^62 



The Review of Reviews. 



Deeemher 1, 1906. 



liberty. But when I quoted the Tsar's words, my 

 Russian friends shrugged their shoulders and said': 

 '• Trepoff !" and when 1 urged that after all Nicholas 

 II. was Tsar, and not General Trepoff, they said : 

 "What about Milyukoff?' To which I answered: 

 ■' I shall see General Trepoff, and I agree to accept 

 the fate of Professor Milyukoff as the touchstone of 

 the sincerity of the Russian Government." Under 

 those circumstances it can easily be imagined with 

 what anxiety I made my way to interview the dread- 

 ed Mayor of the Palace. 



MT PROGEAIQIE. 



As is my wont before proceeding to interview anv- 

 one upon whose decision the fate of nations may 



How General Trepoff Restores Order. 



depend, I jotted down roughly on half a sheet of 

 notepaper the general line along which I wished the 

 conversation to go. These rough notes I reproduce 

 as a memento of one of the most interesting inter- 

 views of my life : — 



Interview with Tre-poff, 



First object to put myself en rapport in friendly aympa^ 

 thetic relations; recall Grcesser also, ancestral genins. 

 General opinion he is pillar of situation. 



Emperor wished me to see him, first about my own pro- 

 paganda.— Suspicion.— Meeting to set forth English point of 

 view. (1) Government sincere; (2) Duma entails— submit- 



ted to Emperor. Will submit it to him as soon as in Rus- 

 sian. 



Milyukoff— Cannot write or say one word until Milyukoff 

 is out. and his friends or tried— Whole thing hung up. 



Situation seems to me very daneerous. Baku general. 

 You stand between order and authority. Bat law. No law 

 in Russia — but Trepoff's will. 



THE INTEEPSETEE. 



I was \ery fortunate in my interpreter. My old 

 friend, Dr. Duncan, a Russian of Scotch descent, 

 who for many years had been the chief sanitary offi- 

 cer of St. Petersburg, consented to accompany. Dr. 

 Duncan was not only an ex-official who spoke Rus- 

 sian and English with equal facility; he was an 

 old personal friend of the Trepoff family. Nearly 

 torty years ago, when Dmitri Feodoritch was but a 

 boy in his teens, Dr. Duncan had been entrusted bv 

 his father. General Trepoff, with the duty of accom- 

 panying his son to London. It was also very well 

 known to General Trepoff that I had been received 

 at Peterhof, and that I sought the interview at the 

 express wish of the Tsar. He also knew that a dav 

 or two before my visit I had a long interview with 

 Professor Milyukoff", by sisecial order of General 

 Dedulin, who had the Professor brought from prison 

 to a police station in order that I might inter\-iew 

 him. The circumstances, therefore, were propitious. 

 But I had heard so much about the ignorance and 

 brutality of this jack-booted Dictator that I was not 

 a little uneasy as to how the interview would go. 



ON THE LID OF THE VOLCAXO. 



We were received at the headquarters of the Gov- 

 ernor-General, and after a short delay were ushered 

 into his presence. At that time General Trepoff had 

 been several times doomed to death by the Revo- 

 lutionary Tribunal — if so imposing a name may be 

 given to the secret juntos of desperate men and 

 women who arrogate to themselves the power of life 

 and death. Some six or seven attempts had been 

 made to assassinate him ; but he seemed to bear a 

 charmed life. People still remembered his contemp- 

 tuous remark when he believed he was on the eve of 

 leaving Moscow for Manchuria : " I prefer to face 

 the bullets of the regular soldiers of Japan than to be 

 shot at by the bungling amateurs of the revolution." 



As we took our seats and accepted his cigarettes 

 in his spacious reception room, it was difficult to 

 realise that this tall, handsome soldier was the storm- 

 centre of the brooding revolution. Conspirators 

 with dagger, poison, revolver, and bomb were wait- 

 ing and dreaming of the moment when they might 

 gratify their longing for vengeance. The concen- 

 trated hate of a million men and women beat about 

 this sanctum of autocratic power. And there we sat 

 and gossiped pleasantly, as if there were no earth- 

 quake trembling beneath our feet. Yet we were in 

 the very crater of the revolutionary volcano, sitting 

 on the lid with which armed force was struggling 

 to shut down the hell fire that raged below. 



