indicated a complete appreciation of the full portent of the scene. It may have been fancy, but to me it seemed that Count Witte alone understood. At all events he was the only man among all the bureaucrats who, at the close of the ceremony, spoke to any of the members on the Duma side of the room. The open avenue through the room from the door to the throne was like a yawning chasm, across which no word might pass, even of formal courtesy. “To us it is like letting the revolution into the palace,” said one lady of the court to me. So the whole bureaucratic side seemed to view it. No enemy could have viewed another with more open and keener suspicion. The Duma, it must be added, was the better behaved. The members were quiet, dignified, and obviously patient, through the extraordinarily long religious ceremony and a tedious hour of waiting.
In the first three months of the year over seventy thousand men and women had been snatched from their homes and placed in prison or sent into exile. The release of all of these people, against many of whom there was no known charge, certainly no evidence, was what the country at large awaited with ill-suppressed eagerness. “The Emperor will grant an amnesty in his speech from the throne,” said popular rumor, and it was for this that the Duma listened when the Emperor stood before the throne, speech in hand, about to utter the first words. The attitude of an empire hung on the temper of that address. The quiet that fell over the assembly was the quiet of a mountain midnight. Not a dress rustled, not a foot scraped, not a sword jangled, no breath was audible. The eyes of the Emperor returned from their survey of the room and riveted on the paper he held. His lips parted, and the first syllable rang clearly to the farthest corners of the room: “The right, given me by divine authority, to care for the Fatherland, has prompted me to call upon representatives elected by the people to aid me in legislative work.
“With the ardent belief in the bright future of Russia, I greet you here as the best people whom I have commanded my beloved subjects to elect. Hard and complicated is the work before you. I trust, however, that your love for the Fatherland, and your ardent desire to serve her, will inspire and unite you. And I will guard the liberties given by me with the firm belief that you will not spare your power and effort to faithfully serve the Fatherland in giving relief to the peasants, so dear to my heart, in educating the people, in helping them to prosperity, remembering at the same time that for moral greatness, and the prosperity of the country, not freedom only is necessary, but also order resting upon right.
“It is my ardent desire to see my people happy, and to leave to my son a powerful, prosperous, and civilized country. God shall bless the labor that is before us, in union with the Council of the Empire and the Duma. And let this day signify also the great event of the moral renovation of Russia. Let this be the day of regeneration of her best forces.
“Get devotedly to the work to which I have called you, and justify worthily the trust of the Emperor and the people.
“God help me and you.”
Both hands dropped to his sides as the last words were spoken, and he remained where he stood as though to watch the effect of the speech upon the assemblage. The military band in a balcony at the rear struck up the national anthem—most beautiful and magnificent of national anthems. Hundreds of voices from the side of the bureaucrats rose as one with a cheer and a shout of “Bravo! Bravo!” The roar was bewildering. “Bravo! Bravo!” However could one room hold such volumes of sound! But the Emperor’s ears were not deceived; nor his eyes. The shout in all its mightiness came from one side of the room. The Emperor looked long and earnestly at the Duma—not a voice was raised, not a cheer echoed, from that entire side. They were not even swayed by the prolonged cheering of the bureaucrats. Generals, old and decrepit, court cavaliers and ministers yelled themselves into a frenzy. The simple, ignorant peasants, of whom it had been said a thousand times—“Ugh! They’ll lose their heads first thing,” these men stood like stone, absolutely impassive. They knew in the first place that the “right given me by divine authority which prompted me to call upon representatives of the people” was merely an aggregation of words. Revolution prompted the Duma. Nothing more nor less. “Uprisings” and “disturbances” all over the country. And no word of amnesty! Nothing!
The Emperor slowly descended from the throne and the royal procession formed for exit. The band played its loudest. The courtiers and bureaucrats kept up their shouts of “Bravo! Bravo!” Whatever of spontaneity there may have been in the first outburst was now gone, and the words were pronounced in a unison which became rhythmic. Before the Emperor had reached the door even these shouts had subsided. His own aides-de-camp and the generals alone maintained the noise. A paid claque could not have been more marked.
At first the Emperor bowed to the Duma. But his bow was chill and formal, his eye cold and severe. To his right he turned with warmth. Generally he recognized a face and smiled, but to the left his expression was statuesque. The ladies in his train did much better. Several of them quite ignored the glittering array on the right, and bowed and smiled most graciously to the Duma members, and with more seeming spontaneity and sincerity.
After the imperial cortège, the bureaucracy filed out in a brilliant pageant, and last of all the Duma.