Page:Ossendowski - The Shadow of the Gloomy East.djvu/99

 CHAPTER XII

USSIA, the Immense country, the ant-heap of one hundred and forty million human beings, the political chaos where a reactionary Government and a violently protesting revolutionism always marched together, where ignorance and mental haziness, divergent psychologies of different classes formed an excellent hunting-ground for the most obscure and ignorant elements, both in the reactionary and revolutionary camps.

The procedure In the two camps differed as to method, but had the same results.

The reactionaries employed the system of provocation, the revolutionaries that of destroying the foundations of the State by awaking the passions of the Russian mob. The results were the same: contempt of law and complete demoralisation of the nation.

On a background thus prepared were thrown such terribly dark shadows as Pobedonoscev, Kurlov; and appeared such living characters of the Middle Ages as Grishka Rasputin, the Bishop Pimen, the monk Heliodor. These were of the reactionary camp. The other