Entry 16

16.


My interview with his Excellency is worthy of description. Since my
graduation from the Lyceum up to the present time--I have seen many
men of power; when young--they usually knocked me down by their
aureole of magnificence; with age I learned how to distinguish almost
unmistakably in the splendor of that scenery an idiot from a crook.
This one--was quite peculiar.

Kerensky made me wait for about one hour during which I had enough
time to ascertain that since the new regime the rooms had not been
dusted. So what Kerensky said to some foreigner: "Regenerated Russia
will not have recourse to the shameful methods utilized by the old
regime"--were untruthful words. The dust evidently was old regime's.

At the end of the hour (it was enough for Kerensky!) I decided to go
home and mail the resignation. When I got up, however, one of his men
(the young rascal was watching me, I am sure) entered and asked me to
step in. The staging of the reception was prearranged and intended
to impress the visitor; on the desk of the Minister I saw maps and
charts, specimens of tobacco for the soldiers, designs of the new
scenery for the Mariinsky Theatre, models of American shells, foreign
newspapers, barbed wire scissors, etc., etc., just to show the
newcomer the immense range of His Excellency's occupations and duties.
When I stepped in, Kerensky looked at me, posing as being exceedingly
fatigued in caring for the benefit of others. He almost suffered! He
never looked to me so exotic as at this moment: the Palace--and, at
the same time the perspiring forehead, the dirty military outfit. The
magnificence of power,--and the yellowish collar, badly shined
boots. He was glad of the impression produced on me, as I registered
disgust,--he, with his usual knowledge of men, thought it worship.
"Look how we, new Russians, are working"--shouted his whole
appearance, "look, you pig, and compare with what you have been
doing!"

"Alexander Fedorovich," I said approaching him, "I thought I had to
bring my resignation personally. You'll find the reasons as "family
circumstances,"--and I gave him the paper.

He rose. With one hand on the buttons of his uniform and the other on
the desk, he believed himself to look like Napoleon. Like Napoleon
he looked straight into my eyes. But his weak and thin fingers were
always moving like a small octopus--Napoleon's were stronger.

"May I ask you the real cause of your resignation?" he said, vainly
forcing his high-pitched voice lower.

"If you care to know it," I said calmly,--"It is disgust."

Napoleon faded away from his face, and before me was again Monsieur
Kerensky, a little lawyer with whom I had once made a trip from Moscow
to Petrograd. A little lawyer who tried to please me and looked for my
sympathy.

"That's the appreciation of our work!... Poor Russia! She is deserted!
Here I am all alone to carry this burden"--and Kerensky showed with a
circular movement of disorder on his desk,--"But you," he continued,
after a pause,--"you! Why should you be disgusted, and why should
you leave us at this strenuous moment? Don't you see that the
building up of the state needs the full co-operation of every element
of Russia,--the new ones, as well as the old?"

I said that I did not think I was more of an old element than he, but
repeated my categoric decision.

As if wounded right in the heart, with a theatrical sigh, Kerensky
looked out of the window, then smiled bitterly, and took the paper
from me. "I grant you your request. I know what disgusted you,--and,
and--I understand. I hope you will not regret this step."

He sat down thus politely indicating the end of the audience. Here,
on his desk, I noticed one of the last numbers of the "L'Illustration"
with a large picture of himself on it, which he was studying while I
was waiting for his interview.

How easy I feel! Left to my own affairs, to my own business, all to my
very own self! Thank God! I never felt this way before.

And our national Tartarin of Tarrascon--at his desk in the palace,
with his people, always meeting polite and covetous eyes,--will
continue his hard work. Under every smile and every bow, he will
see--up to the grave, the veiled appreciation: "By God, what a small
thing you are." On the pages of history his name will forever remain
and look like the trace of a malicious and sick fly.