Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/471

Rh who quotes the apocalypse and the disciple whom Jesus loved is a new type. A new feature, too, in terrorist fiction is the liaison between the hero and Erna, the chemist of the group. The relationship between George and Erna comes into the category of what is known as free love, and we are told at the very outset that when George holds Erna in his arms he thinks of another woman, Elena. The diary opens with the account of these love relationships, but passes immediately to the consideration of its main ethical problem, that of the right to kill: "Why shouldn't one kill? And why is murder justified in one case and not in another? People do find reasons, but I don't know why one should not kill; and I cannot understand why to kill in the name of this or that is considered right, while to kill in the name of something else is wrong I am not conscious of hate or anger when I think of him. At the same time I do not feel any pity for him. As a personality he leaves me indifferent. But I want him to die. Strength will break a straw. I don't believe in words. I do not want to be a slave myself, and do not want any one else to be one."

As I read, I feel that I am making the acquaintance of a new type of terrorist, and of a real terrorist, not an imaginary one. My Russian correspondents inform me that Ropšin, a young man of about thirty, married to a daughter of the poet Uspenskii, was the leading spirit in the assassination of Pleve and in that of the grand duke Sergius. In the periodical "Byloe," devoted to the history of the revolution, Ropšin's mother has given an account of the author of The Pale Horse. His real name, it appears, is Savinkov. Arrested and condemned for his participation in the before-mentioned assassinations, he escaped from prison a few days before the date fixed for his execution, and now lives abroad as a member of the Social Revolutionary Party.

Ropšin's George (and this, again, is something new in a terrorist) thinks and feels precisely after the manner of Ivan Karamazov. Whilst Ivan was a typical representative of the opposition intelligentsia, was a philosophic revolutionist, George combined the rôles of philosophic revolutionist and practical revolutionist. Dostoevskii, it must be remembered,