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5o4 IN SPAIN AND IN EXILE [chap. xxv.
conclusion, " I cannot bear it any longer, I shall go, I
shall leave the service ! " My colleague tried to dissuade
me, but I repeated that I was at the end of my tether.
A few days after my return to San Sebastian the
details of the surrender of Riga and the Island of
Moon to the Germans appeared in the newspapers : the
soldiers had bound their officers with ropes and given
them into the hands of the enemy; other heartrending
news, from different parts of Russia, came to add
themselves to these revolting details. It was obvious to me
that in less than two months we should have no more
power and should not even exist as a constituted
State, that in consequence we should no longer exist
for the Alliance. I thought it my duty to impart
this gloomy view to my allied colleagues, who—if I am
not wrong—did not conceal it from their respective
Governments.
Personally what had I still to expect? From the
very beginning of the Revolution I had sacrificed many
habits and points of view—"many prejudices" let us
say—which up till then had accompanied me in my
intellectual existence and throughout my long career;
then later I had consented to recognise as directors of
Russian politics men whose ideas were completely
foreign to me and which seemed to be pernicious for
my country ; I am speaking of M. Kerensky and of the
extreme revolutionary Socialists who surrounded him ;
I received orders from these men and I almost
endeavoured to put myself on their level. In the name of
who or what ought I to continue to make this sacrifice
of my dignity, my past, my most cherished convictions ?
In the name of your country, I was answered. But
Russia—I could see it clearly—could no longer be held
back on the slope of treachery and dissolution on which
she was descending lower and lower. Besides what
could I do in Madrid to help the good cause and fight
the bad ? My position there was becoming an otium
cum indignitate which I could not and should not endure.
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