The Fortnightly Review: No. CCCCLXIII, New Series [‎638v] (167/239)

PEACE AND INTERNAL POLITICS : A LETTER
FROM RUSSIA.
St. Petersburg, June \2tli.
No one can live long in Russia without finding strange support
of the reactionaries’ contention that the Autocracy, in its habits of
thought and practice, mirrors perfectly the people. Common to
both are procrastination, indifference to essentials, incapacity
for action, and love of words. I witnessed a curious instance of
this to-day. At half-past one in the morning, a perfect fusillade
of revolver-shots woke up the street in which I live. Believing
that this was Social-democracy’s often-threatened removal of the
particular Grand Duke who at this hour in the morning drives
home from the Yacht Club some distance down the street, I
looked out of the window. A few yards apart, plainly visible in
the subdued illumination of the northern “white night,’’ three
men sprawled in the ugly, unromantic attitudes of those over
taken by unexpected death. One wore the ordinary policeman’s
red-braided black tunic; the brass badges on the others’ caps
showed that they were dvorniks. Round the corner of the street,
and out of sight, a fourth man groaned, “ I am killed ! ’ ’
A crowd collected, chiefly composed of dvorniks and policemen.
From their exclamations, I gathered that the murderer had been
caught; and that, like two of his victims, he was a dvornik.
But though everyone seemed to be keenly interested in these
unessential facts, into no one’s head came the idea of finding out
whether the policeman and dvorniks were really dead. From
the shoulder of one a dark stream trickled across the pavement.
No one paid attention. A heated discussion was going on over
the man-slayer’s motives. “ Aliosha’s been crazy ever since
Misha was killed by the Japs,’’ shouted a brother dvornik.
Why did you say he did it?’’ “Drunk, I suppose.’’
“ Aliosha’s never drunk; he fought the head dvornik of number
six, and said he’d do for him.’’ The first-arrived policeman
looked at the last speaker irritably, made a note in his book, and
said : “ You can’t hang a drunken man.’’
Another policeman, in order better to hear the discussion,
balanced himself on a hexagonal block of new paving wood.
When the blood of the nearest victim trickled to within a few
inches of his feet, he sprang on to a block some yards away, and, in
doing so, stumbled and knocked a civilian over. This accident
seemed to wake everyone up. On the civilian exclaiming angrily,