James P. Smythe

“ If the damned lack of organization, that we all are suffering from, can be noticed in our present life—it is ideally clearly seen in the Ekaterinburg circles. The Princess G. and others are of the same sort; dully thinking, believing in and hoping for marvels and miracles, trying to look busy and tired. They gossip about each other, they are ready to sink each other in a spoonful of water. Now what is their plan? They haven't any,—at least, nothing definite. They all say vaguely "we are going to buy out Col. Kobylinsky and the sentinels and the Bolsheviki." ”

“ Soldiers might be deceived by men disguised as comrades. The Secret Service might overlook the hysterical entertainers who fluttered under the mask of charitable workers and skipped across forbidden lines protected by a Cross. This was the only possibility, this the phantom hope that stood trembling on the brink of the prisoners' abysmal fear. Thus the sight of a Red Cross driver or an English uniform in the midst of their disaster became a welcome incident in the lives of these affronted women. ”

“ 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. ”

“ There'll be a period of revolution and distress,' my prisoner remarked, 'before our country settles down to industry and contentment. But the desire of "self-determination" will mislead the unfortunate and cause them to embrace a tyranny of the most cruel and selfish type. This will last for a time until gluttony destroys itself, as all excesses do. When the country is dismembered by the activities of rival greeds, my poor and honest peasants will turn upon their masters and restore this nation's power. ”

“ It was Saturday night when finally our train reached Tumen: a voyage of eleven days by rail, by snow sledge, by foot, and again by rail, was at an end. God! What a sojourn, what people, what disorder! People full of onions, parasites, wounds, dirt, misery and fear! But still, in all of their misery, amiable and sympathetic, at first always desirous of helping the other fellow. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She got in me a good guardian of her barn, a good transport agent for her Britishers and Letts, she tangled me up in such a way that I could not report on her, she enjoyed the privileges of local Soviet's protection through me,—in short all she wanted.... And here I am alone from now on,—Good-by"—that's all. She left me this little note—and a bitter feeling that formerly I was not alone,—and now I am. For these sensations of lonesomeness a man should never start companionships,—whether with a woman, or a dog, or even a goldfish. The one who is alone—is alone. ”

“ And I am accepting Rasputin as a standard to estimate what will happen when men of his type and origin attempt the government of the world.... Without education, with no experience in governing even the smallest unit of society, unfamiliar with the trend of history, ignorant of military and commercial strategy, building their philosophy of life and their science of administration upon some isolated text, they will overturn the whole structure of civilization by arrogating to themselves the supernatural privileges and persuasiveness of the Voice of God!... ”

“ The quicker we get down out of these mountains and into the populated valley on our way to Seranagur the SAFER I will feel.... It is all very pleasant to take a look at this silver ring that encircles the plateau with its eternal snows, to watch the sparkling waterfalls, the gardens and the dimpling lake with its little islands with cottages resting on them and to imagine one's self in the fairyland we used to read about as children,—BUT for a full-grown man, in my position and charged with an important mission, I prefer to be on my way.... ”

“ The mean and envious beast that lived in our midst,—as it lives in every other country,—unseen, but felt, and always ready to crush the acquirements of existing civilization,—the mob came out from the underground world; criminal hands let the mob on the streets. ”

“ If you will join us, I could guarantee you a more or less protected life,—of course you will have to care for your own self, too."
"Please your Excellency," said the voice of Goroshkin behind me, "don't refuse this time. If your esteemed father could have known the circumstances, he would have consented, and he was a strict man. I recollect that His Excellency would not deign to wait a second for his overcoat."
"Very well, I accept," I said to Marchenko, "but I must say to you that it is not for the protection you promise me. I do not care much for my life, but I would like to preserve it. ”

“ A man who has escaped death is not to be trusted on a point of discretion,—he doesn't know how to select his friends. He is like a spirit emerging from nowhere in the eternal void and grabs at the first apparition that promises companionship in his embarrassing and momentary isolation.... Well, I was so glad to see that Buckingham Clorinda that I was willing to take her into my confidence at once.... ”

“ If their democracy shall survive their own self-amputation, the lightness of their governmental burdens will stimulate the flow of mercy through their social institutions and direct their thoughts toward pity for the useless sacrifice.
In simple justice, therefore, "Rescuing the Czar" is offered in extenuation of this doubtful charge against the entire Russian race. For nothing is better calculated to sanctify a martyrdom and make a race abhorred than a belief in its injustice. ”

“ Together with Comrade Adolf Pashinsky,—a Pole from the dreadnaught "Andrey Pervozvanny,"—I am walking on the Great Liberty Street, and inside of the fence, watching the prisoners in the Mansion, and watching to see that supreme justice—the will of the people—be done.
My companion—is a muscular man of thirty, without front teeth; his thin lips are always curved in a bad smile; his brain is such that he cannot think and speak of anything that would not be vulgar and vicious. ”

“ The miserable fiasco of a delirious Revolution went careering through the giddy maze of treachery and madness until a frenzied wave of rapine and disorder swept all the noblewomen of the Imperial household into a barricaded fortress around which lust and inebriety held unsated and remorseless vigil for the prize. ”

“ Botkin said, "I still would like to know whom I have the pleasure of speaking to?"
"Syvorotka is my name. I'll stay here in the hotel for a while."
He looked at me without any confidence.
"As you please," he said, "I cannot force you to take the mask off.
Good-by."
We shook hands,—and I left the Kornilov's House.
Here I am in the Hotel. Dirty hole—that's it. No linen. A mattress covered with spots. Rotten humor.
Botkin fears that the efforts might compromise those who are around the Mansion. He fears even those who are in exile. He fears everything. But—not for himself. ”

“ Good night, Lucie."
"Alex, are you really going?" she asked taking me by the arm, "Are you really going out just not to be with me? Is it a pose? Or are you serious? Please don't do it...."
"Good night," I said and went out.
27
A night in a small city of Siberia! One can see only because the snow is white. No moon, no electricity.... Where is my new Peugeot now? Who is driving it now? Where is Anton? Whose chauffer is he now, and is he still a chauffer, or has the wheel of fortune turned and made him Commissary of Arts, or Commissary of Public Health? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Yes, we have been together six weeks—more than that—we live under the same roof, eat the same food, have our life as close as two human beings can,—and yet—here we are,—apart from each other. You are a woman, it's up to you to break this distance and build a bridge over it. ”

“ Pashinsky thought over my proposition for a second,—thinking was a strenuous effort for him. His obscene face wore a suffering and preoccupied expression; then he said:
"I think you are right. We'll let Fost stay and watch the inner doors, and you and I will be alone in this side of the house. Then the men on the streets can't catch us, and we will be protected from the inside too...." ”

“ Tell the cook that you want to see me."
She does not think that I am a man. She hates me. Under my beard and shabby flannel shirt she sees neither my face nor my person. She has no shame before me: were I in my uniform of a gentleman-in-waiting, cleanly shaven and speaking her language, and not in the one I acquired lately, she would have buttoned her shoes, gartered her stockings, and would not have shown the bad quality of her corset cover under her wide-opened robe-de-chambre. ”

“ 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 said. "It really is not the time for any personal remarks. Besides—look at yourself; there is more paint on your cheeks than flesh. And this wig! To tell the truth I like your own hair far better. Your wig is outrageous. You look like a bad girl."
"Exactly. That's what I am now. Lucie de Clive, Monsieur, a vaudeville actress. That's me."
"A nice party, isn't it?" she said. "Syvorotka and Lucie?" "But—tell me before everything else, can I stay here?"
"Stay here? Pardon me, Baroness...."
"Call me Lucie, please...."
"Pardon me, Lucie, but really I don't quite comprehend. ”

“ If she only knew how her hired help understood her.
At four I was in the kitchen. Here—another interesting phase of life! The woman from Moscow who claims to be a cook, does not think I am from her midst, but feels with her organic cleverness that I am an imposter.
"You,—gentry! You liar! Hate your face! Hope the devil will get you soon!" she says,—but she isn't a bad woman, she means well, only she is not as clean as her profession demands. Altogether the kitchen is a mournful place. ”

“ To those schooled in the methods and objects of international propaganda during the Great War it is evident that, in a period of revolution, when thrones and dynasties become unpopular within the area of hostility and discontent, the adherents of Royalty may not be unwilling to appease the demand for vengeance by some theatrical display of meeting it with a pretense or an artifice until the passions of the populace have subsided and sober toleration resumes its sway over the sated revolutionary mind. ”

“ The Ekaterinburg organization is weak as I already wrote you. First because the organization is in Ekaterinburg and the Emperor in Tobolsk.
Who are these people? They want first of all, and altogether, restitution for the sake of getting good positions for valuable services rendered the Family. They all see that the restitution is problematic,—so their desire is not strong. They act weakly, they think lazily, they move with an agony of indifference. All that they have done is certainly known to Kobylinsky and—to the Commissaries. ”

“ I dress in an old military overcoat, have a badly broken shoulder blade (second degree injury at Stanislau) , and as my documents say—have been evacuated to Tumen, where I am supposed to receive my soldier's ration. Syvorotka! Would you talk to a man with such a name?
This Syvorotka, a humble creature—a shadow of yesterday—has only one thing of which he cannot be robbed, his only consolation: the sorrow which he wears deep under his uniform jealously concealed from the rest of the world. ”

“ Among these prisoners of State were five women who realized that the Power which had organized disorder as a feature of its military strategy had also honeycombed the Army, the Navy and the State with its agencies of pillage and so undermined the public conscience that their purity and virtue, more than their jewels and fortune, became an open challenge to the vanity of mob lust.
The younger of these women in their unsullied maidenhood looked longingly and unsuspectingly in the direction of Siberia. ”

“ 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!... ”