From the pen of a former student and trusted friend, a message has arrived bearing political news from Kanada.
Brother,
By the time these few words reach you, you will have learned the terrible truth: the revolution has failed.
No doubt you will read accounts of our failed enterprise from the State propagandists. Allow me to share with you the truth. Defeats in the East, hardship in the cities, and corruption among the powerful led us to the capital with a petition for Her Majesty. Please believe me when I tell you that any tales of Anarchists, Levellers, or Coalitionists within our ranks are false! We were but a collection of peasants, machinists, and the unemployed with a priest at our head. Our procession had not yet reached the Langevin Block when poor Georgiy Apollonovich was cut down. The Tories have no more pity for a bishop than a dog. The night was a whirl of sabre and horse. I became separated from our group and hid in the strand until the Tartars had quit the hill and stole back to our old flats under cover of darkness.
The world is an ocean now: always in motion and never still. Mikhail Georgiyich Ignatiev is lost to us and the little Canadian, Lukian, has fled - his faction all but extinct. Stepan Osipovich stalks the palace unchallenged now and I live in fear for our motherland. As I write, the cossacks seize the Post Offices and railways, and the people - oh, the people, Ivan - the people are fools. They sat in quiet repose and did nothing. Have the indignities heaped upon us been so few that they must call for more? May God curse them.
But take heart, Ivan! Voices in the underground bring word that Yakov has the strength of the zemstvo behind him and has taken to the hills surrounding the capital! Does it not fire the imagination? That is should be Yakov of all men! Do nothing foolish, brother. Remain in Vienna's shadow and heed your studies well; we will have need for men such as you in the short years to come. It will take time for Yakov to organize - perhaps as many as four years - but soon, Ivan, soon we will come down from the mountains and there shall be a reckoning of accounts.
-- Gerahd Urvanovich Francisek
By the time these few words reach you, you will have learned the terrible truth: the revolution has failed.
No doubt you will read accounts of our failed enterprise from the State propagandists. Allow me to share with you the truth. Defeats in the East, hardship in the cities, and corruption among the powerful led us to the capital with a petition for Her Majesty. Please believe me when I tell you that any tales of Anarchists, Levellers, or Coalitionists within our ranks are false! We were but a collection of peasants, machinists, and the unemployed with a priest at our head. Our procession had not yet reached the Langevin Block when poor Georgiy Apollonovich was cut down. The Tories have no more pity for a bishop than a dog. The night was a whirl of sabre and horse. I became separated from our group and hid in the strand until the Tartars had quit the hill and stole back to our old flats under cover of darkness.
The world is an ocean now: always in motion and never still. Mikhail Georgiyich Ignatiev is lost to us and the little Canadian, Lukian, has fled - his faction all but extinct. Stepan Osipovich stalks the palace unchallenged now and I live in fear for our motherland. As I write, the cossacks seize the Post Offices and railways, and the people - oh, the people, Ivan - the people are fools. They sat in quiet repose and did nothing. Have the indignities heaped upon us been so few that they must call for more? May God curse them.
But take heart, Ivan! Voices in the underground bring word that Yakov has the strength of the zemstvo behind him and has taken to the hills surrounding the capital! Does it not fire the imagination? That is should be Yakov of all men! Do nothing foolish, brother. Remain in Vienna's shadow and heed your studies well; we will have need for men such as you in the short years to come. It will take time for Yakov to organize - perhaps as many as four years - but soon, Ivan, soon we will come down from the mountains and there shall be a reckoning of accounts.
-- Gerahd Urvanovich Francisek
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