“Do you know, in the first place, what you will do? You will deliver the peoples of three-quarters of the globe into hopeless slavery; you will lose, perhaps forever, the opportunity of democracy; you will establish the grossest kind of militarism for all time. Why do you think Germany is going to listen to you? What sign has she ever shown that she would? When have her people ever turned away or shown horror at any of the beastly things her rulers have been doing in this war? … What about your own Revolution? Do you believe in it? Do you treasure it? Do you want it to last? Do you suppose for a moment that, if you bow to Germany, she won’t instantly trample out your Revolution and give you hack your monarchy? How can she afford to have a revolutionary republic close to her own gates? What is she doing at this moment? Piling up armies with which to invade you, and conquer you, and lead you into slavery. What have you done so far by your Revolutionary orders? What have you done by relaxing discipline in the army? What good have you done to anyone or anything? Is anyone the happier? Isn’t there disorder everywhere—aren’t all your works stopping and your industries failing? What about the eighty million peasants who have been liberated in the course of a night? Who’s going to lead them if you are not? This thing has happened by its own force, and you are sitting down under it, doing nothing. Why did it succeed? Simply because there was nothing to oppose it. Authority depended on the army, not on the Czar, and the army was the people. So it is with the other armies of the world. Do you think that the other armies couldn’t do just as you did if they wished. They could, in half an hour. They hate the war as much as you do, but they have also patriotism. They see that their country must be made strong first before other countries will listen to its ideas. But where is your patriotism? Has the word Russia been mentioned once by you since the Revolution? Never once. … ‘Democracy,’ ‘Brotherhood’—but how are Democracy and Brotherhood to be secured unless other countries respect you. … Oh, I tell you it’s absurd! … It’s more than absurd, it’s wicked, it’s rotten. …”
Poor boy, he was very near tears. He sat down suddenly, staring blankly in front of him, his hands clenched.
Rozanov answered him, Rozanov flushed, his fat body swollen with food and drink, a little unsteady on his legs, and the light of the true mystic in his pig-like eyes. He came forward into the middle of the circle.
“That’s perhaps true what you say,” he cried; “it’s very English, very honest, and, if you will forgive me, young man, very simple. You say that we Russians are conceited. No, we are not conceited, but we see farther than the rest of the world. Is that our curse? Perhaps it is, but equally, perhaps, we may save the world by it. Now look at me! Am I a fine man? No, I am not. Everyone knows I am not. No man could look at my face and say that I am a fine man. I have done disgraceful things all my life. All present know some of the things I have done, and there are some worse things which nobody knows save myself. Well, then. … Am I going to stop doing such things? Am I now, at fifty-five, about to become instantly a saint? Indeed not. I shall continue to do the things that I have already done, and I shall drop into a beastly old age. I know it.
“So, young man, I am a fair witness. You may trust me to speak the truth as I see it. I believe in Christ. I believe in the Christ-life, the Christ-soul. If I could, I would stop my beastliness and become Christlike. I have tried on several occasions, and failed, because I have no character. But does that mean that I do not believe in it when I see it? Not at all. I believe in it more than ever. And so with Russia—you don’t see far enough, young man, neither you nor any of your countrymen. It is one of your greatest failings that you do not care for ideas. How is this war going to end? By the victory of Germany? Perhaps. … Perhaps even it may be that Russia by her weakness will help to that victory. But is that the end? No. … If Russia has an Idea and because of her faith in that Idea, she will sacrifice everything, will be buffeted on both cheeks, will be led into slavery, will deliver up her land and her people, will be mocked at by all the world … perhaps that is her destiny. … She will endure all that in order that her Idea may persist. And her Idea will persist. Are not the Germans and Austrians human like ourselves? Slowly, perhaps very slowly, they will say to themselves: ‘There is Russia who believes in the peace of the world, in the brotherhood of man, and she will sacrifice everything for it, she will go out, as Christ did, and be tortured and be crucified—and then on the third day she will rise again.’ Is not that the history of every triumphant Idea? … You say that meanwhile Germany will triumph. Perhaps for a time she may, but our Idea will not die.
“The further Germany goes, the deeper will that Idea penetrate into her heart. At the end she will die of it, and a new Germany will be born into a new world. … I tell you I am an evil man, but I believe in God and in the righteousness of God.”
What do I remember after those words of Rozanov? It was like a voice speaking to me across a great gulf of waters—but
