Page:Maud, Renée - One year at the Russian court 1904-1905.djvu/148

122 around him, and always agreeing with the last person who had spoken to him.

Her moujiks are the latent force of Russia, not the agitators of her towns and capitals, and they will be the first to see the falseness of the doctrines of the spies with which they are fed to gain this concurrence. May the moujik not recognize too late that he is being lured away—and who lures him? The ignoble Russian Bolo, his pockets filled with German gold, recompense of his treachery. That is the whole story.

The task of the Russian Bolo would not have been as simple if a Tzar worthy of the moment were still there. The moujik no longer has his "Little Father," of whom he made almost a god. For him he would have died with joy, with all that fanaticism which can possess the Russian soul, that fanaticism would have made of him an invincible soldier—but why should he die for a Kerensky? He is not a "Little Father," he is a man like himself—and at that he demurs. Can one blame these hardy and simple workers of the great steppes if they find themselves adrift, no longer having either him to adore who was almost their god on earth, or that to venerate which was the religion of their izba for centuries? For the Tzar was not only the head of the State, but also the head of the Religion of his State, the Greek Orthodox Church, as it is called over there. "He is our pope," Russians often said to me, referring to my Roman Pope.