Page:The Spirit of Russia by T G Masaryk, volume 2.pdf/475

Rh and philosophically, George is compelled to ask himself whether to achieve the death of a governor is worth so much sacrifice, and whether the sacrifice furthers the end, brings nearer the attainment of political and social liberty. Moreover, he doubts whether it is still right to practise terrorism now that Russia has a constitution.

Not merely, however, is George oppressed by the problem of the right to life and death, and by his doubts concerning the utility and purposefulness of terrorism; but further, the terrorist's outlawed existence is utterly repulsive to him. Without a country, without a name (for he is always appearing under some new alias), without a family, George has to lead a life of fraud and falsehood. There chase one another through his brain thoughts concerning God and human destiny, concerning the future of Russia and of humanity; he would like to sit down and quietly think out his own attitude towards the ideas of Dostoevskii, Nietzsche, Goethe, Tolstoi, etc. But his connection with the revolutionary party compels him to lead the life of a spy; all his thoughts and all his activities must be concentrated upon a single point; like Tihomirov, the revolutionary leader who abjured revolution at the close of the eighties, George feels the pettiness, deplores the restrictedness, of his mental horizon.

What to him is governor X or governor Y? Hecuba—and yet something more. When the first attempt miscarries, George's mood becomes tinged with gall, and from the moment when the governor has given him a friendly greeting in the street he conceives a personal hatred for the man. A strange sentiment of revenge overpowers him, and it becomes clear to him that he does not wish to lead a peaceful life, that blood-letting charms him for its own sake.

George, therefore, does not merely kill his political opponent. He challenges Elena's husband, feeling certain that his bullet will lay the man low. He cannot endure that he should not have exclusive possession of Elena. Elena does not believe in eternal love, and he has himself expressed to Erna his disbelief in such love, but in Elena's mouth the sentiment seems utterly wrong to him!

We are given an insight into a moral chaos. George feels, none the less, that to kill in the war with Japan and to slay Elena's husband are two different things, for the latter killing is something which he does solely for himself, is the Rh