Rescuing the Czar/Part One/Chapter X

= Chapter X: Romance in the Sight of Death =

28. The next page of the diary is badly blurred and torn, but the following can be made out:

"We are all about played out.... The boy is exhausted and lying over in a little excavation upon his sisters' wraps, his fingers bleeding and one eye blinded with the sand.... The passageway behind us is almost closed up.... In front of us we have hit a solid wall.... The exhausted mother is binding her boy's hands with a portion of her petticoat.... As she kneels there, with the faint flicker of a light falling on her finely chiseled profile, she resembles Botticelli's magnificent Madonna in the Uffizi Gallery at Florence.... The picture is completed by the dark background and the solicitous attitude of the girls as they cluster around the sufferer.... With a little imagination one can delineate the jeweled crown which the two girlish angels are holding above her head.... Pathos, resignation and a sort of recreating FAITH are painted against that threatening wall and overhanging dirt.... If that should fall WE ARE ALL BOUND TO SUFFOCATE before any help can come.... My 'prisoner' is not a bit discouraged, however.... He is using his jackknife against the concrete wall with great patience and whistling softly and slowly an air from 'The Blessing of the Waters.'... WATER!... I know those girls are CHOKING for a drink as I have been for the last ten hours myself.... Still, not one of them has murmured at our grief and Anastasie has become quite chummy in pretending to cheer ME up.... Aristocracy or Royalty, even, with Democracy in a tunnel, makes us ALL of one size! Under certain conditions a man of my education and family connections MIGHT be privileged to forget the veiled lady of Buckingham and accept these endearing little attentions with some guarantee of hope.... But WHAT IF WE ALL ARE BURIED HERE like the happy families of Herculaneum and Pompeii?... Future inquisitive scientists may find this diary with our bones and classify us as a species of an extinct Tartar tribe!... The wall my prisoner is gouging out seems to be getting wet...."

29. Then there follows the entry:

"Water has burst through the hole my prisoner has been making in that wall!..."

30. The next entry has been evidently water-soaked and is entirely blotted out.

31. This entry seems sufficiently distinct to make out what the writer has been through:

"I tried in the foregoing to jot down enough of what was happening to enable anyone who would find our bodies to make out how we had died.... What I forgot to record in the excitement I'll put down now.... When the wall caved in and the water burst down upon us it seemed that we would soon be drowned alive.... The small hole in the wall had allowed enough water to filter through at first to slake our thirst and make us all quite happy.... But gradually the ground beneath us became damp and sticky and the blue mud clung to our shoes like glue until we could hardly move.... The little air that crept in with the water, though, was a positive blessing to us all.... We should have stifled.... Finally the water ceased and our hearts began to sink....

"... It was Maria who brought on the FLOOD I have learned today.... With a stone she found uncovered by the filtering from the little opening she began pounding against the wall.... Suddenly the wall bulged inward.... There was a swish, and a roar, and a deadening GUSH,--and then a RUSHING FLOOD tore open the side of the wall and burst like a torrent into our muddy, narrow cell. Higher and higher it mounted, enveloping us to our arm pits.... My 'prisoner' moved calmly over to the stately woman, who was holding up the boy, and patted her gently on the head. 'It will be all right, darling,' he said.... Then he kissed all his children and impulsively dashed in the direction of the cataract.

"... Struggling hard against the flood he worked his way nearer and nearer toward the broken curbing and finally DOVE through the waterspout and clung grimly to the wall.... For a moment his body seemed to tremble.... Then with a supreme effort he pulled his body into the opening and for a moment checked the flood.... It seemed like a gallant sacrifice.... at the same time.... the girl, Maria, waded back toward the opening that was NOW completely SEALED BY THE STICKY CLAY and began to tear frantically at the bank....

"Little by little she seemed to make headway.... But it appeared like an eternity,--and I felt certain that the man in the wall using his body as a plug must presently give up the ghost and be hurled back into our cell.... I then noticed the water around us DROP quickly, and, turning in the direction of Maria I saw her body being caught up by the current and sucked painfully forward into the opening her delicate hands had made.... It was too horrible to endure!... Now, while there is no blood of martyrs in my veins, and while I had PROMISED the sombre figure in Berlin TO DO A CERTAIN THING which a martyr impulse might prevent if I tried to be a hero in this instance, I simply could not look at that girl's struggles without going to her rescue no matter what it cost...."

32. The following then appears:

"I have no recollection of what happened after I grasped Maria by the feet.... All I remember is that I felt myself being dragged along after her through a blinding sheet of muddy, gritty substance, head foremost like a drowning man.... I imagined myself in mid-ocean clinging to some broken shaft after my vessel had been torpedoed, and I clung to those slender ankles as the only hope of life!... When I did recover there was Maria bending over me and vigorously see-sawing my arms back and forth in an effort to resuscitate me.... If ever there were an excuse for the chivalry of the Middle Ages it must have crept out of those dark moments when some puissant knight opened his tired eyelids upon a vision such as I then beheld!... But there was no time for Don Quixoting in that damp and muddy tunnel.... We noticed that the waters neither rose nor fell.... So we plowed our way back to the other members of our party as speedily as we could.... On arriving at the wall again we found my 'prisoner' lying propped up against a large slab of concrete and breathing heavily while he held the Empress' hand and essayed a feeble smile...."

33. The following entry seems to dovetail in:

"The walls of this old cistern promise very little assurance for our escape.... Still the cistern has its uses in circumstances like these.... We KNOW, at least, that some kind of human beings are not beyond our voices if we decide to call for help.... But WHAT KIND of help?... That is the question.... Last night, as I stood on the floor of the cistern I heard an amusing conversation.... A voice overhead was growling; 'I'm as certain as I'm alive that the loan of $250,000,000 has been made by Japan to those fiends who have escaped,--and I KNOW they have the GOLD, for why have those trucks disappeared?... so it is worth while to keep up this revolution until we get our hands on some of it if we have to follow them all the way to Vladivostok.'... 'That rumor has been floating around for the past week,' another bass voice grumbled, 'and I'm inclined to think it is all a game of bunko to divert attention from the pile of 600,000,000 the gang have smuggled into Omsk.'... 'Nonsense,' grunted the other; 'haven't we a thousand eyes at Harbin who know about the Chinese Eastern deal?'... 'Well, the only thing to do is to keep this hell in a constant bubble until we get the stuff at Omsk or the coin Japan has sent to this CREMATED FAMILY here!'...

"... 'Cremated, Ha! Ha!... why, did you notice those stoves in the house?... They're not big enough to burn up a good-sized dog!... My judgment tells me that that whole squad of double-crossers are in league with that skunk of a "Captain" who pretended to be a friend of Comrade Trotsky.'... 'Well, we made a mistake when we endorsed that BURNING lie,--we are ALL in for it NOW, and the only way to get out of it is to STAY IN IT and lie it out to the end--'.... 'UNLESS--' 'Unless what?'... 'Unless the Lett who pretended to do the killing is taken out and SHOT!'... 'Oh, give him a little more rope and he'll hang himself!'... When I related this conversation to my 'prisoner' he was very much amused.... 'This is a real adventure!' he smiled. 'We're like Tennyson's Light Brigade, with cannons in front, and cannons behind us and brigands on every side of us, thirsting for our blood,--these fellows are certainly not Russians!'..."

34. Then we have this entry:

"I have noticed all day that the family is gradually succumbing to the ravages of hunger and thirst.... If we call for help it will mean a FIRING SQUAD for sure.... The criminal crew who have already reported our death will HAVE to KILL us to make good their boast.... So we must stay here and silently watch one another collapse from day to day....

"... My prisoner says he is willing to give himself up if his death will enable the rest of us to escape.... The girls will not listen to such a proposition,--they are all agreed that they would rather organize themselves into a little platoon and FIGHT IT OUT if we can ever get out of this cistern.... It indicates a mighty good spirit,--but that gang outside would have us strung up in the twinkling of an eye....

"... I KNOW that Marie expects ME to do something from the inquiring way she gazes in my eyes.... She says nothing, but any man of spirit who looks into such clear, unflinching eyes under conditions such as these, will understand instinctively what is written in their suggestive depths!... They literally SHAME me for the little I can do.... Some lounge lizards may speculate on the nature of the sentiments this grateful princess will reveal if I display sufficient ingenuity to save us all from this slowly approaching DEATH!... How dramatic!... How absurd!

"... I have lately laughed at those Italian poets who bewail the isolation of their Lauras, yet, recalling my Lady Buckingham's repeated rescues, I begin to recognize a reason for the existence of that poetic fervor which agitates the artistic heart when either its safety or its vanity is at stake."...

35. This entry offers a little encouragement:

"There is no such thing as physical exhaustion.... Hunger and thirst may weight us down, but with the right kind of inspiration a man can do miraculous things.... I began rolling up balls of mud from the tunnel and carrying them into the cistern until my tongue hung out of my mouth.... With those balls I started making a winding stairway around the wall of this cistern until I had a dozen steps completed ... then the girls began making the balls and bringing them in to me like muddy little hod-carriers.... My masonry took on proportions as the minutes dragged by.... Finally we have a stairway four feet wide and extending from the bottom to within four feet of the top as I write these lines with the girls sitting a few steps below me in the slowly hardening clay.... We can all hear plainly the tramping of feet on the planking overhead.... It is a kind of shuffling one hears when seated somewhere beneath the dancers in a ballroom, and it may mean that we are headed directly toward the LION'S DEN."...

36. In this entry the Emperor speaks of Rasputin, spooks and Jews:

"It became dark and spooky when our lights gave out.... and while we sat huddled together the subject of 'ghosts' came up.... 'Ghosts!' the 'prisoner' almost snarled; 'that reminds me of the Jewish propaganda against my Government.... There was hardly a Yiddish banker in the world who did not accuse ME personally of inspiring Sheglovitov to have the Jews executed for ritualistic murder; and I am sure their influence will be very strong with certain statesmen and opportunists to have my Empire dismembered when the time comes to settle the terms of peace, as poor Nilus predicted.... I wish I could show you a letter I received from a Jewish banker in New York threatening to kill my loan in America and have our existing treaties denounced unless I complied with certain Jewish demands.... I did not think it possible and ignored the letter, of course.... You may judge of my astonishment when the Jew's threat was made good by the American Government doing precisely what the threat implied.... These people have been persistent in accusing ME of having communication with the spirits and of engaging in all sorts of magic, like the infamous Papus; well, if that be so let me exercise my gifts to prophesy that the denationalized Jews will attempt to hereafter enthrone themselves as MASTERS of the civilized world by their mastery of its amusements, its money, its POLITICS and its industry,--and you will find them demanding and RECEIVING special privileges in many countries where, at present, they are suspected and abhorred.... I have not the slightest doubt but that Kerensky will be succeeded by some Jewish politician within a little while--and they will blacken his reputation as they have tried to blacken mine.... the methods may be different but the result will be none the less effectual.... Only the other day, I might say, WHEN WE WERE LEAVING TUMEN, a rabble of Yiddish suttlers began yelling at ME: "Rasputin! Rasputin! where is your Rasputin!" ... Now Grisha Rasputin was a friend of the Metropolitan Archbishop of Protopopov. He was seeking to redeem the reputation of a horse-stealing father if I remember right--'He was a friend of Stuermer, Niki, not a friend to you,' interrupted the ex-Empress... 'You are right, darling,' returned the 'prisoner,' 'quite right, I know.'... 'What kind of a mountebank was RASPUTIN?' I asked to feel my 'prisoner' out.... 'He was a worthless rasputnik at best,' the fallen Emperor answered.... And you think the Jews are responsible for your reported attachment to him?' I asked.... 'Undoubtedly,' he said bitterly with a sigh of resignation.... 'When we were being taken to the boat at Tobolsk did they not make faces at me and Alice and flout me with their cries: "Take him to the Criminal Court and let him read the record of his libertine, Rasputin! Let his Barnabas teach him how to sin for the joy of gaining absolution!"... How little do those enfranchised Jews understand the meaning of forgiveness!' lamented the ex-Czar.... 'May I ask your actual estimate of creatures like Rasputin?' I ventured.... 'Our Rasputin was a hardened criminal beyond a doubt until his conversion by Father Zaborovsky, the good Rector at the Theological Academy at Tomsk,' the ex-Czar replied.... 'He would have made an excellent subject for investigation by Lombroso, by Havelock Ellis or other eminent criminologists ... but I believed the man was sincere in his repentance and accepted him as a sort of text for other sinners to point a way toward regeneration.... The higher Rasputin rose, the greater his fame became, the more impressive would be his textual example to other aspiring souls,--even a criminal should not be denied the consolation of hope where crime is the result of ignorance or misdirected patriotism.... If I sinned in pardoning a sinner then sin must be an unpardonable crime!... Nathan treated David as I treated Rasputin, although both were guilty of the same offense.... He was grossly illiterate,--the only schooling he ever got was in the Monastery Abalaksky and what he acquired from the lips of monks while making his rounds as a barefoot pilgrim from place to place.... His claims of having visions I ascribed to his empty stomach, although others gave credence to the nonsense.... Alice at first abhorred him; finally she began to regard him as a rare specimen in self-hypnosis who was worth studying to learn how far the fascinations of self-delusion were capable of deluding and swaying stronger wills and more cultivated minds.... We both learned, by observing him, that an ignorant mujik, like an egotistical Minister, if granted the semblance of authority for any length of time, will demoralize the finest organization in the world.... That was the lesson both Alice and I acquired from Rasputin.... And I am accepting Rasputin as a standard to estimate what will happen when men of his type and origin attempt the government of the world.... Without education, with no experience in governing even the smallest unit of society, unfamiliar with the trend of history, ignorant of military and commercial strategy, building their philosophy of life and their science of administration upon some isolated text, they will overturn the whole structure of civilization by arrogating to themselves the supernatural privileges and persuasiveness of the Voice of God!... The prospects are not inviting.... There are Rasputins in all the chancellories of Europe.... You have them in North and South America,--some educated, others like Marat and Danton, while some are simple Cagliostros who deceive the people and themselves.... If they were only Gideons instead of Joshuas their strategy might be reassuring,--but they are merely Rasputins and Papuses, after all!... Against all laws of nature they will try to triumph by commanding the heavenly and mundane bodies to stand still until they readjust the motions of civilized society to some dissolving and ruinous invention of emotional insanity where everything runs wild!'"