THE CZAR.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 11957, 16 March 1917, Page 6

THE CZAR.

II CHARACTER SKETCH.

(Jjy A. G. GARDINER, in/; Prophet Priests and Kings.".)

1 wax sitting in uiy room, one day '.n ; March last year when Mi&t Olcmentiuii r Black and Madame Stepuiak called on mo with. ;i. young man dressed ui. the garb of a workman. He !!S _ v fair, and hi 1 -' light blue eyes- i';ui tiia. look of childlike simplicity and frankness that goes straight to the heart, lb ; was a look that seemed to leave no- i thing to be told. A decent, sober, in- ; duttrious young artisan, you vU,n ' j ha.vo «iid, and passed on. But he wa* | indeed tho most significant- figure .1 j have over met: when 1 think of Russia , I see it through those mild blue eyes. He was a Lithuanian workman xeter Pridrikson his nam-: He Had in.ai <• member of a political organisation aw had been arrested w.th others ui | ; mhisi of the lUgu, horror.-;, bad flogged and tortured, and linai.v tenoed to bo shot. He was detained for the night in a village ii'-ar Riga, m a wooden'yhanty, t'ov the prisons '.vore •■o full that accommodation Ir.oi to t>o extemporised. lu the darkness he was taken ou i-side by the gaolers to tin; ->a\ - atory. The. irons wore on Ins le£> and tho " gaolers carried rifles. Escape seemed impossible. Uui> to-moriov, iio Wlis to die. When to-morrow death, men <lo not shrink from too risk of a rido shoi. The drowning man snatched at tin? last straw of liio. in the lu.vatory ho managed with a. stone to loosen the nut of one or tho irons'. Then, bursting through the he made one wild rush tor liberty, i'lio gaolers lired, but the night was dark, and they missed their aim. Arid the Mine they gave to firing should have been given to pursuit, for the forest was olose at hand- Perhaps, too, they had mercy ; felt, like Hubert, somo touch of pity for those trustful, appealing eyes. However that; may be, the youth, dragging his irons with him, reached the cover of the woods and safety. lie freed himself from the irons, wandered for two days and nights in the forest, then, hidden in a hay cart; by a friendly driver, reached the homo of a friend, where lie remained in hiding for three weeks before escaping across the frontier, and—here he was in Bouverie Street telling his thrilling story <juietl.y and simply through tho mouth of Madame Stop'ni ale. His back still bore the cruel nnirks of the lash, and he unlaced his boots and showed mo his toe-nails broken in the torture. What was bo going to do? He was going to Switzerland to join other refugees for a short time. ".And then?' - ' " Tiien lam going back." " Hack? Jim yon are sentenced to death." must take my chance.'' He spoke with the calmness of that fatalism that is so deeply rooted in the Ilussian. character. I have never seen him since; but three months ago I re-' ceived a- lector from Aladamc Stepniak. You remember,"' .she said, " the young Lithuanian 1 brought to see you somo iiliK) ago. I have just beard of his death. ito returned, to .Russia, was j recaptured, and shol.' : !

Multiply t hat; pathetic figure by thou- j sancis ;U)d 'ten-, or ihonsnnds, see in it j the symbol of a. system controlling a j hundred and twenty million lives,, and ) you bacc the H\i;i&ia of tins Czar. \\ hac j of the Cx.arr I\lr .lie;ii:h. the English tutor of the ('/tar. relates that one day he and. his pupil were reading together "The Lady of thw Lake." They came to that spirit"d desci'iptioa of the scene in Stiriiiig wh'.-n the castle gate-, were lliuig wicte open aiifl. King James rode out amid the shouts of tlx* populace. Long live- the Commons' K ing, Ling James!"' '' The- Commons' lvh)g,' ! exclaimed tho hoy. with sparkling eyes, '' that is what I should like to he.'' The emotion was sincere. For Nicholas fl. is one ol those unhappy ligm'es in whom t.io/i is divorced item conduct, an idealist faithless to his ideals, a visionary doomed to riclric his visions. Jlc lias a feminine shrinking from war, and plunges his country into the bloodiest war in history. Me looks towards .England a wl yea ens for iis tret -, air and its tree institutions,, its Commoils' King and its happy people, and every day throughout his wide realm the Jiangina.n 8 noose ii round tflie politician's neck and the gaolers key is turned upon the cry of liberty. What is the mystery behind this, perplexing personality that seems at once so humane and so merciless, that expresses itself now in a Peace Rescript, aow in approval of tho infamous doings of the [Hack Hundreds, that is compact of the shyness _ of a girl and, th« intense fanatical spirit of Philip JI., thai- would he '''a Commons' .King'' and yet, a despot? Thews in no need to question tho sincerity of his moods on the ground that they are- mutually destructive. .Lveu the best of men are conscious of that duality which Leighton referred to in one ol his letters to his sister in which lie said, "for, together with, and, as it were, behind, i so much pleasurable emotion, there is always that other strange second man in roe, calm, observant, critical, unmoved. bia-:e, odious. ' .(.'here is that other self, too, in the Cssar, fanatical, terrible--and. alas, triumphant. Perhaps the wonder is that, with such an ancestrv and such a tutelage, there should be any generous human emotion at all- For ' the history of his house is like a, nightinarti _ ot j blood. Mis father was as superstitious ' as a mediaeval warrior, lie would cross ] himself and even fall on his knees m ' prayer if a cloud, obscured. the sun i while he was looking through the wm- | dnw, and he died_ in the arms of that | miracle-monger, Father John of Croni stadt. His grandfather was assassinated in the public street; his greatgrandfather is supposed to have committed siticid'e under the of I the disasters in the Crimea; the Emperor Paul was murdered in 1801; and the vices of Paul's mother, Catherine 11., place her among tho greatest criminals in Royal history. Her husband was "removed." Ivan VI. was buried iu a dungeon for twenty-rour vears and then murdered. But why pursue the story? It is stained iwth blood right back to that pagan author of the Romanoffs, the chieftain Kobyla, who was driven from Lithuania into Russia .in the fourteenth century for refusing to adopt Christianity. _ The contemplation of such a family history would shadow any life. It ought also to have taught the lesson of the futility of despotism. It did, in fact, teach it, as we see in that emotion of the boy stirred by the cry of the " Commons' King." But it was the emotion of a mind ungove'rned by character and subject to fanatical obsession. Had liis impressionable temperament been moulded by generous influences the course of Russian history wouM have been happier; but he fell at the beginning under the medireval spirit of Pohiedonostsefr, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, the Torquemada of modern times, who instilled into him his doctrines of Oriental despotism, chilled by the frost of his bloodless philosophy. Under tho baleful guidance of Pohiedonostseff and Prince Meshkershtsky, he became imbued, as the writer of an article in the "Quarterly Review" pointed out long before his character was realised, with the conviction that lie was God's lieutenant, the earthly counterpart, of his Divine Master. That obsession, working on a mind naturally occult and timorous, has driven, as it were, the disease of despotism inward, withering the feeble intimations of a more humane emotion, isolating him from his people, a lid converting every expression of popular, thought into revolt against

i lie div ine wdl ,ueoodic;f in h s own f)c r.son. Th/s pervid'ed in;onsiLy_ i? the natural product or a Mipor:-!itmm- ia:mi :d a foi.Vile body. i-'or he has mme oi' the anonali.sm ami physical ohulbeit"e of Ins ra His tasios are ucii.esi jc and simple. He is devoted to hi-* wile mid in-, children, the la.st refuse ot his solitary lite, and loves lo sit ami read to iho trom the linjziiKh authors white she ,:s enni her ftnbroidery in lao en'-n----iii.;. He iiar< a passion ior cycling; i.ufo for s])Oi;i' he hits >ieither the taste nor i'ie nei've. In ! ise iancuafic oi the old' keeper who was in attendance on hire when lie. u a.s the p;u-a:- of J>or(l 1,0t.i.-.dale riit Wesiiiioriaiii'., the t. :<ar " did not know eno«s;h to hold' pun iitraight nor to hit n oird." His iack of physical was exhibited Ail the attmad.. 1 on lii;n by an c.ssass,:u wlten. as th« Ci:.ivcvitch. he was tourine; m Japan, with the Crown Price-" of Greece. The latter wrote io bis father Jt letter describing the incident, and in it used tho phrase, "Then Niekm ran. - ' "By some indisereno!! that phrase leaked out, and. all Russian society went about r.hrv.o,';tn<_; its .shoulders and' .mur;nc!rin<2'. " J ben Nicfcio ran." Perhaps was this timidity that wa:-i the cati.-o of the most jrii.nl act, in his career. tSo monarch it; instory was over faced with a more splendid occasion than tleri, which offered' itse'M.O Nicholas' on .Jatmary 2'J, The war s .\';t9 endiu.?, ;n disastci', tin 1 country was in revolt- .v|amsi ns o« n niNery and wrong and ny;utisi 'cho corriuriion and incotnpoi-onco oi tin: '.lurt-atu'rac^. But; it .'-'till had. «• rcmioiiu- "i fuu'h in tho Littio Father. It would go to him sit his Balaec- with a. petition to hi in to make it-, ean.se his own against the tyr.ttiTjy that oppi'r.sscd rf. Tin. people gathered in reus of - before iho Palace. I.f. was the monion:• for a hero. It was the moment ito \viu the love of a neoplo or to lose it for ever. And Niehol:»s was not there! He had lied overnight to T Selo, and left tho Duke Vladimir with his Cossacks to gject his subjects with • sword and musket. Tho streets ran with blood. More people fell that flay than in any battle of the Boer "Wai And Nicholas te.U for ever with them. Tho lack of physical courage is companioned by the infirmity of will, ilki* traced by the story of a conversation between >the Cr.ar and Kmpress winei' delighted .Russia last year, and which ran as follows Tho Empivss: " .My dear .Niehola.s, you must not always agree with everybody. Now, this morning M. Stolypcn made a- report, and after Tie had finished you said, 'M, Xtolyp'in, you fire quito right. } <puto agree with yon." I'ivo isciniiles later Jl. Durnovo came. M 7 hafc he. told yon was absolu'tely opposed to what Stoiypin had said, hut again you remarked', '"Aiy j dear Durnovo. you «.re quite right. 1

Quite agree, wiih you.' Finally, ' M. Schtvan-snbach came and told you something different from what the other two gentlemen had said, .and again vou replied, 1 M. pehwanenbaeh, you are quite right. 1 quite agree with you." The Czar, (after a. moment's reflection): " My dear Alexander, you are quite right. I quite agree with you." This infirmity of purpose gives thftb sense of confusion that pervades all his actions. He yields -and withdraws, creates a- constitution and! destroys it. sets np a Duma ami throws it. down, yearns for universal peace and blunders into war. He is always under hypnotic; suggestion, now faltering between the rival feminine influences of Lis Court., now subject, to the cold, inhuman philosophy of a Meshker,slitsky. now - dominated by 'the mystical charlatanry of M. Philippe, with hid miracles and spirit mcssaegs. For superstition ;s the essential atmosphere of his mind, and he -dwells in -the realm of wonder-working- relics. One of the saints, of VSarofr, lie ordered to be canonised, in spite of the disconcerting fact thai: though no had been buried only seventy years the saint's body was decomposed. The* Orthodox .Bishop Dmitry ot Tamboff protested on this ground agaius; .be beatification as contrary to Church traditions; but, he was deprived of his see and. sen». to Vyatka for venturing to disagree with tho C/.nr. •. hoi: Ids Majeesty holds 'that tho preservation of tho bones, the hair and the teeth is a sufficient qualification ot saintsllip. With these views it- follows that his devotion' to the Orthodox faith is as intense as it is narrow. It has resulted not only in the. merciless suppression ci : the .Armenian Church and of the Dissenters, but even in rhe harrying of the Old Believers, who are an important branch of the, State Church, and tho bodies of whose s:;inU have been disinterred and burned. The cruellest episode of the persecution of the Old Believers was that of Bishop Methodius, who administered th* sacraments to a man who, horn in -Hie State Church, had joined the Old Believers. Methodius, a man m st.ve'uyeight, was arrested for his ''crime, and condemned to banishment to Siberia,, whither, with irons on Jus feet, and p-enned up with criminals, he was dispatched. At Yakutsk lie remained, some time, but a dignitary of the State Church intervened and lie was ordered to be .sent on to Vilyuisk, in North-eastern Siberia, a place inhabited by savages. The aged bishop was set- astride a horse to which lie was tied, and told that he must ride thus to his now place of | exile, about 700 miles distant. This sentence is death by torture," said Methodius' flock. They were not: mistaken. The old man gave up the ghost on the road (1898), but when, , where and how lie was buried has never | been made know. This and other • tlio writer of " Quar-

ri'i'lv ivwiow" r.rcieic to which I havv j rcii-'n t J. " vmtv brought to the i'.>-: w. i;t in... Alt-je-iy without eliciting own an ill i:".;:! ci.' I, c-. the tra.-'wu/ "l -i 1 " Hl'drm Win, ai'uav.s co become lii«- «M tho insist viriPe . L treat:* iue ptii.fi of U-ast resistance. And iti turn tne r;ii.;!licai iricuiea n->d i>\ those 'Uilueuoe.-, -ai-: t alios every am ion mill divine 'tmpriiuaumr. l,ns vicious mquenee. we have t-w p.;cno- , mean o! morale-* opinion «:incrgii>K • from ;) persona!!y guy awl i.ii-.si<l .-oum e. In the sieid -of s>ueh ;t otitul the yur.m y is : »iwavs to Iho ir.o: r. imer.fcc ami ruttiless mul subtle. Weakness takes refuge ia strength and tiniidity ni tei> rorsivi. llk l boysii ouiomon that- c.i tcet out. " A. i/oivuuon.s' King: that is what s; should lil;o to ho, end.-; in a political ;;0v..'0l IOUI-dcd Oil tllC .'ilUlX'.in n| <■'<' '.•; v 'nv I'lif oiilv w.n' with Cmpire wivcKer-y Kverywhero the autocracy takes c-n tho asp-ecu of vengeance and repression. " i'ii;; massacre of Jews, the, nan'-ui-luent of Finns, the spoliation of Ar- !>) o'l 1 II)! S , ' : IO pO i'.-eel ; iOU ill I o!< S. tUC* ■exile o: Hu-ssia u nobles, the hogging or pea'--,nils, sll <iimM'isoaiiKMU and hiitotio!'v oi i' us - -iiin working tucti. the e.srablisjimeut. of ;i widespread system oi : espionage. ;u? ihe nijolu»'.>n o! ia.vv are. oil measures which the .Minister sungcstis ami i Me- Czar heartily tionw'' Thai. was written before iho mockery oi' a Coii.-.titiuiou v.';is grated ; hut the spA'it of the l.ion'riiiniMii is Use. ;11us.' to-day. Ihe do Blenves and •ho i\is.brsko!L- have gone to IMOiT :j;j, h'ii. bn; thoir .■ : uc , oo--.-n( > are :iico unto tiicia. in.od that oonlerrod a star i."nm ! v r;lav (.>'>;>!<■ >i.-icy ior nt> ou.eriiN •}! tin; jmm Willis nl iho (i(.H'OMI-tiH-nt o; r.hariciiii until ninny oi iiioin di'il. is idio same iuui'l tiifii (tnoorntos iiio C"z;»ruviti:ii with tin 1 badge ot the Black i inm.li'oii .. diai- n.r: n-i-e in-ini-;iu'in. oi Vi'ii;:'oanc-o. iit«. n'Hi'Oon'': tha r. ' in: (. onstun i ion n'as jiratu:iml nlroitdy <ii'ou ; du'ti. in a v.'« oi iiinooont Sac is it oniv the fierce, barbaric spirits to which !:- sidijetd: tic has the crodidd.y mat hnn iho oasy in-'.i'ciae'ii t oi 'he ii;i;ic--i cr and ' <\<' \i: ioinu'y, vclte-rhcr of tho spnduiiaii.stic j".y i)c oi' idc ! o. m •. m- > Vjui (>i toe cccent.l se itiiwmusv!' lU>:-;oi)r:i/.<)U. who.-e Vitti. sp'.'C!ia iis'e sidiomo i<>r uho Yaui i'orosfs fiKiina.lcii titst ll;o (•rami i'nkes, c;;:.;cr lo;- plianier. and. ij'leu the ( ;'a.r. who bccainv; an in vector. yave hint pMoriipcd-ont-iary powers, sidioi'diTiaaod ivnropat.kin and (.arnseiorlf to him, allowed hint to make the incompetent, Aioxoieii' Viceroy of Manchuria, ami sc. drifted into the oal;H----tropho id iho war. I!or will live, as the man who made the

great refusal of I'.i-tory. Ho have born the "rounder of a. now and happier Hrr-sin the Commons' King of his vouilifi:! vision. Mo has chosen :<> ■ ■'! ~rnr. and a prisoner in Lis forty p:tlaces. in ton years his ralo has * exiled (B.nOti oi I)is Mibjecis and (Iriven all the host n; Ihe nation s koih iihiiL ha-vo reaped Sibcn-;;t- to take ri>

fu»r- in other lauds. But ho himself is the aadclost exile of all, for he is exiled from the- domain of our common humanity-- a' prisoner in body and in .spirit." hedged round by his_ guards, suspecting the cup that .bo drinks, forbidden to dine anywhere save m his own palace, .receiving guests at sea, for lie dare not receive them ashore, a hapless, pitiful figuro that sits perked up on a glistening grief And wear a golden .sorrow. • Which would one rather be the prisoner of the palace, or that young Lithuanian carpenter with the, blue appealing eyes and the toe-nails broken in the" torture, v. ho gave his blood in tho sacred cause of human liberty;?