Page:The National Geographic Magazine Vol 16 1905.djvu/374

Rh Now there has come a temporary hush. For a time the gaze is diverted to that forlorn squadron plowing its uncertain way through unknown and treacherous waters. One signal victory of Rodjest- vensky's fleet may reverse all that has gone before, retrieve all the battles lost, redeem autocracy and the Tsar. In the anguish of suspense the autocrat and the nation listen and wait.

Upon a train some days ago I sat near two gentlemen engaged in earnest con- versation. They were talking about a third, apparently a friend of their youth. They seemed to be summing up his life and character. Said one, "He was always hampered by his inheritance." Said the other, "Well, I think he blundered along just as well as he knew how, "Then I caught another sentence, "He never knew whom he was able to trust." Their conversation ended with, "He would have been a great deal happier if he had been a clerk in New York." Despite the distance in race and rank, those random remarks epitomize the life story of Nicolas II.

Far happier for him a simple house in Yonkers or Harlem than the sumptuous halls of the Winter Palace. Better fitted is he for the routine of an office and a desk than for the perils and responsibilities of a crown. Then, when the day's work is done, what joy to reach his home and toss his children in his arms, and picnic on a holiday or a Sunday in the suburbs with his family. Such, they tell us, is the gentle, homely, wife loving nature of the present Tsar. Whatever the destiny of the autocrat and of the autocracy, the Russian people remain. Rudyard Kipling, in "The Man Who Was"—perhaps the most powerful story Kipling ever wrote—puts upon the lips of Dirkovitch the prophecy of that for which the centuries have been waiting: "The Czar! Posh! I snap my fingers—I snap my fingers at him. Do I believe in him? No! But the Slav who has done nothing, him I believe. Seventy—how much?—millions that have done nothing—not one thing. Napoleon was an episode! . ..

Hear you, old peoples, we have done nothing in the world — out here. All our work is to do : and it shall be done, old peoples. Get away! Seventy millions — get away, you old people ! "