Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/203

 CHAPTER XXIV

REVOLUTION can never be contained within the frame designed for it for a given moment, but rushes on in its impetuous course. The Tsar abdicated the throne in his own and in his heir Alexy's name. Then came those painful moments when he saw those who "worshipped" him while he was Emperor turn their backs on him. The hideous spectacle of the debasement, cowardice, and vulgarity of the aristocracy caused universal disgust. Only a few persons of subaltern positions remained with the Imperial family to the very end, sharing their tragic suffering until the end.

The first revolutionary Government of Prince Lvov and the second Government of Kerensky's cultivated mysticism and fetishism of the word.

"And the Word became flesh," says the Scripture.

But the word of Lvov, Milyukov, Kerensky, and of the thousands of revolutionary orators remained a word which passed without an echo. It was a pitiful picture of the Impotence and wretchedness of the Russian intelligentsia.