RECOLLECTIONS OF POBEDONOSTZEFF- 1892-1894 71 



During my recent stay in Germany he visited me at the 

 Berlin Embassy. He was, as of old, apparently gentle, 

 kindly, interested in literature, not interested to any great 

 extent in current Western politics. This gentle, kindly 

 manner of his brought back forcibly to my mind a remark 

 of one of the most cultivated women I met in Russia, a 

 princess of ancient lineage, who ardently desired reason 

 able reforms, and who, when I mentioned to her a report 

 that Pobedonostzeff was weary of political life, and was 

 about to retire from office in order to devote himself to 

 literary pursuits, said : Don t, I beg of you, tell me that ; 

 for I have always noticed that whenever such a report is 

 circulated, it is followed by some new scheme of his, even 

 more infernal than those preceding it. 7 



So much for the man who, during the present reign, 

 seems one of the main agents in holding Russian policy 

 on the road to ruin. He is indeed a study. The descrip 

 tive epithet which clings to him &quot; the Torquemada of 

 the nineteenth century &quot; he once discussed with me in 

 no unkindly spirit; indeed, in as gentle a spirit as can 

 well be conceived. His life furnishes a most interesting 

 study in churchmanship, in statesmanship, and in human 

 nature, and shows how some of the men most severely 

 condemned by modern historians great persecutors, in 

 quisitors, and the like may have based their actions on 

 theories the world has little understood, and may have 

 had as little conscious ferocity as their more tolerant 

 neighbors. 



