"And is there no possibility of organizing the revolution so that it shall not rage senselessly?"
"Impossible. Our rural nobleman is, to be sure, not a junker; but the strength of the régime consists in the exclusion of any understanding between the land-owners and the peasants because of the social and intellectual chasm between them."
"Your excellency, I remember a saying of Strousberg's, who was a good business man, 'There is nowhere a hole where there once was land.' One learns to doubt that here in Russia. There is not one with whom I have spoken who would fail to paint the future of this country in the darkest colors. Can there be no change of the fatal policy that is ruining the country?"
"Not before a great general catastrophe. When we shall be compelled, for the first time, partly to repudiate our debts--and that may happen sooner than we now believe--on that day, being no longer able to pay our old debts with new ones--for we shall no longer be able to conceal our internal bankruptcy from foreign countries and from the Emperor--steps will be taken, perhaps, towards a general convention. No sooner."
"Martin Luther hesitated as long as he had not seen the pope, no longer after that. Whoever, like myself, has known the state kitchen for the last twenty-five years, doubts no longer. The autocracy is not equal to the problems of a modern great power, and it would be against all historical precedents to assume that it would voluntarily yield without external pressure to a constitutional form of government."
"We must wish, then, for Russia's sake, that the catastrophe come as quickly as possible?"
"I repeat to you that it is perhaps nearer than we all think or are willing to admit. That is the hope; that is our secret consolation."
Such was the substance of my long interview with one of the best judges of present-day Russia, from which I have omitted only those places and versions which would render their author easily recognizable. For the rest, I must say here that, with slight variations, the statements of all the other competent persons whom I had the opportunity to meet agreed with those of my present informant. The unwritten public opinion of Russia is absolutely of the same mind in its judgment of existing conditions; it differs only as to the remedies.