others will make their appearance, and the very men who have hitherto been honest will become dishonest, and the very men who are honoured with my confidence will deceive and betray me—still, in spite of all this, I am forced to act rigorously, for the case is one in which punishment is requisite. I know that I shall be accused of harshness and cruelty, but I also know that I shall be less blamed by those for whom I must now become simply an instrument of justice, destined to fall upon their heads.”
An involuntary shudder passed over the faces of all who were present. The prince was calm. Neither wrath nor mental emotion of any kind was reflected upon his countenance.
“Well,” he continued, “the man in whose hands the fate of many lies, and whom no appeals could hitherto move, now appeals to you all. All shall be forgotten, wiped out, forgiven; I will myself intercede for all, if you will comply with my request. This is what I ask. I know that dishonesty cannot be extirpated by any means whatever, neither by terror nor by chastisement. It has become too deeply rooted. The dishonourable practice of taking bribes has come to be a necessity, and indispensable even for those who were not born with dishonest instincts. I know that it is impossible for many men to resist the general current. But I am now obliged—at a sacred and decisive moment, when the salvation of the country is in question, when every citizen contributes all he has, and sacrifices everything to relieve his starving countrymen—I am obliged to make a proclamation to all those who still have a Russian heart in their bosoms, and who have any comprehension of the significance of the word nobility. Why discuss which of us is the most to blame? I am perhaps more to blame than all the others; I may have been too stern with you in the beginning; I may through my superfluous suspicion have repulsed such of you as honestly desired to be of service to me. But if those I refer to really loved justice and the welfare of their country, they should not have taken offence at the haughtiness of my demeanour; they should have stifled their own self-pride, and sacrificed their own personalities. I should have noted their self-sacrifice and their lofty sentiments, and have finally accepted wise and useful advice from them. Nevertheless, the subordinate ought rather to mould himself to the temper of his chief, than the chief to the temper of his subordinates. This is, at all events, more lawful and easier, since many subordinates have but one chief, whereas each chief has a hundred subordinates. But we will now lay aside the question as to who is the most to blame. The point lies here—that we are called upon to save our country; that our fatherland is being ruined, not by the incursions of twenty foreign nations, but by ourselves; that beside the lawful government, another government has been established which is much more powerful than any lawful one. We have fixed our own conditions; everything has had a price set upon it, and these prices have been become universally known. And no ruler, were he even wiser than all the rulers and lawgivers in the world, can remedy this evil, no matter how greatly he limits the action of dishonest officials by appointing other officials to overlook them. All means indeed will prove unavailing until each one of us feels that he must prepare to repel dishonesty, in the same manner in which he armed himself at the epoch of the great national rising. I now appeal to you as a Russian, as a man of one blood with yourselves. I turn to those among you who have the least comprehension of what nobility of thought consists in. I invite them to remember their duty—duty, which presents itself to man wherever and whatever he may be. I invite them to examine their duties more closely, and the obligations of the service they belong to.”
“And now, gentlemen,” added the prince, “will you now be kind enough to follow me into the adjoining apartment?”8
As the prince uttered these words, he made a sign to the lackeys who were standing on each side of one of the doors of the audience-room, and this door was instantly flung open. The governor-general then passed into the largest apartment of his official quarters; the entire assembly followed him there and the door was closed again. This apartment, which was surrounded by writing-tables, was lighted from above, and had in all five doors, all of which were closed; in front of each, inside the room, stood two gendarmes, armed and motionless. This circumstance seemed to add to the gravity of the language which they had just listened to. Still another peculiarity attracted general attention: only a few chairs usually stood near each of the writing-tables; but on this occasion, the chairs were considerably more numerous than usual, and on the tables in front of the chairs there lay sheets of white paper, and on the paper freshly cut pens.