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PREFACE
Nevertheless I venture to cherish the hope that the
faithful description of what I have been enabled to see,
to hear and to know, and even the judgments that I
pass—in all sincerity—on men and matters, will form a
contribution to the study of those events which have
destroyed an entire world, and which are inaugurating
a new and unknown order of things.
This order of things is greeted by some with
ecstasy; others view it with terror; others again hope
to exploit it to their own advantage or to that of their
old moral and political conceptions which they are
striving to disguise as best they can.
I prefer to confess at once that—although sincerely
deploring the disappearance of a world to which I was
bound by my former habits, my mentality and my
work—I do not suffer from any illusion as to the
possible return of this old world, of this ancient order
of things. And more especially must I realise this
where it is a question of Russia and of her future
destinies.
All of us who have taken an active part in the
tremendous events which have just occurred, belong
to an irrevocable past, and history is already preparing
to engrave our final sentence on its tables of bronze.
That is why—contrary to established custom—I
have allowed myself, in the course of these
Reminiscences, to judge my contemporaries with complete
frankness, and to say all I think about them and the
part they have played, when I have observed them,
heard them or seen them act. And the dead—I
bury my dead as my conscience dictates: To some—
the pomp of a national funeral, the mournful chants of
Melpomene, the fumes of incense and of smouldering
torches; to others—the modest procession of relatives
and a few friends; to others again—the felon’s end.
A. N.
Feb. 16, 1920.
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