Philistia | Page 5

he must play it on his own gambit to a great extent,
without reference to the independent game of others. We all agree that
the board is too full of counters, and as each counter is not responsible
for its own presence and position on the board, having been put there
without previous consultation by the players, we must each do the best
we can for ourselves in our own fashion. My sympathies, as you say,
are on your side, but perhaps my interests lie the other way, and after
all, till you start your millennium, we must all rattle along as well as we
can in the box together, jarring against one another in our old ugly
round of competition, and supply and demand, and survival of the
fittest, and mutual accommodation, and all the rest of it, to the end of
the chapter. Every man for himself and God for us all, you know. You
have the logic, to be sure, Herr Schurz, but the monopolists have the
law and the money.'
'Ah, yes,' said the old Socialist grimly; 'Demas, Demas; he and his
silver mine; you remember your Bunyan, don't you? Well, all faiths and
systems have their Demases. The cares of this world and the
deceitfulness of riches. He's bursar of his college, isn't he, Ernest? I
thought so. "He had the bag, and bare what was put therein." A
dangerous office, isn't it, Mr. Oswald? A very dangerous office. You
can't touch pitch or property without being defiled.'
'You at least, sir, said Ernest, reverentially, 'have kept yourself
unspotted from the world.'

The old man sighed, and turned for a moment to speak in French to a
tall, big-bearded new-comer who advanced to meet him. 'Impossible!'
he said quickly; 'I am truly distressed to hear it. It is very imprudent,
very unnecessary.'
'What is the news?' asked Ernest, also in French.
The new-comer answered him with a marked South Russian accent.
'There has been another attempt on the life of Alexander Nicolaiovitch.'
'You don't mean to say so!' cried Ernest in surprise.
'Yes, I do,' replied the Russian, 'and it has nearly succeeded too.'
'An attempt on whom?' asked Oswald, who was new to the peculiar
vocabulary of the Socialists, and not particularly accustomed to
following spoken French.
'On Alexander Nicolaiovitch,' answered the red-bearded stranger.
'Not the Czar?' Oswald inquired of Ernest.
'Yes, the one whom you call Czar,' said the stranger, quickly, in
tolerable English. The confusion of tongues seemed to be treated as a
small matter at Max Schurz's receptions, for everybody appeared to
speak all languages at once, in the true spirit of solidarity, as though
Babel had never been.
Oswald did not attempt to conceal a slight gesture of horror. The tall
Russian looked down upon him commiseratingly. 'He is of the Few?' he
asked of Ernest, that being the slang of the initiated for a member of the
aristocratic and capitalist oligarchy.
'Not exactly,' Ernest answered with a smile; 'but he has not entirely
learned the way we here regard these penal measures. His sympathies
are one-sided as to Alexander, no doubt. He thinks merely of the
hunted, wretched life the man bears about with him, and he forgets
poor bleeding, groaning, down-trodden, long-suffering Russia. It is the

common way of Englishmen. They do not realise Siberia and Poland
and the Third Section, and all the rest of it; they think only of
Alexander as of the benevolent despot who freed the serf and
befriended the Bulgarian. They never remember that they have all the
freedom and privileges themselves which you poor Russians ask for in
vain; they do not bear in mind that he has only to sign his name to a
constitution, a very little constitution, and he might walk abroad as
light-hearted in St. Petersburg to-morrow as you and I walk in Regent
Street to-day. We are mostly lopsided, we English, but you must bear
with us in our obliquity; we have had freedom ourselves so long that
we hardly know how to make due allowance for those unfortunate folks
who are still in search of it.'
'If you had an Alexander yourselves for half a day,' the Russian said
fiercely, turning to Oswald, 'you would soon see the difference. You
would forget your virtuous indignation against Nihilist assassins in the
white heat of your anger against unendurable tyranny. You had a King
Charles in England once--the mere shadow of a Russian Czar--and you
were not so very ceremonious with him, you order-loving English, after
all.'
'It is a foolish thing, Borodinsky,' said Max Schurz, looking up from the
long telegram the other had handed him, 'and I told Toroloff as much a
fortnight ago, when he spoke to me about the matter. You can do no
good by