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456
RUSSIA IN DECLINE [chap, xxiii.
unfortunate Empress acquired this information from her
interviews with the moujik Rasputin, and from the notes
and telegrams which the organisers of the " hundred
Blacks " rained on Tsarskoe.
There were then many conferences in the bosom
of the Imperial Family, much coming and going of
Grand-Dukes and Grand-Duchesses. "The
Grand-Duke Nicolas Mikhailovitch dined with the
Grand-Duchess Vladimir," wrote one of my correspondents to
me; "henceforth all is possible." These august
personages—both of them particularly clever—had been at
variance all their lives; hence their reconciliation must
be the precursor of extraordinary events. " We are
not living now, we are on fire," wrote another of my
friends from Petrograd, " sugar and sensational news—
panem et circenses—this is the cry that greets you on all
sides." That was the frivolous echo of the situation,
but there were also more serious echoes. A Russian
colleague told us of things he had heard straight from
the lips of the people. When he was returning to
Petrograd from his property in Voronezh he could
only find a seat in a third-class carriage; the
compartment was filled with well-to-do peasants : millers, rural
traders, etc., men who did not fail to cross themselves
each time the train passed a church. Many of them
were acquainted with the barine, and greeted him most
politely; but, in no way constrained by his presence,
they continued their conversation on what was
occurring in Petrograd and at Court. Rasputin and the
Empress Alexandra were the chief topics of this
conversation, and there were jokes, some truly filthy talk
and horse-laughs without end. Now, one might almost
bet that several of the speakers belonged to
organisations called " Monarchist," or "true Russian," and that
they had often signed those professions of devotion
of which Tsarskoe-Selo was so proud !
At last there was a thunder-clap which according to
the Russian public would purify the atmosphere, but
which only accelerated the dissolution of the regime,
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